“Leaving no one behind: Acting together for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for present and future generations“
September 24, 2024
Mr. President of the General Assembly,
Mr. Secretary General,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Mahatma Gandhi said: “There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.”
In the same spirit of fraternal love and open heart, I address you today on behalf of the Republic of Serbia, a founding country of the United Nations: a country of freedom and justice.
It is my honor to address you as President of the Republic of Serbia – the country on whose behalf I stand proudly before you today. A country that, despite the current global challenges, consistently perseveres in defending the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law and that, through its activities and principled policy, strongly advocates the idea that is the main topic of this year’s session.
Ladies and gentlemen,
When we talk about the current moment, this year again, to my immense regret, I have to state that the situation in the world seems even more difficult and dark than a year ago, that tensions are growing, and challenges are becoming more numerous and complex. What worries me the most is that, despite our declaratory efforts for peace, development and prosperity of humanity, there is no end in sight to this geopolitical nightmare.
I would not like to see the wise words of the former President John Fitzgerald Kennedy becoming the words of a prophet: “Mankind must put an end to war–or war will put an end to mankind.” Today, mankind relies more on technology than it relies on mankind.
This year, we are once again talking about tragic conflicts and destruction that bring suffering and enormous human losses, as well as about the numerous serious consequences that inevitably accompany armed conflicts. The Republic of Serbia and the Serbian people deeply sympathize and share the grief for all the lives lost in the conflicts happening around the world, including the tragic events in the Middle East and Ukraine.
It is unforgivable that today, in the 21st century, we are talking about gruesome figures related to children who have died in conflicts.
It seems absolutely incredible, but the world is on the verge of nuclear disaster and nuclear Holocaust. In a desire to win and destroy the other one, step by step we were getting closer to the verge of precipice and eventually we got there. We live in a world where no one listens to anyone, there are only our arguments and our truth, while the other ones must disappear because they always endanger our or universally false values.
We need to talk, even when we disagree. We need to restore the eroded credibility and authority of the UN. We need to stop the practice of double standards being applied – to restore faith in international law and the principles we all agreed on long ago. We must restore faith in peace – the only path that has no alternative.
We owe that to every innocent victim anywhere in the world, to all the current and future generations. The future of the world in the next five or twenty-five years is a matter of our choice, but it is also our responsibility.
– All of us that have gathered here from all over the world, did that for, we’d say, noble, but, first and foremost for selfish reasons. Almost always, the leaders from all, and even the most powerful countries, speak in front of you, allegedly addressing you, but actually addressing only their own public and not caring substantially for the real concerns of the world today.
– I am not very much different, but today I will not present to you only Serbia, the founder of the UN, its successes, its high growth rate, because I have and I will have the opportunity to brag about the results we have achieved in my country.
And, by the way, I know that all of you here are not very much interested in the respective.
– Today, I will speak about how the collapse of the modern world had started; about when and how the UN Charter was discredited and when we stopped believing in law and started appeasing the force. I will explain it to you on the example of my country; to me, the most beautiful country in the world- Serbia; how it was being destroyed and trampled on, and how today, because of its tenacity and freedom-loving tradition it is a small stone in the shoe of the big and powerful ones.
– After the big victories that the better part of humanity won in the World War I and the World War II, and Serbs, as the nation, suffered the biggest losses proportionally to its size in the Great War, as well as in the World War II, where they were one of the few nations in the Southeast Europe that had confronted the Nazis from the very beginning, and that is why Belgrade was, perhaps, the only city that was brutally bombed and devastated already at the beginning of 1941. We, Serbs, were not welcoming Nazi tanks with flowers, and we paid the high price for that. Nevertheless, neither crying nor laments from the distant past, nor the self-victimization are the subject of my speech today. I would like to warn you, dear friends, of what had happened to Serbia, a precedent that is being used and abused in different parts of the world; to warn you of the Pandora’s box that was opened neither two, nor five years ago, but much before, and that everybody is so loudly silent about.
