Mediation and the United Nations

"We must recognize that in the six decades since its founding in San Francisco, the United Nations has performed magnificently in addressing some of the world's most pressing problems.

U.N. peacekeepers have traveled the globe to prevent conflicts and end wars, saving many millions of lives while relieving the United States from shouldering such a burden alone. For example, Sweden has deployed 80,000 peacekeepers in support of such missions. And in the last 15 years, more civil wars were ended through mediators than in the previous two centuries."

U.S. Representative Tom Lantos writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 2005










Bridge Covered with Abandonned Shoes, Baghdad, Iraq, 2005
Photo credit: Reuters