Czech Republic, 2004

Let me first

congratulate Mr. Jean Ping on his election as President

of the General Assembly at its fifty-ninth session and

wish him every success in this important position. I

would also like to thank his predecessor, Mr. Julian

Hunte, for his relentless efforts and leadership

throughout the year.

In May, the Czech Republic became a member of

the European Union (EU). For the first time, we took

part in the preparation of the EU statement presented

here last week by the Foreign Minister of the

Netherlands, as well as in shaping the EU priorities for

the current General Assembly session. It goes without

saying that we fully associate ourselves with those

texts.

We share the commitment of the EU to effective

multilateralism, with the United Nations at its core.

Indeed, the vision of a strong and truly universal

United Nations is one of the fundamentals of Czech

foreign policy.

Security, or the lack of it, has emerged as the

most challenging problem today. International

terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass

destruction, regional conflicts, State failure or

organized crime — these are the threats menacing all

of us.

Terrorism spares no one anywhere in the world.

The brutality of the attacks and the increase in their

number over the past year are frightening. It seems that

the whole nature of terrorism is changing. While most

earlier terrorists tried to target specific persons or

institutions, with the aim of gaining the sympathy of

the general public, today’s terrorists are solely intent

on spreading fear and terror. Their target is the general

public, each one of us, and the more killed the better.

What can we expect of individuals who sacrifice

unlimited numbers of their own people to a perverse

ideology? Their acquisition of weapons of mass

destruction would result in a deadly combination.

Absolute disregard for life by these “new”

terrorists has also given rise to their most dangerous

tool, the ideological suicide bomber. Previously,

terrorists had to devote most of their energy to

planning escape routes and concealing themselves; a

suicide bomber, on the other hand, needs only to

concentrate on how best to hit and to destroy his target.

The diffusion of targets and the perpetrators’

absolute resolve mean that terrorist threats have

completely permeated our public and private spaces,

each area of which has become a defence site. All this

could ultimately lead to very disagreeable restrictions

on certain freedoms and rights. And this takes us full

circle.

If we are lax in understanding our roots and

values, and if we do not have a comprehensive grasp of

human rights, we could find that, in the end, we are

unable to cope with the uneasy balance between

security and freedom.

I do not want to speculate about cause and effect.

It is not the case that a terrorist attack is a reaction, an

inappropriate reaction, to something. Terrorists’

ideology is aggressive and expansive, and they do not

recognize terms such as “conciliation” or

“coexistence”. Therefore, each offer we make to

negotiate, each sign of unwillingness to defend

ourselves, is seen by them as further proof of our

weakness and, by extension, of their “right” to assume

control of declining society.

In the fight against terrorism, nobody can remain

neutral. The United Nations has to pave the way for

this fight at the global level. To be sure, the Counter-

Terrorism Committee has done an outstanding job in

overseeing the implementation of Security Council

resolution 1373 (2001) and in facilitating universal

acceptance of the United Nations Conventions on

terrorism; but certainly more can and should be done.

The true tests of our ability to cooperate are Iraq,

Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Iraq continues to be of utmost concern to the

international community. The full transfer of power to

the Iraqi Interim Government is a historic moment for

the country and an essential step on the road towards a

free, prosperous and secure country. The road will, no

doubt, be long and winding. Without the elimination of

terrorist activities and the stabilization of the security

situation, political transition and economic recovery

will remain elusive.

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Last summer, United Nations employees in Iraq

paid the highest price for their commitment to help

those in need. Now, the Organization has new tasks

before it, including those connected with preparations

for free elections in January 2005. However, a greater

engagement of the United Nations requires a more

secure environment and stronger support from the

international community. The Czech Republic’s

contribution is focused mainly on building up Iraqi

security forces and helping to finance the protection of

the United Nations presence in Iraq.

Iraq, however, must not divert our attention from

other major security concerns, including Afghanistan,

the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. In all these

conflicts, my country seeks to play a constructive role,

contributing in various ways to the related efforts of

the international community. Thus, in Afghanistan, the

Czech Republic is participating in the stabilization

process and the rooting out of terrorism; in Africa, it is

taking part in peacekeeping operations; in Kosovo, we

have our largest military contingent abroad serving in

the Kosovo Force and we intend to contribute troops to

the new EU-led mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we believe

that the role of the international community lies in

providing a trusted frame of reference. It is crucial that

both parties to the conflict make a sincere effort to

implement their obligations in order to achieve the

vision of two States living side by side in peace and

security and in a peaceful and secure neighbourhood.

Last but not least, Africa has to remain on our

agenda. Ten years after the genocide in Rwanda,

another part of Africa is suffering from grave ethnic

violence. In Darfur, people are dying every day, and in

the Great Lakes region the situation is not much better.

The international community must not turn away from

those tragedies.

So far I have focused mainly on what we call

hard threats to international security. But I do not want

to create an impression that other problems plaguing

the contemporary world are of lesser importance.

Those more traditional problems, or soft threats, also

continue to deserve our undiminished attention. There

is no question of these two threats competing for our

response; there is no question of forgetting one in

favour of the other.

That is why the Czech Republic, as an emerging

donor country, supports the strengthening of

multilateral development assistance within the United

Nations system, as well as close cooperation among the

United Nations funds and programmes and the Bretton

Woods institutions. That is why we support and strive

to contribute to activities undertaken in pursuit of the

Millennium Development Goals and other

internationally agreed development targets.

Respect for human rights and fundamental

freedoms remains a priority of Czech foreign policy.

Together with the rest of the EU, we place special

emphasis on the abolition of the death penalty, the fight

against torture — in fact, just a few days ago we signed

the Optional Protocol to the Convention against

Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading

Treatment or Punishment — the protection of children

in armed conflicts and, of course, respect for the

activities of human rights defenders who,

unfortunately, continue to face difficult conditions in a

number of countries, such as Belarus, Myanmar and

Cuba, among others.

Convinced that all people have equal rights and

dignity, the Czech Republic is concerned about recent

attempts to create a human being through cloning. We

therefore concur with those calling for the swift

adoption of a legally binding instrument at the

universal level regulating the cloning of human beings.

Faced with the aforementioned challenges, the

United Nations has to change. Of course, United

Nations reform seems to be on everyone’s agenda.

There are, perhaps, too many reform processes going

on in parallel or partially overlapping. To achieve

genuine reform, however, we simply have to keep the

pressure on; the United Nations must continue

constantly to monitor itself and to continue its pursuit

of improvement.

The Czech Republic considers itself a reform-

minded country. It is an advocate of revitalization of

the General Assembly, strengthening of the United

Nations and reform and enlargement of the Security

Council. For many years, we have been actively

involved in those processes, including through the

Czech presidency of the fifty-seventh session of the

General Assembly. We have no vested interest in these

reforms except the better functioning and greater

authority of the whole United Nations. The Czech

Republic will continue to support inevitable reform

measures, including enlargement of the Security

Council in both categories of membership. In

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particular, we support the aspiration of Germany and

Japan to permanent seats, as well as the allocation of a

further three new permanent seats for Africa, Asia and

Latin America.

We greatly appreciate the reform efforts that the

Secretary-General has made so far, and we expect his

guidance to continue in the years to come. We eagerly

await the report of the High-Level Panel on Threats,

Challenges and Change, which should place United

Nations reform in a wider context of major global

threats and challenges.

We are determined to play an active role in

finding multilateral and United Nations-based solutions

to numerous grave problems of the contemporary

world. An expression of that commitment and

determination is our candidature for a non-permanent

seat on the Security Council in 2008-2009.