Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2004

I wish to greet you all and

express my great pleasure at having this opportunity to

address this Assembly. I also wish to thank the United

Nations, once again, for everything it has done and is

doing for my country. Specifically, I would like to

stress the importance of giving support to the returnees

who were expelled from their homes.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is a multi-ethnic country

in which Bosnian Muslims, Orthodox Serbs, Catholic

Croats, Jews and many other ethnicities lived in peace

and tolerance for hundreds of years. In Sarajevo and in

most other Bosnian towns, one can find mosques,

Orthodox and Catholic churches and Jewish temples

that have stood side by side for hundreds of years. For

this reason, Sarajevo is called the Jerusalem of Europe.

Preserving the multi-ethnic structure of Bosnia

and Herzegovina, with all its characteristics and

diversities, presents an historic challenge, not only to

Europe, but to the whole world. Bosnia and

Herzegovina is the foremost meeting point of world

cultures and religions. It therefore refutes the theory of

the clash of civilizations.

I would like to update you on the situation in my

country, which has made significant progress over the

last nine years.

The infrastructure destroyed in the war has been

rebuilt and macroeconomic stability has been achieved,

with only 1 per cent inflation. The banking system has

been consolidated and foreign debts are being paid off.

Since the post-war period, the gross domestic product

has increased three times over and national reserves

have increased 14 times over. Foreign currency

reserves and savings are constantly increasing as well.

We are on the right path to meeting all the

requirements for starting negotiations with the

European Union (EU) on stabilization and association

agreements. Due to the Republika Srpska entityís

failure to cooperate with the International Criminal

Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), we have

been unable to gain Partnership for Peace membership,

although we meet all of the requirements.

Strong reforms are under way in the areas of

education, customs, taxes, security and the defence

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system. Many new central institutions have been set

up, such as the Defence and Security Ministry, the

intelligence service, the Bosnia and Herzegovina Joint

Military Command and others. Compared with the

approximately 500,000 soldiers of the three separate

armies in 1995, the Bosnia and Herzegovina military

forces now have 12,000 soldiers. The North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO) had some 70,000 soldiers

in Bosnia in 1996, and the Stabilization Force (SFOR)

now has about 7,000. The security situation is stable;

the peace has never been broken. Since the Dayton

Peace Accords were signed, not a single foreign soldier

has been killed in Bosnia. Instead of being a consumer

of international aid, Bosnia and Herzegovina is

increasingly becoming a participant in international

peace missions, such as those in the Democratic

Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Liberia,

Timor-Leste, Haiti and others.

The common foreign, security and defence

policies of the European Union have enabled the EU to

take the leading role in Bosnia and Herzegovina. By

the end of this year, EU military forces will take over

from SFOR in Bosnia.

The positive stabilization process - as well as

the overall progress made not only in Bosnia, but also

in the other countries created after the dissolution of

the former Yugoslavia - is being slowed down by an

inappropriate attitude towards war crimes and war

criminals. Some public and political officials are trying

to find an excuse for the war crimes, saying they were

committed in the interest of vital ethnic protection. Yet

war criminals are treated as national heroes. This must

be changed. Only on the basis of truth and justice can

we build confidence and reconciliation among the

people and friendly relations among our respective

countries.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the

Former Yugoslavia has an irreplaceable role to play in

that process. We deeply appreciate the work it has done

so far. In our view, it must finish the trials that have

already begun, particularly those of the highest-level

officials. Some of the cases not yet completed can be

transferred only to courts of countries where the crimes

happened. This can be done only when those countries

are prepared to guarantee fair and correct trials.

Full cooperation with the ICTY must be an

unavoidable requirement for accession to Euro-Atlantic

institutions. Moreover, it is not enough to arrest and

prosecute only war criminals on the ICTY's list. Local

courts in our respective countries must prosecute

thousands of other war criminals who are still at large,

who constitute a destabilizing factor, who hinder

positive processes, and who are often connected with

organized crime.

In my country, we are going to establish within

the Bosnia and Herzegovina Court a war crimes

chamber. The chamber will take over some of the

Hague Tribunalís cases, but it will also prosecute many

other criminals. It is going to be The Hague in

miniature. We will therefore need technical and

financial support, and we will have to involve

international judges and prosecutors with experience in

such trials, above all those who have worked at The

Hague Tribunal.

Next year will be the tenth anniversary of the

genocide against Bosnian Muslims in the United

Nations safe havens of Srebrenica and Zepa. The

people most responsible for that genocide, as well as

for all other war crimes committed in Bosnia and

Herzegovina - Radovan Karadzic and Ratko

Mladic - have not yet been arrested. Those two men

are responsible for the death of about 200,000 people.

From this rostrum, I call on all in authority to arrest

them.

The outstanding issue of about 15,000 missing

persons, whose bodies are spread among numerous

mass graves throughout the country, 320 of which have

been found so far in Bosnia, presents a big problem for

my country. We need help in finding the missing and

identifying them.