– The absolute dominance of the western capitalist way of manufacturing, its science and technology supremacy, convincing victory against the eastern contenders- Soviet Union first of all, within the framework of the Third Industrial Revolution, brought the world – some would say, to the end of history and complete hegemony of the western ideas in all spheres of social life. Apart from, of course, good things it had brought to the mankind, such a dominance of nonexistence of balance and political multilateralism destroyed also the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. Of course, it did not happen by accident; by all means, it did not happen by itself, but it was helped by the decisive involvement of the western intelligence services, which were supported by the national corrupted elite, both in the Soviet Union and in Yugoslavia.
– Why am I mentioning all this? Because even today we heard from many that by attacking Ukraine, Pandora’s box was opened; the undermining of international law took place; that it was the precedent not witnessed by Europe since the World War II. This is the utter untruth. Just to make things clear: Serbia supports the UN Charter, territorial integrity of Ukraine and we did not question it for a moment, nor shall we. However, when the big leaders speak vigorously and ardently here about the need for Ukrainian freedom, about the observance of the UN and its Charter, Resolutions, I ask myself why don’t they observe the UN Charter and Resolution 1244 when it comes to the territorial integrity of Serbia, which in the strike of their own power in moments when they thought that they would violate the norms of international law the way they wanted, to the extent they wanted and as long as they wanted, because they had finally won against all the opponents, so it was possible for them to spill the rage upon one small nation, and to relentlessly rush towards violation of all norms, not even trying to provide some explanation. That is why in 1999, here at the UN, they had tried to pass the decision on the attack and aggression against Serbia, and since the consent had not been reached, they had nevertheless taken the decision to attack, to bomb Serbia and commit aggression, because at that time they couldn’t care less about the UN Charter, its Resolutions and international law. They were the uncontested power that did not ask anyone about anything, and they thought it would go on like that for hundreds of years. It was by accident that we, citizens of Serbia, were the ones who paid the high price. It could have been anybody else. Thereby, it does not even occur to me to say that we were angels and that there was no our responsibility in all that. But, substantially, the destiny of one small nation, with no right and justice applied, was decided by the big and mighty western powers.
It is interesting that first they helped tear apart the big Yugoslavia, along the lines of internal communist borders. Interestingly, once they were finished with that, we thought it was the end, but there was no end. That is when they started with tearing Serbia, independent, democratic and internationally recognized Serbia, member of the UN and the OSCE. And only Serbia. And today, please pay attention to it- they speak passionately about defense of the alleged sovereignty of the states from secession and separatism until the next opportunity, if any,, when secession and separatism will be justified by the alleged humanitarian disasters and everything else that they will never accept as an argument in some other cases. And to give you the last example, dear representatives of the countries and nations worldwide. In this paper that I’m holding in my hand it is written that except for the forces under the control of the UN – in this moment those are KFOR forces, with which we have fair cooperation – no one can have armed forces in the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, which is in adherence with the Resolution 1244 part of Serbia. And those who committed the aggression against Serbia, who tried to separate a part of its territory, still try, convincing us that it is the only democratic and reasonable solution, to secede Kosovo and Metohija from Serbia, and they have been providing arms, on a daily basis to that what is today called the socalled Kosovo security forces, and what will already tomorrow become armed forces of Albanians in the territory of Serbia. And when you ask them:” In accordance to which international document you do that?”, because all that is the attempt to provoke a war, violation of the UN norms, and then, like a fig leaf, you get the stupidest possible answer in the world: “Well, we do not accept the UN Charter and the UN Resolution, because for us, the situation is changed, because we recognized the independence of Kosovo.” And what is their message to us, my dear friends? “We are the power, we are God, we don’t care about United Nations, the law of the UN and UN Resolution. We can do whatever we want, the way we want and as long as we want.” And now, I am asking you, dear representatives – not the ones of obedient and satellite, puppet countries, but you, freedom-loving nations and countries, what we, as a small country can do, how can we fight. Because, everybody in the world speaks about Ukraine, no one dares to speak about Serbia. And even if they do, they say how we will start the war in the Balkans upon the Russian order.
