Ukraine, 2005

At the outset I wish to

express my congratulations to you, Sir, on your

election to the presidency of the General Assembly at

its sixtieth session. Rest assured that you have the full

support and cooperation of the Ukrainian delegation.

Let me also pay tribute to your predecessor, His

Excellency Mr. Jean Ping, for his tireless efforts in the

preparation of the world summit.

The world summit of 2005 has just come to its

conclusion. Its outcome document (resolution 60/1)

provides us with clear guidelines. It is our common

task to implement ambitious goals for building a safer

and more prosperous world.

In talking about implementation I wish to

emphasize two key elements indispensable for the

follow-up activities of the United Nations and, indeed,

for the success of the global peace endeavour. They are

credibility and democracy — or rather, credibility

based on democracy. We know that the way ahead is

beset with serious threats and challenges. We have to

make sure that a lack of unity is not among those

challenges. Every nation likes to sing its own song. It

takes our fundamental values and a great deal of

human wisdom to perform the role of a tuning fork in

the global chorus of so many different voices. The

credibility of the United Nations is indispensable if we

are to accomplish our missions in the new millennium.

Effectiveness, capacity, rapid response, financing for

development and all the rest of it will come along with

credibility.

Security Council reform is a vivid example of

how difficult it is to accommodate the interests of 191

nations. That reminds me of a joke about the

distribution of committee posts in the Ukrainian

Parliament. They say that we should have 450

committees — that is the number of members of

Parliament — in order to make everyone feel happy

and important. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to

apply a similar approach in the case of the Security

Council, since its powers exceed by far those of any

other United Nations body. The official position of

Ukraine on the matter is clearly reflected in the

statement made by President Yushchenko during the

summit (see A/60/PV.6). Ukraine highly appreciates

the job done by the experts who have explored the

various options for Security Council reform. We must

not abandon hope and should continue to seek

consensus.

Ukraine has fully supported the Secretary-

General’s bold initiative to reform the Organization

and has actively participated in that process. We

reiterate our support for strengthening the position of

the Secretary-General. In view of the forthcoming

election for Secretary-General in 2006 we would like

to remind representatives that throughout the 60-year

history of the United Nations it is only representatives

of our Eastern European regional group that have never

occupied that highest of posts. Therefore, we believe

that the Eastern European Group has priority in

nominating a candidate.

In building this statement around the words

“credibility” and “democracy”, I cannot but stress the

key function of the Organization, which is to maintain

international peace and security. The memory of

Rwanda, Srebrenica or, quite recently, Darfur should

lead us to look for urgent remedies. One of these could

lie in the “responsibility to protect” concept, which

Ukraine fully endorses. We must not remain passive

observers of genocide, crimes against humanity or

gross and flagrant violations of human rights, as

happened in 1932-1933 when Ukrainians experienced

the great famine with devastating effects. The horrible

memory of that man-made calamity lives on today in

every Ukrainian family, including my own. Twenty

thousand innocent souls a day, half a million a month,

10 million altogether were taken as part of the death

toll of Stalin’s favoured ethnic policy. The Ukrainian

Government will never tire until it makes the

international community abandon hypocrisy and finally

recognize that act of genocide against the Ukrainian

nation. It was therefore in earnest and with much hope

that Ukraine followed the deliberations on the new

concept.

Early warning, prevention and rapid response are

key to ensuring the success and durability of our

concerted action. An expert combination of diplomatic,

political and assistance tools should suffice to avert

future humanitarian disasters. But should such

measures fail to stop atrocities, the Security Council

must be ready to act swiftly and resolutely, including

with the use of force, as a final resort. I should like to

reiterate the position of Ukraine that, apart from self-

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defence as provided for in Article 51 of the Charter,

only the Security Council may legitimately take

decisions on the use of force.

Peace and stability go hand in hand with human

rights, the rule of law and freedom of the media. The

credibility of Governments rests on those fundamental

values. We were all aware of malfunctions in the

Commission on Human Rights. Poor mechanisms led

to poor results. The credibility of the entire

Organization was at stake. Therefore, Ukraine

welcomes the establishment of the Human Rights

Council. We firmly believe that this important

achievement of the Organization will be reflected in

the new Council’s future activities, not only in the

change of name. Likewise, Ukraine supports the

establishment of the United Nations Democracy Fund.

Another matter of significance that should

enhance the credibility of the United Nations is the

creation of the Peacebuilding Commission. It is evident

that conflict resolution always requires a complex

approach. The institutional gap between prevention,

settlement and post-conflict rehabilitation has finally to

be eliminated.

To save time at this late hour, I shall not mention

many areas of cooperation and many regions of the

world that genuinely require our undiminished

attention and action. Non-proliferation; hot and frozen

conflicts; AIDS; the fight against poverty; the Middle

East; and Iraq: most often these are issues of the

democracy of governance or the credibility of policies,

or both.

To conclude, let me recall the phenomenon of the

Orange Revolution in my country, for it was the

quintessence of what our Organization stands for. It

was not a one-time act. It is a process. It is not country-

specific, but is part of the global heritage of

democracy, an unselfish gift to all nations striving for

freedom around the globe.