By H. E. María Teresa Infante Caffi, Ambassador of Chile to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Spring is in the air, tulips are burgeoning everywhere and a renovation of our ideas and endeavors is also a feature of this season. In pages recently published in the NCR by two Dutch ladies who have been experiencing a unique type of touristic life in the south of Chile, the atmosphere of simplicity and timeless preoccupation in southern Chile, in a non-place, mark a convincing contrast with an agenda full of consultations and planning meetings in The Hague. These are timely observations in an epoch of huge humanitarian turbulences and unanswered questions about the origins and ramifications of certain phenomena.
In contrast to this, the inauguration of the permanent premises of the International Criminal Court this month in The Hague will strengthen a conceptual vision of the international society where accountability and cooperation to face the most atrocious situations and cases a human being may face, is a legitimate common concern.
There will be also the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the initiation of activities of the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, continuing the role of its predecessor tribunal. Solemn sittings that symbolize the wills and hopes of those who believe that international law can have a say in our global world, no matter how difficult is to work in these ambits. In this respect, we have all noted the latest decisions of the ICTY, also in The Hague, bringing to our minds moments of serious grievances just next to our borders.
These are some of the matters on which embassies and missions in The Hague permanently reflect and which create a political and cultural environment that inspire and interrogate our own perceptions and daily tasks. To discern between violent extremism and the normal expression of ideas of diverse orientations, as well as a concern about radicalization among groups of persons at the core of the international debate in Europe and in other regions, is not alien to our apprehensions.
Even when this is not a current reality in our Latin American countries, we share the hurt of the victims and countries which are being targeted by the violent extremist phenomenon, and would like to express not only our uneasiness but also, solidarity. Participation in the debates that are currently taking place at the United Nations, Council of Human Rights and at the regional fora, will count with our active participation. On the other hand, we witness the situation characterized by illegal migration and the flow of persons in search of refuge.
It is not a problem which is indifferent to us, on the contrary. As the President of Chile, Mrs. Michelle Bachelet, stated in a recent conference, the international community is “lacking an adequate global governance to deal with global humanitarian crises. The UN institutions do what they can, but they are overwhelmed and underfinanced; and they cannot deal with interdependence challenges when the logic of international organizations is member-state based. International relations are stubbornly state-centered as power continues to spread and globalization deepens. Hence, both at the global and national level we witness a collapse of authority”.
In The Hague, trust among countries is being built through different means, where the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is one of the main scenarios for this purpose. Participation in the discussions of imminent priorities including cooperation, together with the analysis and construction of a non-state actors’ common perspective in the Convention framework, are immediate tasks in which the Embassy is fully immersed. It will certainly depend on the general agreement how far we can move in this direction, and whether it will be in a manner as efficient as it has been in the past in the sphere of destruction of arsenals, inspection and verification.
Moving towards more contingent issues in the upcoming months, activities around technology and culture and food and new tastes among others, are allocated in the working agenda, meaning involvement in activities beyond The Hague. Coming May in the city of Rotterdam, there will be music in the Codarts Theater. Ensuing June, establishing a student network with Chilean graduates in the Netherlands and listening to poetry will be some of those spheres, followed by the music of the Tricahue orquestra in the Spanish Day at the Cervantes Institute in Utrecht. An experimental initiative to bring technological games to one of the main world fairs of this kind that takes place in the Netherlands will be added. Likewise, tasting of gourmet products in Rotterdam will not be absent this year. Thus far, the year of Kap Hoorn is not over !
Finally, an upcoming ceremony to pay tribute to persons who distinguished themselves in welcoming Chilean refugees and exiled will take place in May; it will be a testimony to those who showed compassion together with a strong belief in an inclusive and plural democracy, renovating the adherence to the rule of law.
These are the activities we would like to share with our friends of the diplomatic community and from all over the Netherlands.
