UN General Assembly
1998

terrorists seek to blow the peacemakers back into the past. We must also acknowledge that there are economic sources of this rage as well. Poverty, inequality and masses of disenfranchised young people are fertile fields for the siren call of the terrorists and their claims of advancing social justice. But deprivation cannot justify destruction; nor can inequity ever atone for murder. The killing of innocents is not a social programme. Nevertheless, our resolute opposition to terrorism does not mean we can ever be indifferent to the conditions that foster it. The most recent United Nations Human Development Report suggests the gulf is widening between the world’s haves and have-nots. We must work harder to treat the sources of despair before they turn into the poison of hatred. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once wrote that the only revolutionary is a man who has nothing to lose. We must show people they have everything to gain by embracing cooperation and renouncing violence. This is not simply an American or a Western responsibility; it is the world’s