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Security Council

Fifty-fourth year

ethnic cleansing continued. Only after military intervention took place did diplomacy succeed. Only once the obstacles to peace were convinced to stop the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina did we in fact achieve peace.

Even the peace process in Bosnia and Herzegovina was endangered by the continuing escalation of the war and the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Radicalism, nationalism and ethnic cleansing were once again gaining the upper hand in our region. These unfortunate events were a real threat, and were a real concern to us in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Nonetheless, I think that we should remember that today’s military steps place many lives in danger. We pray for the safety of those who are now intervening to bring about an acceptance of peace. We pray for the innocent Kosovar Albanians, who are already endangered by Belgrade’s military campaign and who are fleeing their homes. And we pray for the overwhelmingly innocent Serbian population.

We recall that, even as today’s dramatic events unfolded, the Belgrade regime took final steps to shut down all remnants of the free media and to bring internal repression to a new height against Serbs, Albanians, Hungarians, Montenegrans and Bosniacs alike. But we cannot ignore the fact that today’s military action also brings greater immediate physical risk to all the people in Serbia. We hope that the military action will be short-lived and that by some miracle the current leadership in Belgrade will come to its senses.

I would like members to recall that to cement peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina we invited the international military Stabilization Force (SFOR) onto our sovereign territory. I am not certain why Belgrade fears these international peacekeepers on its own soil while we in Bosnia and Herzegovina have welcomed them. We too are a sovereign State — by the way, a State that has offered its own forces to help maintain the peace in Kosovo. When I say its own forces, I mean forces both from Republika Srpska and from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Is it that there is a difference in motivation and desired result in the two capitals? We have opted for peace.

Pompous pride and nationalist stubbornness are not the answer. The key, the options for peace, do not lie in New York or in Washington or in Brussels but, in fact, in Belgrade and in Serbia. We hope that this message gets back to them.

Mr. Türk (Slovenia): My delegation has listened very carefully to this important discussion relating to a subject which is not an easy one for any among us, and we heard the categorical words uttered by some concerning the question of the use of force by States. It is true that sometimes force is used without an explicit basis in Security Council resolutions. This is not a new phenomenon. It may be different from the kind of perfect world which we would all like to have, but it is a part of reality.

I would like to refer to only one historical example. In 1971, in Asia, a State Member of the United Nations used force in a situation of extreme necessity. That was a case of the use of force without the authorization of the Security Council and without reference to legitimate self-defence. Nevertheless, the situation of necessity was very widely understood in the international community. I think that the historical lessons that can be drawn from that example should not be completely ignored today.

I would also like to say something about Security Council resolutions: resolutions 1199 (1998) and 1203 (1998), which are applicable law in the case discussed today. The situation in Kosovo is defined by the Security Council as a threat to international peace and security in the region. This defines that situation as something other than a matter which is essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of a State. In other words, Article 2, paragraph 7, of the Charter clearly does not apply.

Of course, resolutions 1199 (1998) and 1203 (1998) could be clearer, and one might have hoped that such resolutions would develop more completely the responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security. Those of us who participated in the drafting of those resolutions know very well that the original draft texts were intended to do precisely that, and that, because of differences of views among permanent members, it was not possible to provide in those resolutions a sufficiently complete framework to allow for the entire range of measures that might be necessary to address the situation in Kosovo with success. That is another example of an imperfect world.

I would like to make one more point by way of conclusion. The responsibility of the Security Council for international peace and security is a primary responsibility; it is not an exclusive responsibility. It very much depends on the Security Council, and on its ability to develop 19