The political system set up by the Dayton and

Washington Agreements played a positive role in

establishing peace, reconstruction and progress in my

country. However, they are now increasingly becoming

an obstacle to further development and progress. The

current administration in Bosnia, with a federation

composed of 10 cantons, a republic and a district -

strong entities and a weak State - is an obstacle in our

way towards Euro-Atlantic integration. It is an

extremely complicated and expensive system that is

barely operational. The people, both in Bosnia and

Herzegovina and outside, are aware of this to varying

degrees.

I believe the time is coming for domestic political

representatives to start to discuss the revision of

Bosnia's constitution and its compliance with

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international conventions. We have to create an

efficient State with institutions and mandates that will

enable us to become a full member of the EU and

NATO. I hope we will get support and help from

friendly countries and the international community as a

whole. A good opportunity for this will be next year,

the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Dayton

Peace Accords. It is time for Bosnia to turn from the

Dayton phase to the Brussels phase.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is sincerely and firmly

committed to strengthening friendly relations with the

neighbouring Republic of Croatia and the State Union

of Serbia and Montenegro on the basis of mutual

respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity and

equality. Our geographical location, history, ethnic

composition and economic and infrastructure

connections are leading us towards overall cooperation.

We are aware that, without a resolution of disputed

issues, we cannot proceed further to European

integration; we already have achieved some progress in

this regard.

The countries of South-Eastern Europe have

made huge individual and joint efforts to achieve great

progress in changing the stereotype of the region as a

backward, problematic and conflict-ridden area of the

European suburbs. Regional cooperation is being

promoted in the areas of defence, security, border

control, free markets, visa regimes, combating

corruption and organized crime and the protection of

ethnic and religious minorities.

The issue of borders in the region cannot and

must not be opened again. We have to arrange such

matters in compliance with European standards.

However, we have to open the issue of cooperation

with respect to borders, since it is in our common

interest.

I think that the Iraqi crisis needs to be resolved

simultaneously with the Palestinian issue. We therefore

support the initiative of the Quartet and the road map

as a basis for setting up a sincere dialogue between the

two States, with United States mediation. We also

strongly condemn all terrorist acts, as well as execution

without trial of Palestinian religious leaders. We

strongly condemn the Israeli side's construction of the

protection wall.

We are happy with the consensus among Security

Council members on the transfer of sovereignty from

coalition forces to the legitimately elected legal and

executive authorities in Iraq. We think the United

Nations should take the leading role in shaping the

future of Iraq. The Iraqi people need to govern their

own country, and the military forces that control the

territory must respect the Geneva Conventions and

humanitarian law. The territorial integrity and

sovereignty of Iraq must be preserved, including

sovereignty over its natural resources. We call for

protection of Iraq's world heritage civilization and holy

places, such as Karbala and the Imam Ali mosque in

Najaf. With a view to helping the people of Iraq and

contributing to the establishment of peace there,

Bosnia and Herzegovina has sent a unit to Iraq to

destroy mines and unexploded devices.

My country is sincerely committed to combating

international terrorism and is an active participant in

the international anti-terrorist coalition. Terrorism is

not only a threat to peace and security; in our view, it is

immoral and counterproductive. It is immoral because

innocent people are killed, and it is counterproductive

because terrorism cannot resolve problems. It only

produces new ones. In that regard, I would like to

highlight here the example of Bosnian Muslims, since

we were the major victim of the aggression against

Bosnia between 1992 and 1995. We managed to defend

ourselves, but both during and after the war we never

turned our hands to revenge or terrorism.

Allow me to review the issue of Security Council

reform, as well as that of strengthening the efficiency

of the mechanisms of the United Nations. The citizens

of Bosnia and Herzegovina know from their own

experience what a lack of proper and efficient United

Nations action can mean. If United Nations

mechanisms were more efficient, the aggression

against Bosnia and Herzegovina would not have

happened or, at least, the war would not have been so

long. If they were more efficient, then genocide would

not have been committed in the United Nations safe

havens of Srebrenica and Zepa. For that reason, I want

to remind everyone of the Organizationís obligation to

assist the survivors in those areas.

When considering the situation in the world

today, the question of efficient cooperation in the area

of security is inevitably raised. The Security Council

needs to be the leading factor for peace and stability in

the world. It has to have at its disposal mechanisms

that can be operated with efficiency and speed in order

to prevent conflicts from becoming military clashes.

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Among other proposals, we support the initiatives

to enlarge the Security Councilís membership.

Bosnia and Herzegovina wants to become a non-

permanent member of the Security Council. In terms of

Security Council efficiency, our experience has been

mostly a negative one. Through our participation in the

work of the Council, we hope to prevent a repetition of

our experience elsewhere in the world. Therefore, we

take this opportunity to confirm our intention of

putting forth our candidature for the 2010-2011 term.

Bosnia and Herzegovina deserves that honour and we

are determined to prove our worth.