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Following is from speech of Mr. Alija Izetbegovic,President of
Bosnia and Herzegovina, for the 49 session of General Assembly of
the United Nations. 27th of September 1994.
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Mr. Secretary General, Distinguished delegates,
Allow me at the outset, to commend His Excellency Mr. Samuel Insanally
for the able manner in which he conducted the work of the 48th Session
of the General Assembly. I would also like to congratulate H.E. Mr.
Amara Essy for his election as the President of this 49th Session. I
wish him all success in pursuing this very important task.
I would like to thank the President for giving me this opportunity to
speak on behalf of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina at this
distinguished gathering. I thank you all for your attention.
Mr. President, I come from Bosnia and Herzegovina, a far away country
that has currently been the subject of many discussions.
Unfortunately, I have to begin my statement by repeating facts that for
the majority of you may be or should be well known.
At the time - some three years ago, when Yugoslavia underwent its
dissolution, we were doing our best to conduct this separation in a
peaceful fashion and without any violence. For reasons already known to
us all, our initiatives bore no fruits.
When Slovenia and Croatia had seceded , and the dissolution of
Yugoslavia had become inevitable, we organized a referendum in order to
decide, in a democratic manner, about the fate of Bosnia. By two-thirds
majority ( that is, exactly: 64,4%) of the registered voter body,
citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina opted for the independence of the
country at the referendum of March 1, 1992. The international
recognition of our country followed soon after, and so did the
aggression against it. The decision of recognition was made on April 5,
1992, and it was announced the following day, April 6, 1992. The Serbian
and Montenegrin aggression against Bosnia and Herzegovina began on April
5, 1992, the same day when the decision on recognition was passed.
The aggression continues to this day, with more or, at times, less
intensity, and without any prospects of it coming to an end soon.
War, that was forced upon Bosnia and Herzegovina and its peoples, and
has now entered its 31st month, belongs to the bloodiest wars in the
history of mankind. In its very beginnings, it was not a war, but an
attack of a well armed and equipped army, the former Yugoslav Army,
against defenseless citizens.
The results of this uneven struggle are as follows: 70% of our country
fell under occupation in the first months of the war, more than 200 000
civilians have been killed, over 1,000 000 ( or one fourth) of our
inhabitants have been expelled from their homes, hundreds of cities and
villages destroyed and burnt. This cannot be described as a classic
example of a warfare between two armies. This has been a war of an army
against
civilians, followed by genocide and, until this time, unprecedented
destruction of cultural and religious objects. The world has not
responded in an appropriate manner to such barbarism.
Whether it was because of the brutality of the attack, or being morally
and psychologically unprepared, or perhaps, due to the entanglement in
its contradictory interests, the world appeared confused and hesitant.
When the news and pictures of new concentration camps in the heart of
Europe came out, the public was astonished, but the responsible ones
mostly kept silent. Tens of thousands of people have perished in these
camps, and many thousands of them have disappeared, without any trace.
The more brutal an attack, the more hesitant the world became. The free
world neither defended, nor supported freedom.
Our people, facing the threat of extermination and a clearly pronounced
death sentence, decided to defend itself.
But then it encountered a new absurdity. It had found its hands tied.
Namely, before the war was waged against Bosnia and Herzegovina, The
United Nations imposed an notorious resolution that banned any import of
weapons in the territory of Former Yugoslavia. Everything changed, the
war began, the aggressor and the victim emerged, but the arms embargo
has remained in place, as if nothing had happened in the meantime.
Justice has turned into injustice, because the aggressor had weapons -
which had been stock - piled over 40 years time - while the victim was
unarmed and its hands were kept tied.
The resolution on the arms embargo became its own contradiction. By
maintaining the imbalance in weaponry, it has prolonged the war, and it
has turned peace negotiations into diktats by the better armed
aggressor.
We told the world: you do not have to come to defend us, but do untie
our hands and allow us, at least, to defend ourselves. While they kill
our children, rape our women, and destroy all our relics, do recognize
our right to self - defense.
However, the arms embargo has remained in place until present times.
Practically, with only guns and rifles in our hands, our defenders have
stood against artillery and tanks. We have lost many people. Data
reports indicate that more than 90% of them have been killed by grenades
and artillery shells. Our cities and villages have been left at the
mercy of this powerful military technology in the hands of the
murderers.
In the capital of Sarajevo alone, more than 10 000 have been killed, and
more than 50 000 wounded. There is not a single family without
casualties - killed or wounded.
To all this, the world has sent us only one message: negotiate.
Believing that the only right path was to continue to defend our land
and in this just struggle to be supported by the peace and freedom
loving world, we refused to negotiate with war criminals for a very long
time.
Finally, faced with the unbearable plight of our people and the
indifference of the world, and without any choice, we accepted the
negotiations.
It turned out that the aggressor had only used negotiations as a bargain
for time and a cover up for the continuation of the aggression.
In March, 1993, after long and painful negotiations, and with many a
concession from our side, we signed the Vance / Owen Plan. The aggressor
rejected it.
The next bloody round of war came about, followed by another round of
negotiations.
As a result was a Peace Plan of July 5, 1994, by the Contact Group,
consisting of the world's 5 most powerful states, (USA, United Kingdom,
France, Germany and Russian Federation) . This time again, we have
chosen peace and the attackers have, once again, opted for a
continuation of the war.
We have accepted the unjust peace offer in order to halt the war in
Bosnia and Herzegovina. We have done so hoping that the injustice of the
peace plan could still be corrected in the years of peace. Knowing the
soul of Bosnia, we believed and we still believe that peace rescues and
war destroys everything that we call Bosnia.
