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Message to the Third Worldwide Vigil New York, 23 October 1998 The Secretary-General's
Message to the Third Worldwide Candlelight Vigil
(Delivered by Mrs. Gillian Sorensen, Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations)My dear friends,
Last week, as you know, we suffered a disappointment. Despite the extensive programme of reform that we have undertaken, and despite many promises made to us, the US Congress and Administration failed to honour America's legal commitment and moral obligation to the United Nations and its 184 other Member States by paying even a portion of its long-standing arrears.
Discouraged though I am by this outcome, I do not for one moment regard it as the last word on relations between the United Nations and the United States. I am well aware that, out beyond the Washington Beltway, millions of Americans firmly support the goals and values of the United Nations, and want to see their country play its proper role in the Organization it did so much to found.
Your presence here tonight symbolizes that deep well of US public support on which we continue to draw. I am deeply grateful, and only regret that, because of official commitments in the Republic of Korea, I cannot be with you in person.
By your candlelight vigil you keep faith with the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt, a great American and one of the authors of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights whose anniversary we celebrate this year. It was of her that Adlai Stevenson wrote: "she would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world."
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