Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
To have an honest look at today’s world is the reason why state leaders have convened here at the United Nations.
Together we must gain the understanding of the main thing: do we lead our countries and the mankind along the right path? We should answer this question for ourselves and our nations. Without that we have no chance to get out of the deadlock that we are in.
Fifteen
years have passed since the break-up of my country, the USSR. That event
dramatically changed the world order. The Soviet Union, despite
all mistakes and blunders of its leaders, was the source of hope and
support for many states and peoples. The Soviet Union provided for the
balance of the global system.
Today
the
world is unipolar with all the consequences stemming from this.
The
once prosperous Yugoslavia was devastated and disappeared from the map
of Europe.
The
long-suffering Afghanistan became a hotbed of conflicts and drugs
trafficking.
A
bloody slaughter in Iraq is continuing to the present day. The country
has turned into a source of instability for the vast region.
Iran
and North Korea, Columbia, Cuba and other states are looked at through
gun sights.
Belarus
is a nation just like the majority represented in this hall. Having
emerged from the debris of the Cold War, Belarus has managed to become a
state of advanced science and technology inhabited by ten million of
highly educated and tolerant people. The UN ranked us as a developed
country with a high level of human development.
Like
you, what we need from the world is peace and stability. Nothing
more. The rest we shall create ourselves through our own efforts.
My
country is free from conflicts. Different nations and nationalities
peacefully coexist in Belarus each practicing religions of their own and
having their own way of life.
We
do not cause any trouble for our neighbours, do not have any territorial
claims, do not try to influence their choice of the way of development.
We
gave up our nuclear arms and voluntarily relinquished the rights of a
nuclear successor to the USSR.
Today
we shall sign the Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear
Terrorism. We also declare that we have decided to sign the Additional
Protocol to the Agreement between the Republic of Belarus and the
International Atomic Energy Agency for the Application of Safeguards in
Connection with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
We
have established a lasting and successful union with Russia as our very
close neighbour.
We
build our country using our own wits and on the basis of our
own traditions.
But
it is obvious that this very choice of my people is not to
everyone’s pleasure. It doesn’t please those who strive to
rule the unipolar world.
Wonder
how?
If
there are no conflicts – they are invented.
If
there are no pretexts for intervention – imaginary ones are created.
To
this end a very convenient banner was chosen – democracy and human
rights. And not in their original sense of the rule of people and
personal dignity, but solely and exclusively in the
interpretation of the US leadership.
Has
the world really become so black-and-white, deprived of its
diversity of civilizations, multicoloured traditions and ways of life
meeting aspirations of people?
Of
course not! The simple thing is that it is a convenient pretext and an
instrument to control other countries.
Regrettably,
the United Nations, though it belongs to us all, allows itself to be
used as a tool of such policy. I am saying this with particular
bitterness and pain as President of the country that co-founded the UN,
after sacrificing the lives of one third of its people during the
Second World War for the sake of our own freedom and the freedom of
Europe and the entire world.
The
Human Rights Commission keeps mechanically stamping resolutions on
Belarus, Cuba and other countries. Attempts are being made to impose
such resolutions also on the UN General Assembly.
But
how can the United Nations be minding imaginary “problems”
while unable to see true disasters and catastrophes? Those which nobody
other than the UN as community of civilized nations can cope with?
Quite
recently, in the room next to ours we were shown maps and graphs
allegedly depicting weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Were those
weapons found?
They
do not exist. In the meantime, Iraq is bleeding, devastated, people
brought to utmost despair. Terrorists are threatening to use weapons of
mass destruction against cities in Europe and America.
Has
there been an open and independent trial under UN supervision of the
Guantanamo prisoners? How many of them are there and who are they?
Who
will defend the rights of the Abu Graib victims and punish all of their
torturers without exception?
Afghanistan
was destroyed with rockets and bombs under the pretext of finding Bin
Laden. Was the world’s "number one terrorist" captured?
Where is he now?
He
is at large, but Afghanistan and Iraq territories began to generate hundreds
and thousands of international terrorists.
Foreign
troops occupied the independent Afghanistan but the drugs production grew
ten-fold. Did those troops enter the country for this purpose?
Today,
Belarus, Tajikistan, Russia and other former Soviet states are literally
flooded with a wave of "traditional" drugs from Afghanistan
meeting a wave of previously unknown synthetic drugs from Europe.
The
leaders of the sovereign states of Yugoslavia and Iraq were put behind
bars on groundless, absurd and far-fetched accusations. This was a
very opportune way to conceal the truth about annihilation of their
countries.
The
trial of Milosevic was made into a caricature since long ago. Saddam
Hussein was abandoned to the winner’s mercy, like in barbarian times.
There is nobody to defend their rights except the UN, their states no
longer around, destroyed.
They
should be released to be able to defend freely their rights, honour and
human dignity.
AIDS
and other diseases are ravaging Africa and Asia.
Poverty
and deprivation have become a real and not a virtual weapon of
mass destruction, moreover - racially selective one.
Who
will be able to stop this?
Who
will insist that the United States of America put an end to its attempts
against Cuba and Venezuela? These countries will independently determine
their lives.
Trafficking
in persons has
become a flourishing business. Sexual slavery of women and children are
seen as a common thing, almost a norm of life. Who will protect them and
bring to justice consumers of “live commodity”?
How
can this disgrace to our civilization be done away with?
This,
in short, is the distressing account of the transition to the unipolar
world.
Was
it for that purpose that we established the United Nations?
Is
it not high time for the UN to put an end to internal corruption scandals
and get down in deed to address anguish and misery of the world?
The answer to this question, in our view, is very clear.
We
cannot bury our head in the sand like an ostrich.
In
the end, the UN is us.
Therefore,
it is up to us to take the destiny of the world in our own hands.
We
must realize that the unipolar world is a world with a single
track, a one-dimensional world.
We
must become aware that the diversity of ways to progress is an
enduring value of our civilization, the only one that can ensure
stability in this world.
The
freedom of choice of the way of development is the main precondition for a
democratic world order.
This is exactly what this Organization was established for.
I
do hope that the mighty of the world will understand this too.
Otherwise, the unipolar world will ultimately strike them back.
Great American Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, who stood
at the roots of the League of Nations and the United Nations, were
conscious of that.
Should
we agree between us on this principal point, then we would succeed in
implementing the principles of multipolarity, diversity and freedom of
choice both in reality and the UN documents that we must abide by. We
would protect the world from terrorism and the vulnerable, women and
children, from slavery. We would protect all those unprotected.
It
is then that the UN would become the organization of the genuinely united
nations. This, and not the numerical increase of the Security Council
membership, is precisely the core of the UN reform.
I
thank you.