S/PV.4660 (Resumption 1)

Security Council Provisional Fifty-seventh year

4660th meeting Tuesday, 10 December 2002, 3 p.m. New York

President: Ms. Barco ...... (Colombia)

Members: Bulgaria ...... Mr. Tafrov Cameroon ...... Mr. Tidjani China ...... Mr. Wang Yingfan France ...... Mr. De la Sablière Guinea ...... Mr. Traoré Ireland ...... Mr. Corr Mauritius ...... Mr. Jingree Mexico ...... Mr. Aguilar Zinser Norway ...... Mr. Helgesen Russian Federation ...... Mr. Karev Singapore ...... Ms. Lee Syrian Arab Republic ...... Mr. Mekdad of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ..... Sir Jeremy Greenstock of America ...... Mr. Cunningham

Agenda

Protection of civilians in armed conflict Report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict (S/2002/1300).

This record contains the text of speeches delivered in English and of the interpretation of speeches delivered in the other languages. The final text will be printed in the Official Records of the Security Council. Corrections should be submitted to the original languages only. They should be incorporated in a copy of the record and sent under the signature of a member of the delegation concerned to the Chief of the Verbatim Reporting Service, room C-154A.

02-73011 (E) *0273011* S/PV.4660 (Resumption 1)

The meeting resumed at 3.20 p.m. deliberately target unarmed civilians, civilian installations and civilian means of transportation. The The President (spoke in Spanish): I shall now victims are defenceless civilians. make a statement in my capacity as representative of Colombia. When the first report on this subject was presented to the Council we had not formulated clear I wish to begin by expressing my country’s ideas about it. But 8 September 1999 was very different gratitude to Secretary-General for his from 11 September 2001. In that earlier year, other inspired words at the beginning of this meeting. I reports commissioned by the Secretary-General, such should also like to thank the Under-Secretary-General as those dealing with the fall of Srebrenica and the for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief chilling genocide in Rwanda, made it abundantly clear Coordinator, Mr. Kenzo Oshima, for his presentation of that civilians were the victims of terrible atrocity. the third report on the protection of civilians in armed Those two terrible tragedies should have been conflict (S/2002/1300). In addition, I should like to sufficient to remind us once and for all that great thank the Director-General of the International humanitarian tragedies can be avoided, or at least made Committee of the Red Cross, Mr. Angelo Gnaedinger, less severe, if we learn from our mistakes and for his very valuable contribution to this debate. omissions. Moreover, my delegation welcomes the participation of delegations from countries that are not Security Indeed, the Security Council has appropriate tools Council members, whose ideas and recommendations to protect civilians in armed conflict, as provided for in will help to guide the Council’s work and will Chapters VI and VII of the Charter, as well as in contribute to the formulation of the statement that will various resolutions adopted in recent years on, inter be issued later as an outcome of this debate. alia, conflict prevention, children in armed conflict, the illicit trade in small arms and the fight against The nature of wars has changed dramatically in terrorism. I would like today to highlight in particular the past century, particularly in the past decade. In the resolution 1325 (2000), in which the Council focused First World War, 5 per cent of victims were civilians; in on the protection of women and the role that women the Second World War, that figure reached 50 per cent; play in conflict prevent