Welcoming the delegates from 116 parliaments meeting at the Diego Portales Convention Centre in Santiago until 12 April, the President of the Republic of Chile, Ricardo Lagos, today inaugurated the 108th Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference in Santiago. During the ceremony, the President of the Senate, Mr. Andrés Zalídivar, the President of the Council of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Sergio Paéz, and the Secretary General of the IPU, Mr. Anders B. Johnsson, also took the floor, and the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr. José Antonio Ocampo, delivered a message from United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The President of the Republic of Chile, Mr. Ricardo Lagos, expressed the belief that "all of us have to learn from the crisis we are witnessing today. Firstly, we have to recognise that the 15 members, five permanent and ten elected, of the Security Council proved incapable of reaching an agreement to avoid the conflagration. All of us must accept our share of responsibility for this failure. But at the same time we must be clear about the effort that some of us made at the time, because we always believed that there was still room for dialogue which would have prevented the war. Historians have always judged the results of a war in terms of the success of the ensuing peace."

Referring to the war in Iraq, he said that the United Nations "must play an overarching role in the process of rebuilding Iraq. The Iraqi people themselves have to decide on their political future and exploit and control their own natural resources. As a European statesman said only a few days ago, it is essential to work through the diplomatic implications of recent events so that in the future, there will not only be peace, but a peace which will endure. Hence the importance of multilateral dialogue, more than ever. And hence the importance of taking international decisions, and hence the importance of you meeting here today.

The President of the Chilean Senate declared that "today, at a time when the rationale of war has overtaken the rationale of peace, what we need now is entente and understanding of one another's position through frank and truthful dialogue. This is essential as we set about building up a peaceful and equitable world and a more secure world." He recalled that the IPU, one of the earliest multilateral institutions, was an ideal place for establishing agreements that reflected citizens' expression of the community of democratic nations.

Referring to the situation in Iraq, the President of the Senate deeply regretted that it had not been possible to achieve a peaceful solution to the conflict. "Suffering, mostly on the part of innocent victims, is the highest price that any military conflict exacts. I am aware of the tireless efforts that His Excellence the President of the Republic has made in order to reach an agreement that would reflect the desire for peace on the part of the international community. Right until the last moment, Chile believed that the gate of peace was still open. It was with this conviction that our government did its utmost until the very end to prevent the use of force. Now that peace has been eschewed, it is our hope that peace will be restored as soon as possible. The United Nations remains the universal forum for fostering the dialogue which the imperative of peace demands."

He concluded his address by emphasising that "the damage it has caused and its aftermath in terms of the future of the international order require us to reflect on one of the main issues before this Conference: the role that parliaments must play in developing dialogue in a fragmented system, and the harmonisation of divergences…What better opportunity could we hope for than the one offered by this Inter-Parliamentary Conference to transform this sense of frustration, so widespread in today's world faced with a failure to keep the peace, into a forum where cultures come together?"

In his message, delivered by the Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mr. José Antonio Ocampo, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan declared that "by approving observer status for the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the General Assembly has acknowledged the importance of parliamentarians in bringing the work of the United Nations close to the people it serves. At its 57th session, the General Assembly also supported my intention to establish a Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations Relations with Civil Society. As you may know, this Panel, which is chaired by former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, will make recommendations on how to improve the involvement and contribution of various actors in civil society – including non-governmental organizations, the private sector and parliamentarians – to our endeavours."

Senator Sergio Paéz, the President of the IPU Council, took the floor and explained that "the conflict currently taking place in Iraq has arisen due to disregard for the doctrine and practice of multilateralism. This crisis has demonstrated the absolute necessity for a political authority that is capable of safeguarding international law and peace. The implication is that the UN system must be vindicated and strengthened. We must do our utmost to restore the importance and relevance of diplomacy and the negotiated settlement of disputes. We require a new world order which is the product of rigorous compliance with international law. Our mission is therefore to back up, more than ever before, the United Nations as an institution and to support its resolutions."

He added that "as parliamentarians, as representatives of the sovereignty of the people, we believe that in every country in the world, democracy and human dignity must be achieved by agreement with and the active participation of all cultures, not with violence and military solutions to disputes. We believe that the contribution that the world's parliaments can make to the future of the international system is to design a moral order to underpin the political, economic, cultural and military order. Nevertheless, the current challenge confronting us is to help to humanise and facilitate the reconstruction process in the aftermath of this tragic and regrettable conflict."

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Established in 1889 and with its Headquarters in Geneva, the IPU, the oldest multilateral organisation, currently has 144 affiliated national parliaments and five regional assemblies as associate members. The organisation of the world's parliaments also has a Liaison Office with the United Nations in New York.
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Mrs. Luisa Ballin, IPU Information Officer 5, ch. du Pommier, CH - 1218 Le Grand-Saconnex / Geneva Tel. +4122 919 41 16/27 Fax: +4122 919 41 60, 919 41 97 E-mail: lb@mail.ipu.org or cbl@mail.ipu.org