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NEW YORK, September 22 (FENA) - Chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Željko Komšić spoke today during the general debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly about the challenges of the pandemic, climate change and political challenges in our country.
The theme of this year's debate "Building resilience through hope—to recover from COVID-19, rebuild sustainably, respond to the needs of the planet, respect the rights of people, and revitalize the United Nations", as Komšić said, addresses many current issues but they really represent key challenges which will affect our future path as a global society. He added that this applies to both international politics and our individual policies in the countries we come from.
“The success of our common aspirations will therefore depend on our determination to insist on the common values we have chosen to protect,” Komšić emphasized.
The Covid-19 pandemic, he added, has been an important message and lesson to us how the existing international system can be easily shaken, but also how important is the resilience of international institutions based on multilateralism and their resilience to be able to respond to crisis situations.
“Climate change, he added, has long been not a matter of warning of the scientific community but a crisis situation that is already there. Responding to climate change will cost us a lot, but it will cost even more if we do not take the need to accelerate climate change mitigation activities seriously. This is an obligation we have taken on because the scenario of survival of the human population with the limitation of the growth of temperature is a value that we must defend at all costs. We did not choose that value, it chose us,” stated Komšić.
“I believe that in the long run, this necessary response will cost the most underdeveloped and developing countries, which still rely on energy obtained from fossil fuels. As a rule, these groups of countries do not have enough capacity or resources to make a quick and fair transition to green energy sources,” Komšić added.
He stated that one of the consequences of the slowdown in sustainable development that we are facing is the outflow of the working age population to developed countries. According to available statistics, almost 10 percent of the population has emigrated from Bosnia and Herzegovina since the last census. Mostly young people and young families with children.
“That is why I want to draw attention here, that in addition to the well-known wave of economic migrants from Central East Asia and North Africa, which my country also faced trying to provide humanitarian aid, food and accommodation, we are also facing an outflow of population which will further burden our society with social problems,” said Komšić.
He stated that people from BiH go for better job and life opportunities, but also in search of security in organized societies based on active promotion and protection of human rights values.
“For this very reason, as the next great value, I emphasize the protection of human rights. That value that we have decided to establish already with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In Europe, we also have the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which is being implemented under the auspices of the Council of Europe, and in the European Union, effectively since 2009, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union,” said Komšić.
Recently, according to him, it seems that the values of human rights have been shaken, that they are applied selectively, and that they are approached according to double standards.
“I would like to emphasize here, in front of you, that I come from a country that was considered a successful example of peace, but also peacekeeping and institution building in the context of the United Nations mandate. The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina is part of an international peace agreement known as the Dayton Peace Agreement. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms are also an integral part of our Constitution. However, in the last few years, our society has been under increasing pressure to degrade basic human, civil, rights and eliminate the individual, the citizen, as a subject of human rights,” Komšić added.
He stressed that the complex system of institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina based on the Dayton Peace Agreement makes it difficult to reach a political consensus "that would move my country from the Dayton Peace Agreement that stopped the war, to a functioning state with the prospect of becoming a member of the European Union and NATO but in a way that accepts all the values dictated by democracy, the rule of law and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms."
Komšić said that one of the international courts, i.e. the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, in its five judgments against Bosnia and Herzegovina, established the existence of systemic discrimination or systemic inequality of citizens in the country.
In addition, according to him, "through diplomatic activities of various actors, additional discrimination on ethnic grounds is sought, in order to create an atmosphere for self-determination within these ethnic communities, with the ultimate goal of dissolution or disintegration of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the annexation of parts of its territories to neighboring countries."
That, Komšić said, encourages inequality in human rights, completely devaluing and ignoring the provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These same factors completely negate the judgments of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, which in its verdicts established genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing or even the existence of joint criminal enterprises which also established that all these most heinous crimes were committed on the basis of different ethnicities of the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, denying one of fundamental human rights from the Universal Declaration, and that is the right to life.
Komšić claims that the elimination of impunity for war crimes requires an answer to the question of how to treat the factors that negate the courts formed by the UN, because certain policies, on the one hand, seek to invade the constitutional and legal system of the state, while on the other hand abuse the principles of universal jurisdictions for political purposes.
All these tendencies are based on the visible neglect of human rights, behind which are their politically very dangerous goals, which daily destabilize the region of the Western Balkans.
That is why Komšić said that he expects new High Representative Christian Schmidt to take into account the need to protect international legal acts and their fundamental values.
“With all the differences of political views within Bosnia and Herzegovina, and even the international community represented through the Peace Implementation Council in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which assists the High Representative, I believe that the only guide to further political development of my country as a pledge to preserve peace and its future must be human rights. All its people, regardless of their identity, ethnicity, religious affiliation or absence, must have the same rights. Otherwise, we will end up with an "Orwellian society" in which it is accepted that some are, after all, more important than others, and this always jeopardizes the stability of one society and undermines peace and security. From this place, I call on the United Nations institutions to insist on the values of human rights protection in every segment of their activities,” Komšić pointed out.
(FENA) A. B.
