Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1993

Let me begin by

extending, on behalf of the people and Government of the

Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, our most heartfelt

condolences to the peoples and Governments of both

Venezuela and India, which have recently been hit severely

by the tragedy of disaster. It is our hope that both countries,

through the will and spirit of their peoples, will recover

quickly.

May we also extend our sympathies to those countries

and families that have lost loved ones under the United

Nations flag in Bosnia and Herzegovina in attempting to

carry out their mission of peace and humanity. Indeed, our

sympathies go out to all families of United Nations

personnel in all peace-keeping missions throughout the globe

who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of the

United Nations Charter.

We should also like to congratulate the Palestinian and

Israeli people on their recent efforts towards peace. We are

likewise happy to see the great strides towards democracy

being made in South Africa.

Mr. President, it is my pleasure and privilege to extend

to you our sincerest congratulations on your election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its forty-eighth

session. Your election to this high office reaffirms the

importance of the role that small States play in the family of

nations.

We should also like to extend our appreciation to your

distinguished predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Stojan Ganev,

our Balkan colleague, for conducting the deliberations of this

body with great expertise and commitment.

The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina is pleased to

welcome the Organization’s newest Members: Andorra, the

Czech Republic, Eritrea, Monaco, the Republic of

Macedonia and the Slovak Republic. We are confident that

these Members will uphold the principles of the United

Nations Charter.

The international community has neither a definite

policy nor a clear plan of political action that would

facilitate a transition from the Communist structures that

have been in power for 50 years to concepts based on

freedom and democracy. We believe that it is impossible to

find solutions for either global or local conflicts unless a

clear stand is taken on the overall question of what the

post-Communist heritage is to be.

The negative aspects of this problem have been fully

illustrated in the case of my country. It is obvious that the

remaining forces of the Communist potential for aggression

have been exercised against us and that an extirpation of

chances for democratic development has been perpetrated

before the eyes of Europe, America and the whole world.

This act is being carried out entirely by force, in forms

ranging from aggression and mass murder of civilians to

destruction of all traces of civilization and culture and the

extermination of whole nations by the barbaric tactics of

burned and destroyed land.

Simultaneously with this unprecedented violence, an

experiment in political vivisection is being carried out

against our country. It is being carried out by an

international community that, in the case of Bosnia and

Herzegovina, has obviously been testing various models for

the post-Communist State. The experiment, unfortunately,

is being performed in vivo by testing various hypotheses on

our living national and governmental organism. In this

experiment, our people are dying, and so is our country and

our State.

The first experiment was performed by the London

Conference. This concept, which sought to stop the

aggression, was abandoned without a single attempt to

implement it; and this only intensified the war on our soil.

This was followed by an attempt to find a solution by means

of constitutional, legal and political reform to a crisis that

was becoming ever deeper. This project, known as the

Vance-Owen plan, no one even attempted to implement. It

was abandoned only to be replaced by a new one, which is

based on the false thesis that what we have in Bosnia and

Herzegovina is a civil war between the three peoples and

that territorial partition is therefore the only solution.

But this plan is being fulfilled neither with respect to

the idea that the partition of the land should be carried out

in accordance with the criterion of ethnic majority, nor with

respect to the basic intention of bringing about peace. As a

result, the uncontrollable unfolding of events will continue,

and will cause nothing but new suffering for our people.

Now the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina are being

asked to choose between a just, defensive war and an unjust

peace. The war, if continued, is likely to cause further

suffering for our people and the further destruction of our

nation. It could mean the death of thousands more.

The unjust peace plan is flawed because it is based

upon the repugnant and historically failed concept of ethnic

partition and apartheid. The flaw is compounded by the fact

that even the partition is unfair, since it seeks to satisfy the

aggressor’s appetite for an inequitably large share at the

expense of the victim.

However, the flaws in the so-called peace plan being

forced upon us are not merely philosophical. First, any plan

that legitimizes genocide and promotes ethnic partition will

most likely sow the seeds for new aggression and fuel the

fires of retribution. Secondly, any peace that does not

address the true causes of war will, at best, offer only

temporary, remedial relief rather than promoting the healing

that is essential. Finally, any peace plan that makes no

provision for a viable Bosnian State, that does not address

even the most basic needs of the victim and that does not

provide the necessary measures for real implementation and

durability is, in the end, not a plan for real peace.

Last week’s provisional acceptance by the Bosnian

Parliament of the peace proposals is dependent on the same

minimal adjustments that we have consistently held to be

necessary for a durable peace. These adjustments are the

following:

First, the Bosnian Republic within the proposed Union

of the Republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina must be viable

geographically, economically, politically and defensively.

Secondly, the aggressor forces must surrender control

of the territories where they have slaughtered and expelled

civilian populations so that the Bosnians can return to their

homes. Well over half a million refugees would find it

impossible to return to villages, towns and cities from which

they were expelled if Serbian forces that committed murder,

rape and torture were to continue to control those territories.

There is the option that some of those territories could be

temporarily administered by international peace-keeping

forces.

Thirdly, the final agreement must contain

comprehensive and specific guarantees concerning its

implementation from those nations and regional

organizations that will actually be enforcing the peace. Such

guarantees must be an integral part of the peace accords and

cannot be delayed until a later date. Otherwise, we risk

adopting another agreement or commitment that will, like so

many others previously, become worthless for peace and of

value only to further legitimize the aggressor.

