At the outset I wish to
express my congratulations to you, Sir, on your
election to the presidency of the General Assembly at
its sixtieth session. Rest assured that you have the full
support and cooperation of the Ukrainian delegation.
Let me also pay tribute to your predecessor, His
Excellency Mr. Jean Ping, for his tireless efforts in the
preparation of the world summit.
The world summit of 2005 has just come to its
conclusion. Its outcome document (resolution 60/1)
provides us with clear guidelines. It is our common
task to implement ambitious goals for building a safer
and more prosperous world.
In talking about implementation I wish to
emphasize two key elements indispensable for the
follow-up activities of the United Nations and, indeed,
for the success of the global peace endeavour. They are
credibility and democracy — or rather, credibility
based on democracy. We know that the way ahead is
beset with serious threats and challenges. We have to
make sure that a lack of unity is not among those
challenges. Every nation likes to sing its own song. It
takes our fundamental values and a great deal of
human wisdom to perform the role of a tuning fork in
the global chorus of so many different voices. The
credibility of the United Nations is indispensable if we
are to accomplish our missions in the new millennium.
Effectiveness, capacity, rapid response, financing for
development and all the rest of it will come along with
credibility.
Security Council reform is a vivid example of
how difficult it is to accommodate the interests of 191
nations. That reminds me of a joke about the
distribution of committee posts in the Ukrainian
Parliament. They say that we should have 450
committees — that is the number of members of
Parliament — in order to make everyone feel happy
and important. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to
apply a similar approach in the case of the Security
Council, since its powers exceed by far those of any
other United Nations body. The official position of
Ukraine on the matter is clearly reflected in the
statement made by President Yushchenko during the
summit (see A/60/PV.6). Ukraine highly appreciates
the job done by the experts who have explored the
various options for Security Council reform. We must
not abandon hope and should continue to seek
consensus.
Ukraine has fully supported the Secretary-
General’s bold initiative to reform the Organization
and has actively participated in that process. We
reiterate our support for strengthening the position of
the Secretary-General. In view of the forthcoming
election for Secretary-General in 2006 we would like
to remind representatives that throughout the 60-year
history of the United Nations it is only representatives
of our Eastern European regional group that have never
occupied that highest of posts. Therefore, we believe
that the Eastern European Group has priority in
nominating a candidate.
In building this statement around the words
“credibility” and “democracy”, I cannot but stress the
key function of the Organization, which is to maintain
international peace and security. The memory of
Rwanda, Srebrenica or, quite recently, Darfur should
lead us to look for urgent remedies. One of these could
lie in the “responsibility to protect” concept, which
Ukraine fully endorses. We must not remain passive
observers of genocide, crimes against humanity or
gross and flagrant violations of human rights, as
happened in 1932-1933 when Ukrainians experienced
the great famine with devastating effects. The horrible
memory of that man-made calamity lives on today in
every Ukrainian family, including my own. Twenty
thousand innocent souls a day, half a million a month,
10 million altogether were taken as part of the death
toll of Stalin’s favoured ethnic policy. The Ukrainian
Government will never tire until it makes the
international community abandon hypocrisy and finally
recognize that act of genocide against the Ukrainian
nation. It was therefore in earnest and with much hope
that Ukraine followed the deliberations on the new
concept.
Early warning, prevention and rapid response are
key to ensuring the success and durability of our
concerted action. An expert combination of diplomatic,
political and assistance tools should suffice to avert
future humanitarian disasters. But should such
measures fail to stop atrocities, the Security Council
must be ready to act swiftly and resolutely, including
with the use of force, as a final resort. I should like to
reiterate the position of Ukraine that, apart from self-
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defence as provided for in Article 51 of the Charter,
only the Security Council may legitimately take
decisions on the use of force.
Peace and stability go hand in hand with human
rights, the rule of law and freedom of the media. The
credibility of Governments rests on those fundamental
values. We were all aware of malfunctions in the
Commission on Human Rights. Poor mechanisms led
to poor results. The credibility of the entire
Organization was at stake. Therefore, Ukraine
welcomes the establishment of the Human Rights
Council. We firmly believe that this important
achievement of the Organization will be reflected in
the new Council’s future activities, not only in the
change of name. Likewise, Ukraine supports the
establishment of the United Nations Democracy Fund.
Another matter of significance that should
enhance the credibility of the United Nations is the
creation of the Peacebuilding Commission. It is evident
that conflict resolution always requires a complex
approach. The institutional gap between prevention,
settlement and post-conflict rehabilitation has finally to
be eliminated.
To save time at this late hour, I shall not mention
many areas of cooperation and many regions of the
world that genuinely require our undiminished
attention and action. Non-proliferation; hot and frozen
conflicts; AIDS; the fight against poverty; the Middle
East; and Iraq: most often these are issues of the
democracy of governance or the credibility of policies,
or both.
To conclude, let me recall the phenomenon of the
Orange Revolution in my country, for it was the
quintessence of what our Organization stands for. It
was not a one-time act. It is a process. It is not country-
specific, but is part of the global heritage of
democracy, an unselfish gift to all nations striving for
freedom around the globe.