GIIA UN Conference 3 April 2009

Forging Interfaith Intercultural Alliances: Coordinated Action for Peace-building and Human Rights, organized by Universal Peace Federation and the Geneva Interfaith Intercultural Alliance at the United Nations Office on April 3,2009.

GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
When the nine religious leaders, played by youth delegates representing their faiths, speaking in one voice, reported the results of their fact-finding missions to the Middle East and South Asia on “Prevention, Mediation and Peacebuilding” to the “United Nations Interreligious Council”, the full room of more than 250 government and United Nations representatives, religious leaders, experts and civil society leaders listened intently. “This is what should be happening at the Durban Review, ” expressed one Ambassador referring to the upcoming review of the 2001 UN Conference against Racism that will be held at the UN in Geneva this month in an effort to salvage the difficult negotiations and unwillingness to compromise that tarnished its beginnings. Echoed again in the closing speech of Hon. Remy Pagani, mayor elect of the city of Geneva, when he encouraged the participants and youth especially to continue their course as he noted that Geneva itself which now stands as a haven for peace and intercultural harmony had a painful history of religious war and intolerance that had to be won.