Building on the theme of this year’s session of the General Assembly. “Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: Accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and the sustainability for all”, from this important rostrum, allow me to talk about vital elements from the point of view of the small but proud State of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
For its part. Bosnia and Herzegovina has given support to the 2030 Agenda, especially its Goals, which are fully related to creating a world and an environment among United Nations members so that we as States and our societies can train and prepare ourselves to implement all the steps that can lead us to self-sustainable development. However, in today’s world, often dominated by war and various geopolitical goals, that will be very difficult to achieve, at least in the way it was planned in the 2030 Agenda. For that reason. I want to emphasize that our first step should be one that leads us to enduring peace. That is the world’s first priority. From there we can move to other mutually connected actions that can prepare our countries and societies for solidarity and progress. Those actions are by no means easy, and they require a great deal of wisdom, planning and good management of all the processes and procedures that can help us implement the 2030 Agenda.
If we start with the theme of this year’s session of the General Assembly, which talks about building trust and encouraging global solidarity. I would like to point out in a few sentences the elements that could possibly make achieving those goals difficult.
At the outset. I take this opportunity to remind the Assembly that migration is one of the elements that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is attempting to address systematically and through the implementation of specific governance. Although the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
recognizes migrants as agents of change and enablers for development in countries of origin, transit and destination, the Agenda primarily focuses on the migrant as a beneficiary of the ends of sustainable development, e.g. through greater protections, rights and transparency. Furthermore, the Agenda does not make reference to the broader concept of diasporas or to the role that they do and can play in development. That statement, taken from the document entitled Migration in the 2030 Agenda of the International Organization for Migration, is certainly true, but when it comes to the starting point of migration, that is. the situation on the ground in certain countries, we see several things that are undeniably happening.
The current form of migration management has reached a stage in which large and powerful countries, for their own benefit, are carrying out a certain type of selection of migrants in such a way as to select the best and most educated among them, such as doctors, engineers, scientists and other highly qualified persons, and are ushering them to larger countries where their knowledge and abilities are exploited exclusively for the benefit of those larger systems. In larger countries and larger systems, such selected migrants can be agents of change or bearers of various improvements, but at the same time the potential and capacities of the smaller countries from which the migrants are coming from are being weakened. Small countries, in addition to losing their most qualified personnel, are also losing all the investments they have made, including financial investments, in creating those highly qualified profiles.
Of course, it is completely clear that there is a form of migration in which large groups of people are trying to escape war and the horrors of war. but there is also what we call economic migration through which migrants are being directed based on their potential and capacities. In both cases of migration, large countries and their larger systems are the ones that are doing the selection and choosing the best profiles of migrants, in line with their needs and aspirations, while, at the same time, the systemic weakening of the small countries from which the migrants come from is taking place. What do I mean by that? In short, it is difficult to talk about building trust while larger countries and their large systems are taking over the population of smaller countries through migration and simultaneously the smaller countries are emptying out. resulting in the creation of an environment in which poverty develops and any form of economic or social development is completely prevented. Therefore, the possibility of creating the prerequisites for self-sustainable development in smaller countries is under attack.
From the point of view of my country. Bosnia and Herzegovina, it is very easy to provide additional arguments and proof confirming that situation. In my country, there is a significant outflow of the population going to larger and more developed countries, mostly to countries we view as Western democratic countries. While investigating why our people, the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, decide to leave their country and seek better living conditions in other countries, we came to the conclusion that the fundamental reason for their departure is their belief that there is a lack of prospects in Bosnia and Herzegovina. When we considered what our people referred to in terms of the basic shortcomings with regard to the prospects in Bosnia and Herzegovina, we saw that it was specifically the fact that the country’s political system is not a complete democracy, but rather a form of ethnocracy or a system in which elections for Government institutions, the exercise of power and the distribution of jobs in the State, even in the real sector, are primarily based on membership of a particular ethnicity as a prerequisite. In such a system, one usually does not have the best people in key positions — people who. with their knowledge and abilities, can build a political, economic and social system in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example. On the contrary, you have ethnically and politically suitable staff who can hardly be expected to lead the overall progress of the country. That value system has been in place for a very long time. In such a system, the key jobs are not performed by the best and most qualified people, but by the politically and ethnically suitable ones.
