Harper tells special UN meeting that Canada will stay the course in Libya

Canada will stay the course in rebuilding a post-Gadhafi Libya, Stephen Harper has told the United Nations.

The prime minister made that pledge at a high-level meeting on Libya attended by dozens of nations and the North African country’s new governing authority, the National Transitional Council.

“Canada has been at the forefront of international efforts to protect civilians in Libya against the oppressive Gadhafi regime and provide them with humanitarian assistance,” Harper told the gathering.

“Canada will continue to support the people of Libya, standing ready to promote effective governance and institutions, a secure environment founded on the rule of law, economic development and prosperity, and respect for human rights.”

Harper said Canada has taken decisive diplomatic, humanitarian and military action to protect and help the people of Libya in the fight to oust dictator Moammar Gadhafi and to encourage a transition to a representative democracy.

Canada is now prepared to support stabilization and reconstruction in a post-Gadhafi era by supporting the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, he said.

Canada has contributed fighter jets and a warship to the six-month NATO-led mission to buttress the NTC and protect civilians from Gadhafi, who was driven from power in August but remains at large.

Canada has also contributed about $10.6 million in humanitarian assistance to Libya.

Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the NTC president, thanked the international community for coming together to help wrest his country from the control of four decades of Gadhafi’s iron-fisted rule.

“The road before us is still long … our needs are many,” he added, noting that 25,000 Libyans died in the struggle to oust the dictator.

Harper started his day with a face-to-face meeting with Secretary General Ban ki-Moon.

The prime minister is at the UN for meetings on the future of Libya and an accountability session on the signature child- and maternal-health initiative that he championed at last year’s G8 in Muskoka, Ont.

An aide to Harper said he and Ban had a wide-ranging discussion that addressed the need for continued global momentum and Canadian leadership on the Third World health initiative, the developments in North Africa and the Middle East, and the need for UN reform and enhanced accountability.

The secretary-general thanked Harper for his leadership on maternal, child and newborn health and for his co-chairmanship of the UN Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health.

The Libya meeting is looking at how to support the NTC, as it moves into the rebuilding phase and Gadhafi remains at large.

U.S. President Barack Obama credited the Libyan people for successfully fighting for their liberation.

“It was Libyan men, women — and children — who took to the streets in peaceful protest, faced down the tanks and endured the snipers’ bullets,” Obama said.

“It was Libyan fighters, often outgunned and outnumbered, who fought pitched battles, town by town, block by block. It was Libyan activists — in the underground, in chat rooms and mosques — who kept a revolution alive, even after some in the world gave up hope.”

Libya shows what the international community can achieve when it stands together, said Obama.

“We cannot and should not intervene every time there’s an injustice in the world. Yet it’s also true that at times the world could have and should have summoned the will to prevent the killing of innocents on a horrific scale,” he said.

“And we are forever haunted by the atrocities we did not prevent, the lives we did not save. But this time was different.”

Harper will also co-chair a meeting with Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete on preventing the needless deaths of poor children and mothers in the Third World.

Harper and Kikwete were appointed by the UN to oversee an accountability commission to prevent corruption from siphoning away funds.

Harper will also attend a business roundtable at the New York Stock Exchange with eight top American business executives before returning to Ottawa late Wednesday.

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