Thank you Mr Chairman,

Well I must say that I agree completely with the previous speaker, Samantha Power. And I was thinking about the real situation on the spot, because I was there, in Rwanda, in Biafra, in Somalia etc etc. But before offering you to see to judge and eventually to act, I disagree on three points with Samantha.

First point: We have the politicians we deserve. You are in charge of the politicians you have elected. Easy to say, and I do not like this word: “The political will”, we need the political will. OK, sometimes, but not alone, with the people. Becuase democracy sets a protection against genocide, but sometimes it is also protection against political will. If you have no power, no pressure on your own politicians, and it means,, you are completely right, not only information but knowledge, interest for a situation. There is no way to influence any politician, but morality, ethics, yes. So we have the politicians we deserve!

Second point: NGOs, yes, it happened that I started my very sad career in Biafra, -68, we were few, and we had no money. And now all over the world, Doctors Without Borders, doctors of the world, yes everywhere, they are very rich, very useful, very powerful, but they do not want to be involved in politics! And the huge gape is between, for me since I never see, I did never see the difference between humanitarian access or political access to something. Yes, this is not the same way, yes it is a very specific approach. In fact, we are just taking care of humans, we are just taking care of the same situation but of course with the success, the NGOs became a huge fabric of morality and in a way professional. I do not blame them, but it is a huge difference in the beginning of an indignation, access to the people, or some discovering of the people and the big machine.

Second point, NGOs very often want to be very far from politics, they want to be neutral, this is the beginning of something very dimensional; Never be neutral, be impartial, but do not hesitate to make a difference between those who are receiving the bullets of the gun and those who are throwing them! To remain neutral, but without complicity.

Third point: I disagree with Samantha on this, let us say pessimism. I am very pessimistic but when I am looking back to –68, in Biafra, at that time it was just impossible to imagine this kind of conference, we were just offering the people some protection, eventually, to protect some, children, because it is a bit easier to protect children than men, but we were absolutely, it was, at that time, still impossible to pronounce sentences like 'the right to intervene', ' the right to interfere'. We had this medical passport, and it obviously helped a lot, because it was impossible to address the people politically. And now, we say it is not the same word, I mean the necessity to protect, but it is exactly the same meaning, it is a huge success, we continue to get better, not enough, but we are getting better. Really, because there is an international body, an international concern, and sometimes an international civil society indignation, and I want to get back to these three points; how to see, how to judge and how to act eventually.

So, how to see: Well, obviously, this is very difficult, Early Warning systems, but it exists, everywhere. I remember when I was a member of the European Parliament, with some of my colleagues here. We set up a sort of early warning system in the European Parliament with my good friend, my Prime Minister, Michel Rochard and some others, and it was working. But I mean, all the journalists of the world, they knew what we were interested in. All the people of the world, it was just obviously well known, all over the world. The problem was this huge gap between information and knowledge and between knowledge and action.

So I was in Rwanda with Romeo Dallaire and Mr. Can and we were phoning every night, I was sent there by Mr. Boutros-Boutros Galli. We were absolutely more than desperate, we were without any contact with the people, we told them, but, I mean, this little Hutu of 12-years, just cut into pieces, facing us, and this 10-years-old Tutsie.., by thousands. We were addressing the hole world with our means, some journalists were there, but nothing happened. And nothing but the French intervention. I must tell you that I was in favour of it, because I was an eye-witness to this horrible massacre, but this is not the way, to be alone. Certainly not. But what about the rest of the 19 countries who promised us to intervene, to send troops? They were absolutely unhappy but they were not ready. “Let's wait for some additional months, and for genocide, the real genocide”, because you can talk about big massacres, mass-massacres, I do not know the scale, this is difficult, but it starts by a little war between people, you know because in the art of genocide there is the men who is able to kill each other. Who is able to kill? Believe me, as a doctor I am telling you: Everybody is able to act as a genocider. I am sorry to say this but it depends on the situation, it depends on the propaganda, it depends on the level of hatred between ethnic groups. I believe so. Of course, we are getting better as I told you. We are making progress, but very slowly. And sometimes I discovered that people who were close to us when we were acting as a group of doctors, they were also guilty of participating in the genocide, helping the others, like good male nurses. You know this is a strange condition, to be a human.

So, how to see, if you are determined, if you really want to see? I offer you to go there, this is very easy, the world is a little, very round, let’s say, little thing now, it belongs to everybody. But I was a bit shocked, I tell you that with respect for our host, but if we start the conference without having the possibility to say a word on Iraq, or eventually on Chechnya, we are on a bad slope. We have to consider all the mass murders, all the wars, all crisis. Other wise why talking about Early warning systems? What was happening with the Curds, and it happened partly with French weapons, not only, but partly. And when I came back the first time -74, from Iraq and I discovered the scale of the massacre among the Curds, I tried to tell my people, the ministers and politicians in France, but they were not interested in this. And I have been called a Curd and I remember the good Council of Ministers, with my respected President Francois Mitterrand, they used to turn their faces to me when something happened, as the Curd, yes, funny, but it has taken 25 years to realise the magnitude of the massacre. So do no tell me about political will, political will is what? This is the pressure, inside your constituencies to be re-elected or not, and of course, I am not telling you that all politicians are bad people, certainly not. Some of them want to react, some of them visited the place, some of them really fought for that, but it is always isolated cases and sometimes, like Samantha said, it started while we were there, the good example is Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, for early warning intervention. We are always too late. I am talking as a medical doctor, yes, but not only. Politically it is the same, we were witnesses of the massacre in Bosnia, and suddenly John Mayor and Jacques Chirac decided to react, then came the NATO involvement after more than 200 000 dead people. I was listening to the Bosnian representative today. Another example; Kosovo, some of us, a part from -92-93, we told the public opinion in France and everywhere in Europe, next step is Kosovo, but we were waiting and waiting. We intervened earlier too late, I am sorry to say this. I do not know the number, but, roughly, the number was 10.000. In Macedonia, we decided - why because the Americans were in favour of this - we decided to intervene before, by advance, I remember, 800 or 1000 soldiers, no more, I do not know if it was enough, but there was no war in Macedonia and this is the only example of acting by advance, a successful example.

So just to…I don’t want to be too long but Early warning system is not enough, this is absolutely not enough. But I just picked up some of the proposals, the one of the Prime Minister of Sweden and of the Secretary-General of the UN this morning. One is an independent body of information, apart from the Security Council with no veto right on the faculty to listen to, apart from this body with the veto and the ultimate political decision. Certainly, regularly inform and informing the Security Council in the General Assembly. Second point is to develop, to implement, which has never been done, chapter 7 of the UN Charter.

Chapter 7, why did we not get, when we were so impatient, a rapid reaction of force coming out from the UN system? We need that, we know, and some countries did offer already, some thousands of soldiers. Is it completely impossible to imagine or set up some sort of rapid reaction force? When we were in Kigali we desperately needed such a force. And I remember another place where we were absolutely bare handed. It was in Sierra Leone. Remember the killings in Sierra Leone? Because we used to say that UN is a very difficult and a very administrative machine! But it is not true, compared to our national level of bureaucracy. This is not true. UN is nothing but composed of all the nations. And so we forget about the success, but Sierra Leone is a success. Too late, certainly, too late. And there is another one, and I am thinking about my good friend, Sergio Damello, but Timor is a success. And in a way Kosovo is a success. So when we want to act together, European Union, United States of America, and the rest of the world we are certainly able to do what we want for the protection of the people. If we act separately or against each other - no chance.

Thank you.