The current political system in Bosnia and Herzegovina, based exclusively on ethnic and then on political affiliation, completely degrades democracy as an important principle for creating an environment with equal opportunities for all people. Such a system, which guarantees participation in Government to certain political actors and their ethnically based political parties, has the form of former and current totalitarian systems, in which power is exercised in an autocratic manner through autocratically inspired political actors. As a result of that unfinished political system, the development of the country is slow, and such politics obstruct what, in my opinion, is one of the key goals of my country — its path to membership
in larger supranational systems, such as the European Union or NATO.
The irremovability or particularly difficult replaceability of the authorities creates such an environment where even the authorities themselves no longer work for the benefit of their citizens, because they feel that there is no need to do so. The distribution of political and social power is already guaranteed to them in advance by the system itself, a system based on ethnicity.
Our current political system is skilfully used by our Eastern and Western neighbours and by ethnic communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to which they claim national rights. They are running Bosnia and Herzegovina not with the primary aim of helping the members of those ethnic communities, but with the aim of dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina or making it meaningless as a State. Our two neighbours, through the ethnic communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to which they strive to claim every right, even 27 years after the aggression they carried out over Bosnia and Herzegovina, are in that manner attacking the sovereignty of our country, which makes it almost impossible to develop the democracy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That practice also violates the minimum of inter-State trust because, unfortunately, our neighbours are not sincerely investing energy with the goal of building inter-State cooperation but are rather investing energy in weakening our State. One can see that this a problem, and it extends to the entire region of the Western Balkans, where there are different ideas, plans and intentions to change the internationally recognized borders and to reorganize the region into something that has no connection with democracy.
For such activities and policies, neighbouring countries very often have, at first glance, surprising and unexpected support from countries that we consider to be democratic liberal States and societies, but certainly also from those that are not democratic and that we recognize today as aggressor States with authoritarian regimes. Regretfully, there are many, both in the East and the West, who believe that their barely hidden support for those who want to completely control and ultimately divide Bosnia and Herzegovina will bring stability to the Western Balkans. We. who represent the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the United Nations, believe that this will not bring about stability or progress in the Western Balkans. Our neighbours cannot divide Bosnia and Herzegovina among themselves without entering into mutual conflict. We will certainly not allow the division and disappearance of our thousand-year-old State at any cost no matter what anyone thinks about it.
That is why we believe that it is in the interest of the United Nations, if peace is to be preserved in the Western Balkans, to support the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its institutions. If the United Nations wishes to preserve peace in the Western Balkans, then it should support those who have not violated democratic and civilizational norms, have not committed genocide, were not part of joint criminal enterprises, did not destroy people’s lives due to their ethnicity, did not destroy other people’s temples or shrines and did not advocate revanchism or revenge. If such support is absent, then the responsibility and blame for destabilization does not lie with us. who will certainly not calmly and idly observe a new attempt to destroy our Bosnia and Herzegovina.
However, the fundamental problem of Bosnia and Herzegovina lies in the inequality of citizens within the political and electoral system, the result of which is a system of ethnic governance in the country, a system that is destined to be conflictual. in itself.
In addition, the ethnic system of exercising power in my country continuously creates space for nepotism and corruption in all segments of society, especially in Government institutions. As a consequence of the ethnic system of exercising power, we have nepotism in the selection of people to perform the most important political and economic jobs. The ethnic political system in my country generates and encourages nepotism and corruption the most, and nepotism and corruption are the elements that are most harmful to social cohesion and trust within a society.
That is why. for decades, we have not been able to create a society of equals and. with that, a society of equal opportunities, because employment through family connections and corruption pertaining to the most important positions make one lose hope in positive future prospects.
In that connection, allow me to ask an important question — how is it possible to build and achieve trust that will lead to achieving prerequisites for development when we do not actually have enough democracy in our country, when our right to democracy is being taken away and when an embargo to democracy is being imposed upon us. thus generating great uncertainty
among citizens and often prompting them to leave the country?
The latest interventions of the international representatives of Bosnia and Herzegovina, such as that of the High Representative, through legal violence and the suspension of the entity Constitution for 24 hours, which is an inconceivable precedent in the democratic world, did not remove obstacles to the normal functioning of the State, but rather strengthened the undemocratic ethnic principle and deepened the discrimination of citizens in the Constitution and the electoral law.
Democracy is the most important segment for building trust, both in our countries and globally. In order to create the prerequisites for self-sustainable development, it is very important that transitions in societies from former totalitarian, autocratic systems to systems based on full democracy end as soon as possible.