And what we call Bosnia is not only a small peace of land in the
Balkans. For many of us, Bosnia and Herzegovina is not just a homeland,
it is an idea. It is a belief that peoples of different religions,
nationalities and cultural traditions, can live together. If it happened
that this dream was forever buried, and this idea of tolerance among the
peoples in these areas was irretrievably gone, the guilt would lie not
only with the ones who have been relentlessly killing Bosnia with their
mortars for over thirty months, but nonetheless, with many of the
powerful from the rest of the world who could have helped, yet have
chosen to do otherwise.
Two days ago, I left Sarajevo. I did not leave by plane, because the
airport was closed. I had to take land routes through woods that are
constantly exposed to fire and where many people are killed daily. For
days, there is no electricity, water and gas in the city. The capital is
completely blocked and it is virtually dying.
Yesterday, after I had arrived to the United Nations building, I
received a letter from Srebrenica, a small town on the river Drina. The
letter was supposed to be a report, but it is moreover a cry from a real
human hell. I could find no strength to read this letter for the second
time.
It has been over three months, since a new wave of ethnic cleansing
reignited. Thousands of civilians, whose only fault was that they were
not Serbs, have been expelled from their homes in Banja Luka, Bijeljina,
Janja and other towns under the control of Karadzic's army.
Once again, nothing has been done. The world seems to have gradually
gotten accustomed to unpunished violations of the basic norms of
international law. This is an ill stage, that concerns every man and
every woman in the world, no matter how close or far from Bosnia they
may be.
For a very long period of time, I have rejected - and still reject- "a
theory of conspiracy", that is, that all this that has befallen Bosnia
is because the majority nation is a Muslim people and that there are
some dark powers who have consciously pushed Serbs towards the
extermination of Bosnian Muslims.
Those who claim so, have their own arguments . I believe You have heard
them before : namely, an obvious aggression, followed by genocide,
concentration camps and other forms of the darkest fascism are on stage
in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The world can only be blind not to see it. Is
it blind, or does it consciously accept all these evils? Blind it is
not, therefore, the other possibility remains. This is their argument
that has gained ever more supporters.
It will not be good if a billion Muslims in the world accept this
argument.
The latest events in and around the Plan of the Contact Group have given
the supporters of "theory of conspiracy" an additional argument.
Namely, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been offered a proposal that was
backed by five major powers, and therefore, by the majority in the
international community. It was clearly stated that the side who
rejected the plan would be punished, while the side who accepted the
plan would be protected.
The opposite happened: Serbs rejected the Plan and they have been
rewarded by the suspension of sanctions. We have accepted the Plan and
we have been punished by a complete blockade of Sarajevo. Both processes
ran parallelly and simultaneously.
These days, the highest United Nation's civilian and military
authorities are warning us: If you demand and succeed in the lifting of
the arms embargo, UNPROFOR will pull out from the Republic of Bosnia and
Herzegovina, etc., etc.
I have, certainly, not undertaken this long and arduous trip from Bosnia
to America only to convey the facts that may be known to the majority of
you.
We, in Bosnia believe that Good and Justice, despite the hardships,
cannot be defeated. We do not give up faith that the world could be
better and that we should all work and we should all try over and over
again in order to make it better.
With this conviction, I have come to speak before you and to present
some of our proposals, despite all our disappointments and frustrations.
From this General Assembly and the Security Council, we ask:
1. That all Resolutions on Bosnia and Herzegovina adopted by the
Security Council and General Assembly be implemented;
2. That measures be taken in order to effectively monitor the border
between Serbia and Montenegro on one side, and Bosnia and Herzegovina on
the other side, so that any transport of troops, weapons and military
equipment over this border be prevented or timely detected;
3. Should this transport occur, that the decision on suspension of some
of the sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro ( Security Council
resolution 943/1994) be immediately recalled and tightened sanction
measures be imposed in accordance with the Plan of the Contact Group of
July, 1994;
4. That there will be no further easing of the sanctions towards Serbia
and Montenegro until they recognize Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia
within its internationally recognized borders;
5. That a resolution be adopted, without delay, which would strengthen
the protection of and mandate the extension of the safe areas as in
Security Council Resolutions 824 and 836, and in accordance with
provisions of Article 6, of the Contact Group Plan;
6. That decisions be taken that would prevent and ensure an immediate
end to the strangulation of Sarajevo. As an integral part, these
measures should envisage the opening of the city along the north
communication route ( road and highway), by creating a demilitarized
belt , 2,5 kilometers wide, on both sides of these routes. In this
demilitarized belt, only the United Nations troops and police may
remain. Potential use of force against the strangulation of Sarajevo, as
is envisaged under Article 4, of the NATO decision of February 9, 1994.
Provided that the above conditions be fulfilled, and with a condition
that UNPROFOR continues to carry out its mission, the Government of the
Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina would be willing to accept a new,
modified formula for the problem of the arms embargo.
Namely, we would limit our demand for the lifting of the arms embargo
only to the adoption of formal decision, while its application, or its
consequences, would be deferred for another six months.
In this case, UNPROFOR troops could remain in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
the Contact Group would fulfill its promise, and a clear message would
be conveyed to Karadzic's Serbs.
At the end, we would also like to state our two commitments:
1. Our irrevocable objective is a democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina
within its internationally recognized borders, and with full ethnic,
religious and political rights for all its citizens. Within a such
Bosnia and Herzegovina as envisioned, the Serbs will have all rights up
to the highest level of autonomy, but they cannot have a state within a
state.
2. We consider that as all other nations, we have the unalienable right
to self-defense. Therefore, should for any reason, our compromising
proposal on the arms embargo be rejected, we will then seek from our
friends that this embargo be lifted immediately, and even unilaterally.
In closing this statement, I take this opportunity to express our
sincere gratitude to all friends of Bosnia who have supported its
struggle for survival and freedom.
I thank You, Mr. President.