Forty-eighth session - 7 October l993 3

Fourthly, in the event that the international community

is not successful in implementing the peace plan, then we

must be allowed to arm and defend ourselves.

Consistent with its authority and unavoidable

responsibility, the Security Council should evaluate the plan

prepared by Lord Owen and Mr. Stoltenberg to determine its

consistency or inconsistency with the United Nations Charter

and numerous resolutions previously adopted by the Council.

The Council cannot escape its responsibilities and the

inherent inconsistencies by hiding behind the frequently

repeated excuse that it will accept whatever all the parties

agree to, when one party, the victim, is under the pressure

of the very real threat of genocide.

As further negotiations on these matters continue, the

mediation team should be enlarged to include a

representative of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO), which will most likely be the agent of

enforcement. This would add a degree of clarity, direction

and credibility to the talks that has been lacking so far.

Now, let me bring to the Assembly’s attention the

impending humanitarian tragedy unfolding in my country.

On behalf of all Bosnians, I must first thank the United

Nations and all the friendly Governments, private institutions

and heroic individuals that have helped provide humanitarian

assistance in Bosnia. We profoundly appreciate the efforts

that have so far saved many lives. But with the coming of

winter, more help will be needed if our wounded and

malnourished population is to avoid finally succumbing to

starvation, disease and exposure. In this effort it is essential

that the international community and its most capable

members and relevant regional organizations do the

following: first, take steps to encourage and enforce the

maintenance of the cease-fires recently agreed to by all the

relevant forces; secondly, take steps, as envisioned in several

Security Council resolutions, to stop the blockage of

humanitarian relief and other essential supplies such as

water, electricity and gas; thirdly, reopen Tuzla Airport,

making possible the delivery of humanitarian relief to over

a million people; and, fourthly, establish clear demands for

the lifting of the siege of Sarajevo as a first step towards the

lifting of all sieges of Bosnian towns, including the safe

areas designated by Security Council resolutions 824 (1993)

and 836 (1993).

Our Bosnian minority in Serbia, the Muslims of

Sandzak, have been deprived of their rights. Many people

who have defended the rights of their countrymen have been

imprisoned or expelled. While the Serbian regime has

ostensibly been protecting the rights of ethnic Serbs in

Croatia, it has not been willing to recognize those same

rights for minorities in Serbia. We demand the same rights

for the Muslims of Sandzak as those that Serbs are

demanding for themselves in Croatia. Future negotiations

cannot neglect this very important political and human-rights

issue.

As United States President Clinton recently stated

before this body, the United Nations cannot become involved

in every world conflict. United Nations involvement should

only be undertaken with a clear political and military

strategy in place. Tragically, United Nations involvement in

Bosnia and Herzegovina has so far shown the very antithesis

of any clarity of objective and firmness of resolve. The

moral void created by this confusion has naturally been

filled with a determination to defer to the aggressor’s wishes

at the expense of the victim. The United Nations

intervention, in its half-heartedness and equivocation,

combined with its proud insistence that it is getting the job

done and that therefore we cannot be allowed to arm

ourselves, may well go down in history as the principal

instrument of my country’s destruction.

In this regard, a few unavoidable questions arise. Why

has there been no implementation of Security Council

resolutions 824 (1993) and 836 (1993) calling for the lifting

of the siege of our cities? What has happened to the

Security Council’s demands in resolution 752 (1992) for the

withdrawal of all Serbian military and paramilitary units

from our country along with their heavy weapons? Why has

there been no implementation of Security Council resolutions

787 (1992) and 838 (1993), which were to monitor the

border between Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina and

prevent the continuing massive flow of arms and material

going to the aggressors in Bosnia?

It is no longer possible to speak of non-intervention.

The international community’s involvement in Bosnia began

with the imposition of the arms embargo and has continued

through this whole series of unfulfilled commitments. The

United Nations must either follow

4 General Assembly - Forty-eighth session

through with its intervention or decide to rescind that

intervention. One way or another, it cannot continue with

the present policy, which makes it an accomplice in the

destruction of the Bosnian people.

My Government remains committed to peace and to the

ideals of a pluralistic, democratic and multi-religious society.

Unfortunately, some of the very nations that espouse these

ideals world wide have betrayed them by inaction, and in

their own backyards. We cannot indefinitely continue a

struggle on principle without adequate help from outside or

without at least being afforded the full opportunity to defend

ourselves.

The action of our Parliament is clear in its commitment

to peace, its demands for a viable State and a durable peace.

Principles have been shamelessly abandoned by those who

had the greatest duty and reason to uphold them in our

country. We cannot and will not accommodate the anxieties

of those same Governments and allow them to pressure us

to abandon our last hope for self-preservation and a real and

durable peace.

Although there has been a process through which many

witnesses to this crime have become anaesthetized to its

horror, the horror itself will never go away, and future

generations of the righteous and the just in every nation will

neither forgive nor trust the countries which allowed it to

happen. At least a billion people are waiting for this body

to act. Are Members really ready to surrender Bosnia and

its people to annihilation? Those billion people I have

mentioned, and not only they, will never forgive you.