We therefore expect the support of actors from the international community, even though they occasionally resort to undemocratic tools for their own interests, like completely denying the possibility of developing democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Of course, we are fully aware that there are a number of United Nations Member States whose history and historical context make them uninterested in democracy and its development. On the other hand, some indicators tell us that over two thirds of the Member States are oriented towards democracy and its development. My point of view is therefore oriented in that direction.
I wish to add another important element that is indispensable in building trust for self-sustainable development — creating a system of full human rights, which ultimately offers a society of equality among people and citizens and. therefore, of equal opportunities, with possibilities for everyone.
Without a system of equals, it will be difficult to build trust in such a system, especially in a still postwar society, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina. That is particularly true, considering that our society has suffered aggression from our western and eastern neighbouring countries, a direct consequence of which were atrocious war crimes and even the crime of genocide.
Such scenarios for Bosnia and Herzegovina continue to be implemented, through political means this time, in times of peace, while continuously asking for support from various parts of the international community.
At the same time, regardless of the aforementioned scenarios, our obligation is to create internal prerequisites for building a society of equal people and equal citizens as one of the basic tools that will enable us to avoid future conflicts. Contained within the judgments of the eminent courts that deal with the protection of human rights, such as the European Court of Human Rights, there is a valuable resource for building a stable society in which the risk of internal conflict is reduced to a minimum. But those judgments also take away an effective mechanism for violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina from the hands of potentially aggressive politics of the neighbouring countries.
In short, that means that we. in Bosnia and Herzegovina, will have to change the entire societal paradigm and shift from ethnic political representation to civic political representation, which is the standard in the democratic world.
We must use this opportunity to draw the attention of the United Nations to something that, in my opinion — and I am sorry to say this — is the very uncivilized stance of the Government and the Prime Minister of our neighbouring country, which have rejected the latest judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Kovacevic case and have defended the very principles rejected in said judgment, such as the political principle of legitimate representation based on ethnicity, which is a generator of inequality among the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina and a means by which the neighbours undermine the State of Bosnia and Herzegovina. That was done in such a way that it could be qualified as interference in the internal affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Disregard for the judgments of international courts, as voiced by the Prime Minister of a neighbouring country, is reminiscent of the attitudes towards international law that Vladimir Putin has adopted in the case of Ukraine.
However, this is not only about having a negative attitude towards the international standards of the United Nations, but also about a neighbour-led policy towards Bosnia and Herzegovina. Only when civic political representation is accepted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, through the implementation of the
judgments of the European Court of Human Rights and when, in parallel, the neighbourhood attacks on the sovereignty of the country stop — only then will we be able to participate in projects, such as the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in our full capacity and more efficiently as an equal participant and actor of all planned activities.
When that time comes, we. as a country, will be ready and equipped to take on all challenges related to self-sustainable development, to build our mutual social trust as a society of equals and to be an active participant in building trust on a global level. I believe everyone shares my opinion that, in societies dominated by inequality, one cannot be a meaningful participant in promoting ideas of self-sustainable development through building trust and global solidarity for all.
First, we must reform our society so that it can understand the importance of solidarity for everyone, with a system that provides full equality and offers solidarity towards others on an equal footing.
In the conclusion of this address. I would like to emphasize that Bosnia and Herzegovina will actively work on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We will work on building trust and solidarity for all. By rejecting the discriminatory ethnic concept, we are simultaneously rejecting a system dominated by nepotism and corruption and thus bring our society into the ranks of democratic and mature societies. Then we will become a society and a country that can actively participate in world processes, based on the fundamental principles on which the current world order and what we call the international community. The transition process of our society can and should be relatively short, because the equality of all people is the basic premise of every modern democratic society. In that respect we count on the support of that part of the international community that can help us to that end. I am aware of the existence of other parts of the international community, which for their own geopolitical reasons will offer resistance in order to keep Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entire region of the Western Balkans in a continuous state of destabilization and tension. Such people do not want democracy, but rather ethnocracy, disorder and violence.
Lastly. I can say with certainty that Bosnia and Herzegovina has become a place in which democracy and its values are defended. And there are only two sides in that regard — one that is in favour of democracy and its values and the other that is opposed to democracy because its goal is the establishment of autocratic systems that are undemocratic in character.