Epistle
to Friends everywhere
from the Committee of the Quaker United Nations Office in New
York
Fifteenth
Day of Third Month, 2003
We are writing this
epistle at a time when war seems imminent. We are called to
affirm our belief in the importance of the United Nations as
a place where the world community of nations can seek resolution
of major issues.
In 1945, Friends
enthusiastically supported the creation of the United Nations
and affirmed the language of the Charter, which reflects the
fundamental Quaker values and testimonies: respect for the sanctity
of life and the dignity of the human person; and the duty to
promote peace, human rights and human development. Adherence
to the Charter of the United Nations is today more essential
than ever.
As recently as 2001
at the Millennium Summit the heads of state of all the members
of the United Nations affirmed their "commitment to the purpose
and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, which have
proved timeless and universal," especially the purpose to "save
succeeding generations from the scourge of war." This summit
reaffirmed the importance of the Security Council of the United
Nations as the body created to preserve peace throughout the
world. For the past six months the Security Council has provided
the forum that has enabled nations large and small to share
in a deliberation concerning the legitimacy of war as a means
of disarming Iraq. In this way the Security Council has succeeded
in its role as envisioned by the Charter.
We invite Friends
everywhere to unite in support of the United Nations and of
the principles on which it was founded, and to join us in pursuit
of our QUNO Committee's vision to realize a "spirit-led world
in which peace and justice grow in concert. This world is in
our midst whenever our hearts long for it, our minds imagine
it, our hands shape it, and love makes it so."
OTHER
QUAKER STATEMENTS & LETTERS
Reviewed:
09/06/2005
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