And they have been lying all the time, for more than two and a half years. We are neither servants of Russia nor the USA. We have our own politics and our own interests. And that is why I want to ask you something and tell you that the only hope – not only for my country which I love more than anything in the world, but also for your countries- to understand well the mechanisms of lies, the mechanisms of fraud in international relations and to try to gather here, in the most important Organization, to try to change it, to try to respect it. Because it is the only way to preserve peace.
– This way, the world is on the verge of disaster, and everyone is allegedly defending principles, no one admits any mistakes, and it is clear to everybody that there are no principles anywhere nor anybody has them. Neither ones nor the others. Only the small ones that have nowhere else to go; and the principles are the only thing they can grasp. And, the only thing that has left to the big ones, once they have crushed all the small ones, is to eat each other, and when the bite is no longer so easy and small, it is then that they remember the principles and accuse the others for violating those same principles.
– A representative of my country, Vladislav Jovanovic, exceptional Serbian diplomat, very respected one, on that 24 March 1999, when the aggression against Serbia started, in the Security Council of the United Nations, on behalf of the Government of the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, made an urgent appeal to all countries to categorically oppose the aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at the time. And, just hear his words 25 years later: If the aggression is not stopped, the precedent of such unpunished aggression will, sooner or later, lead to aggression against a number of other, smaller and medium-sized countries. The real question is: Which country is next?”
Let me quote this time the Nobel Prize Winner and the former President of the United States of America Barack Obama. He said: “Peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict; it is the presence of justice, freedom and opportunity for everyone.”
The unreasonable nature of the policy pursued by the Pristina authorities, the fanaticism and the persecution of everything Serbian in Kosovo and Metohija, is reflected in a series of disturbing moves – from the ban on payments in the Serbian currency – the dinar in Kosovo and Metohija, which has lasted for more than 6 months, and the ban on postal services, which is unique in the world, even for conflict areas, and which endangers the daily life of Serbs and other non-Albanian population – up to the ban on the visit of the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Porfirije, to the Patriarchate of Pec. Can the intrusion of the armed special Pristina police, on 9 September, into the premises of the “Support Me” Association, made up of parents and children with developmental disabilities, be described as anything other than brutality and cruelty as well as insanity?
“Real and lasting peace can be reached only by justice and respect for human rights”, Nelson Mandela said. And how can there be peace in Kosovo and Metohija if the legal order and fundamental rights of one entire nation are being systematically undermined?
After everything the aforesaid, the key question today is: “What is the path for Serbia and how can we resolve this situation?”
First and foremost, Serbia is on its European path and it sincerely wants to be a part of the EU. Serbia’s economy is the most successful economy today in the entire Western Balkans region, but even today, the very same EU we strive to, makes it clear to us, through the statement of it spokesperson Peter Stano that it does not observe principles based on the UN Charter, and not even the decisions of their own European Council by supporting the independence of the so-called Kosovo, because that is the interest of the biggest and most powerful ones in the European continent. Serbia is a small country, which cannot compete with the big powers and we are fully aware of that. But, nevertheless, we are obliged to ourselves and to our people, but also to all the friends in the world, and that obligation is not to lie to anyone but to tell the truth to everybody. Since all these big ones are interested neither in law nor in truth. There is nothing left to small, but proud Serbia, but to be dedicated and committed to its economic progress, accelerated growth, new technologies and innovation, to look towards the future and to wait for the moment when the principles of international law observance will be brought back to the world’s political stage. We will remain committed to the dialogue with Pristina and under the auspices of the EU and we will fight to preserve peace.
There is only one thing that we will never give to anyone and that is freedom and independence of Serbia.
As the President of Serbia, I believe in world based on real and not false values, and I believe that the strength of the developing countries, all of us who have raised our heads and who dear to say the truth will be a foundation of a new, different and better world.