COSTA RICA IS A CHILD OF PEACE

Oscar Arias

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COSTA RICA IS A CHILD OF PEACE

Oscar Arias

Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former President of Costa Rica

My dear friends,

I am so deeply honored to be included in this extraordinary group of leaders, so grateful to the Chinese People's Association for Peace and Disarmament. You have created a space at this table not just for me, but also for Costa Rica, the country whose commitment to peace has guided my every step and motivated my every breath.

Mine is a country of just five million souls, making it but a tiny fragment of the massive nation I visit today. It is a country on the verge of 200 years of independence, making it a mere child in comparison to this venerable city, which has borne witness to wave after wave of civilization.

But although Costa Rica may be a child, it is a child of peace. It is a country that abolished its own army in order to invest in education, in health care, in environmental protection, and in human development. It is a country that shows the world that peace is not an abstract concept. It is a choice that generates concrete dividends, dividends that can be reinvested in real progress.

Our history shows that peace is a choice that supports human rights in every sense. Peace also enables governments to meet the basic human needs of their citizens. There is a reason that one Chinese character for peace and tranquility shows a plate of food under a roof: it is that peace cannot be sustained while people are hungry. It cannot be sustained when they are sick. It cannot be sustained when they are illiterate. And no effort to combat terrorism and unrest can succeed unless it first addresses those basic human needs.

Costa Rica is a child of peace, and I am a child of Costa Rica. A child who has spent his life traveling the globe seeking kindred spirits. To find such kindred spirits here in Nanjing, this cradle of scholarship and poetry, this veteran of so many wars and so much destruction, is a mighty thing indeed. I hope you will forgive me for imagining that perhaps we are dreamers cast apart like the lovers in the legend, the weaver and the cowherd sent to different sides of the Milky Way. Forgive me for dreaming that a bridge might be built between us at this time, when the world is so hungry for leadership that believes in diplomacy, leadership built on dialogue and mutual respect.

Can that hunger be fed by some of the ideas shared here? Can that leadership come from this room? Can that pragmatism echo forth from Nanjing? Can we forge, from these times of chaos and uncertainty, a more humane future for our children?

It might seem like an impossible task, but the truth is that dialogue can achieve some extraordinary things. One of the proudest achievements in my life illustrates this truth. The International Arms Trade Treaty it was approved by the United Nations in 2013 was the product of decades of conversation, negotiation, pressure and hope. This groundbreaking agreement to regulate the flow of arms across international borders grew out of a meeting I first convened with a group of my fellow Nobel Peace Laureates in 1997. I never thought I would live to see our idea become a movement. I never thought I would live to see that movement become a part of international law. It goes to show that when dreams of peace are combined with effort and perseverance, they really can be transformed into action.

If you did not share these dreams, you would not be here. So as a child of peace, I stand here tonight filled with hope. Hope in the unlikely. Hope in the impossible. Hope in the power of friendship across borders.

Thank you very much.