September 27, 1999

54th Session UNGA

General debate

JANEZ DRNOVSEK, Prime Minister of Slovenia, said that at the threshold of the new millennium there were signs of progress and reasons for hope, but world peace seemed elusive. All over the world, millions of civilians were

victims of well- planned and systematic policies of killing, displacement, destruction of property and intimidation. East Timor and Kosovo were only two examples of contemporary armed conflicts, which today tended to take place within State borders rather than between previously established States. To make matters worse, he said, a new type of war was developing in which civilians were the primary strategic target. Ethnic cleansing, massacres and a "horrifying variety" of war crimes had become methods for achieving political, economic and military goals. Ethnic, religious national and social inequalities were frequently used as a smoke screen to hide the reality of massacre and conquest from the rest of the world.

He said Member States must think long and hard about ways in which the international community reacted to threats against human rights. "Our basic aim has to be human security", he said. New methods of conflict prevention should be explored. Preventive diplomacy, preventive deployment, preventive disarmament and post-conflict peace-building were the orders of the day. The changing nature of modern conflict also required change in the Security Council as it discharged its responsibility to maintain peace.

There was a growing gap in the existing norms of human rights law and common situations on the ground, he said. In order to ensure those norms and stop the frequent open violations of human rights, determined and united activity by the international community was needed. Those who committed war crimes must be brought to justice. Failure to do so could invite new and even more serious cycles of human tragedy. Slovenia placed major importance on more effective and efficient means of delivering international justice, he stressed. It supported the two existing United Nations International Criminal Tribunals, as well as the ongoing process to make the International Criminal Court permanent. On the specific issue of

physical security, he said that the United Nations Member States and the international community as a whole must continue to promote efforts to strengthen the prohibition of landmines. Last year, Slovenia had established an International Trust Fund for Demeaning and Mine Victims

Assistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Its aim had been to assist that region in getting rid of hidden landmines and to help those that had been wounded by them. The International Trust Fund had achieved many positive

results in it first year and was now extending its activities to Kosovo.