Credit: Gary Raynaldo / © Diplomatic Times / UN Secretary-General António Guterres / File

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

UNITED NATIONS –  NEW YORK –  UN Secretary-General António Guterres Monday urged warring parties across the world to cease fighting and join in the global battle against the true enemy of our time: COVID-19.  Guterres said the virus is the common enemy that is now threatening all of humankind.

“The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world.  It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.” 

-UN Secretary-General António Guterres

So far, there are nearly 300,000 cases worldwide, and more than 12,700 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. The UN chief pointed out, COVID-19 does not care about nationality or ethnicity, or other differences between people, and “attacks all, relentlessly”, including during wartime.

“Silence the guns; Stop the artillery; End the airstrikes”

The UN chief also called on warring parties to pull back from hostilities, put aside mistrust and animosity “to help create corridors for life-saving aid. To open precious windows for diplomacy. ”

“End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world. It starts by stopping the fighting everywhere. Now. That is what our human family needs, now more than ever.” 

 -UN Secretary-General António Guterres

The Secretary-General’s appeal was broadcast live over the Internet from a virtual press conference held at UN Headquarters in New York, where most staff are now working from home to help curb further spread of COVID-19. The UN chief said his Special Envoys will work with warring parties to make sure the cease-fire appeal leads to action.

“The UN must fully assume its responsibilities first doing what we have to do  our peacekeeping operations, our humanitarian agencies, our support to the different bodies of the international community, the Security Council, the General Assembly but, at the same time, it’s a moment in which the UN must be able to address the peoples of the world and appeal for a massive mobilisation and for a massive pressure on governments to make sure that we are able to respond to this crisis, not to mitigate it but to suppress it, to suppress the disease and to address the dramatic economic and social impacts of the disease”, he said.

“And we can only do it if we do it together, if we do in a coordinated way, if we do it with intense solidarity and cooperation, and that is the raison d’etre of the United Nations itself”.