'Do not send us your weapons' the General Assembly debates peace and security.

• Author: Hagen, Jonas

As Member States gathered in the fifty-seventh General Assembly, world leaders informed their peers of peace achieved and the suffering caused by ongoing conflict.

Speaking at the opening of the general debate on 12 September, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, who had narrowly escaped an assassination attempt the week before, recounted his country's efforts to establish lasting peace and order. He spoke of the "Loya Jirga", or grand council, where "hundreds of delegates exercised their rights to express freely their opinions and desires for security, peace, national unity, reconstruction, democracy and good governance", adding that "the people of Afghanistan told me univocally of their disdain of war and violence".

He shared his vision of a modern state built on Islamic values, "promoting justice, rule of law, human rights and freedom of commerce, and forming a bridge between cultures and civilizations; a model of tolerance and prosperity based on the rich heritage of the Islamic civilization". President Karzai outlined concrete efforts to reconstruct Afghan society, including a back-to-school campaign under which 3 million children had returned to classes, the eradication of poppy fields and destruction of drugs with an estimated value of $8 billion, and the establishment of a human rights commission protecting women's rights and civil liberties. He thanked the donor community for their support, but characterized the levels of direct financial support as "insufficient" and called on the international community to fulfil their pledges.

African leaders expressed their hopes for recently established peace. In Angola, the army and UNITA military leaders signed a nationwide ceasefire, ending the 27-year-old civil war that cost an estimated 500,000 lives and displaced millions. Angolan Minister for External Relations Joao Bernardo de Miranda told of his Government's primary challenge of "reintegration into society of thousands of combat veterans, 4 million displaced persons, refugees and thousands upon thousands of handicapped, war orphans and widows". In April 2002, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission made its final ruling on the demarcation of the border between the two countries. Ambassador Ahmed Tahir Baduri of Eritrea reconfirmed his faith in the legal solution to the brutal two-and-a-half-year war with Ethiopia: "My Government believed from the very beginning that this conflict could not be settled by might but by peaceful means...