I would like to greet the
General Assembly and to confess how deeply moved
I feel to be here. For those who have never spoken in
the Assembly Hall, it remains a place of extraordinary
fascination and appeal. For those who have become
accustomed to being in such halls, they may consider
it as something already seen and experienced. For
someone like me, who is in the Hall for the first time
today, the emotion is overwhelming to find oneself in
the place where there is a sense of still being able to
build a horizon of human rights, respect, freedom and
peace. I feel the emotion of the future in a place where
a great Secretary-General, Mr. Dag Hammarskj.ld, had
the strength, the vision and the intuition to design a
different world. For those, like us, who grew up with that
model, the statement “For all that has been — thanks.
For all that shall be — yes”, which Dag Hammarskj.ld
wrote in his diary, the United Nations was something
more than a political programme, it was the very idea
of a definition of politics.
Yet today, the future appears threatening. The
future is frightening. The future is no longer promising.
We want to believe that it is possible to return to the
idea of tomorrow. It is the dream of the United Nations
to return to the goal of preserving future generations
from the horrors of war. Today, however, we must
have the courage also to say, when looking back at the
history of the Organization, that the errors of the past
cannot be erased. The year 2015 is the year in which we
will recall the twentieth anniversary of what happened
in Srebrenica, when international institutions remained
silent before one of the worst massacres and genocides
that still today finds no justification. That is why we
need to repeat in this Hall today that it is time for
politics to return to finding a definition of a future of
hope.
My generation grew up hearing that history had
ended, that the century that had just passed was a short
century in which we had already seen everything. But
history has not ended, the century we have left behind us
was not short, and today, we must say that the political
way is the only way to prevent the bloodletting that
is causing so much grief in the Mediterranean, in the
Middle East, in Ukraine and in many regions of Africa.
Because of its central location, Italy has the will and
the need to play a greater role in the Mediterranean. Italy,
whose gift to the world is the image of the city and the
public square — in the sense of an open gathering place
for the community — cannot be silent when confronted
with the transformation of the Mediterranean, which
should be the heart of Europe and the public square for
discussion and confrontation, but has all too often been
transformed into a cemetery.
I take the floor today one year after the Italian
Government launched an important operation called
Mare Nostrum. Thanks to that operation, I can stand
before the Assembly and say that the men and women
of the Italian Coast Guard and volunteer services have
saved 80,000 human lives, 80,000 people who could
become doctors, musicians, workers, 80,000 people
who were pulled from the Mediterranean as if from a
cemetery, thanks to an operation that we take pride in
but that cannot be left only to Italy today. We need to
say forcefully that intervention in the Mediterranean
area is a strategic intervention for the international
community that cannot only be left to a single force.
In saying that, we need to add that the priority
for that area today is Libya and our friends, the
Libyan people, who are suffering through a time of
transition that seems never to end. We are committed
not to underestimate a hot spot in the midst of the
Mediterranean that could reach a point of no return in
a spiral of violence and instability in the region. Italy
will continue to do its part, but we must emphasize
with decisiveness and intensity in this prestigious
forum that the risk of a gradual fragmentation of
Libya and the negative consequences that that would
trigger for the entire North African region would be
catastrophic for peace and stability in the entire region.
We are committed to supporting a strong and stable
Libya, and we will continue to work with the Special
Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya
through our embassy, which is still open, but we want
to say with great determination that the situation in
Libya must be a priority for all.
Another priority, especially for those today who
are preparing for a discussion on the terrorist threat in
the Middle East and elsewhere, is to be aware that the
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as was said
yesterday with great force, is not just a terrorist threat
to a specific region, but a risk for the entire community
of men and women who would call themselves human.
We are not dealing with a form of religious expression.
Religions can both fuel the fires of a conflict and
provide water to heal wounds. We believe that ISIL and
the threat it represents are not connected in the slightest
way with a conflict of religions.
At the same time, we say forcefully that those of
us who had the duty — or the good fortune, if I may
speak provocatively — to visit a refugee camp, as I
did in the second half of August in Erbil, Kurdistan, in
Iraq, will realize that we cannot be unresponsive to the
dismayed faces of so many victims of fanaticism. To see
an international aid worker who shows you images on
her cellphone of children who were executed, who were
lined up against a wall and shot; to hear stories about
young women taken to barracks in the centre of Mosul
and forced, in silence and powerlessness, to satisfy
all the desires of violent terrorists; to think of what is
happening to journalists and hostages — requires us
to say what must be said. A genocide is under way,
and in the face of such activities, we know that only a
unified international community can win this battle of
civilization against evil. That is why I said yesterday
to President Obama that the international coalition can
count on Italy’s support to eliminate the threat posed
by ISIL, and I continue to insist on the fact that the
commitment of our country in every region and in
every area of the region will be resolute and, I hope,
decisive.
Italy has contributed and will continue to contribute
in Lebanon, through our soldiers and their commitment
to supporting the United Nations peacekeeping mission
deployed in the south of Lebanon. I would take this
opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to those
women and men who, from Lebanon to Afghanistan,
wear the uniform of our country to make a concrete
commitment to ensuring stability and peace. But at
the same time, I know, we know, that there will be
no peace in the region until what a great prophet of
Italian political thought, Giorgio La Pira, called the
“peace of the children of Abraham” has brought an
end to the unresolved conflict between the Israelis and
Palestinians.
We will never tire of seeking peace for Jerusalem,
and a ceasefire in Gaza will be consolidated and
respected only if we all recognize the two-State
solution and the right of the Palestinian people to
finally have a homeland. As I have said before and I
repeat here, it is not only a right but a duty for Israel
to exist — for the sake of history, memory, innovation,
democracy, freedom, of which the Israeli people give
constant proof. The entire international community
must support that process. Those words must be clearly
heard in this Hall, where someone once dared to call
into question the very right of Israel to exist.
It is dialogue and politics that can prevent a return
to the dialectics of the cold war. We had thought that
those times were behind us, but now the tensions on
the eastern borders of Ukraine risk are jeopardizing
the greatest achievement of the European integration
process — a continent of peace and stability. Never
before had there been such a long period of peace as the
one we are experiencing today in Europe.
But the crisis in Ukraine has forced us to confront
unexpected challenges. I believe that there is a
connection between two fundamental principles — the
right of the Ukrainian people to have the territorial
unity of their country recognized in the face of acts of
aggression that have violated its integrity, and at the
same time, I hope that we can overcome the tensions
with the Russian Federation, which will, I hope, return
to playing its role as a global stakeholder so needed by
the international community.
A great expert in politics from the Italian
Renaissance, Niccolò Macchiavelli, wrote, “To know
how to recognize an opportunity in war and take is
of greater benefit than anything else”. Macchiavelli’s
words helps us understand in this moment that the Minsk
Agreement is a great opportunity in the war under way
in Ukraine. We must seize this opportunity for the
people of Ukraine and the international community.
Dialogue and reconciliation are indispensable
tools in the Sudan, Somalia and in the Central African
region. They are the strong point of our community as
it faces newly emerging difficulties, starting with the
Ebola virus and its dramatic humanitarian, social and
economic consequences. Italy is doing its part and will
continue to do so, following the Secretary-General’s
leadership and inspiration, whom I thank for his prompt
action.
But I should also emphasize that political solutions
are the only way forward for the year 2015, although
they are often marked by complex, difficult challenges.
Problems to be solved include the challenge of achieving
new global governance of the Internet, as the President
of Brazil mentioned yesterday (see A/69/PV.6), and
the challenge of finally making a major investment
in gender equality, so that we no longer consider it
newsworthy when a woman takes on a position of
responsibility. I am very proud to say that for the first
time in its history, women make up more than half of
my Government. I am happy and pleased to say that we
will never fall short in our commitment to leadership
roles for women, but above all we will fight to ensure
that young women can be free in developing countries
and nations facing especially difficult situations.
I cannot emphasize strongly enough that 2015 will
be a very important year in the fight against religious
discrimination. Every religious minority has the right
to be defended. Never before have so many Christians
been killed in regions around the world because of their
faith, and never before has one of the genuine tragedies
of our times been so badly underestimated. Within the
international community it is especially vital that we
forcefully affirm the values of equality, respect and
tolerance, which are of special relevance for us in Italy
when talking about the death penalty. That is why this
new session of the General Assembly coincides with
the presentation of a new draft resolution on abolishing
capital punishment. I hope that the number of countries
supporting it will continue to grow.
I would like to say that I am especially excited to
be able to speak about that on behalf of Italy, which
has always fought at both the governmental and the
non-governmental levels to make that issue a priority.
Earlier in my career, I was mayor of the city of Florence,
which was the first place in history to abolish the death
penalty. A herald descended the steps of the Palazzo
Vecchio to announce that in that State, the Grand
Duchy, the death penalty had been abolished. Let us
not pile more barbarous acts on other ones. I ask every
State to join us in this battle for civilization.
The year 2015 will also be an important one for
the Expo in Milan and the United Nations Climate
Change Conference in Paris, which we discussed two
days ago, and for actions that remind us of the need
for a turning point, such as in the debate over Security
Council reform. We all believe that the Council must
be made more effective, representative, transparent
and accountable to the members of the international
community. But opinions on how to achieve that goal
still differ. In order to bring the various reform models
closer together, the Uniting for Consensus group, to
which my country belongs, continues to maintain that
creating new permanent members would imperil that
goal, and I reiterate our willingness to find compromise
solutions.
I believe that it is crucial that all those challenges
be seen as subsumed within the greatest challenge of
them all, one in which we must all be on the front lines.
There can be no peace, no freedom, no respect until
the international community puts at the centre of its
strategy a gigantic, grand investment into education,
schools, universities, going from house to house,
village to village, piazza to piazza. We say that the
most powerful weapon in affirming the values of peace
and freedom is the weapon of education, of culture,
of human capital, of investment in people and in the
stories and freedoms of individual women and men.
That is why I believe that, while we are living in
difficult times, we are also living in a time when we
must, as former Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld
put it, say yes to the future. He also said, “We are not
permitted to choose the frame of our destiny. But what
we put into it is ours”. We are not permitted to choose
the frame of our destiny. We are living in a time of
threats and problems. Yet what we can put into it is
entirely ours. Within this frame of our destiny we can
once again inspire others with the values of education,
freedom and peace, so long as we are stay true to our
history and hopeful for our future.