Statement by First Deputy Permanent Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy at UN Security Council on NATO aggression against Yugoslavia
Before the procedural vote:
Mr.President,
It is the second time that we see the delegation of France try to manipulate and block, on far-fetched pretexts, a Russia-requested meeting dedicated to the 25th anniversary of NATO aggression against Yugoslavia.
At the outset, let me remind everyone that last time our French colleagues said that we had not asked for Serbia’s opinion on that matter. That was despite the fact that Acting Prime Minister Dačić was present in this Chamber. He had come all the way from Serbia to take part in the meeting. So France, while speaking on camera, was deliberately misleading everyone.
But let us leave this to the conscience of our French colleagues. Anyways, this lie will remain in the meeting’s record forever.
On 25 March, the French delegation, as well as the British and American delegations, claimed that we had allegedly failed to consult with other UNSC members. Again, that is not true, because the expert discussion did take place as it always does. However, in order to not let our colleagues say on whatever pretext that we never asked, yesterday we raised this issue under AOB of closed consultations. The turnout of the heads of Permanent Missions was extremely low, which clearly demonstrates their real interest in resolving the problem they have created. All we heard from our French colleagues (and continue to hear today) was a repeated point that NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia is a matter of distant past that is not worth spending the Council’s time on.
Simply speaking, we clearly saw today once again that France, Great Britain, and the United States do not want the Security Council to discuss the very inconvenient issue of NATO’s aggression against a sovereign state, this time Yugoslavia.
Colleagues, this is clear to everyone. No need to hide behind the unconvincing argument about the allegedly "purely historical nature" of this issue. The situation in Kosovo and the way in which UNSC resolution 1244 is being implemented, or rather not implemented, is under active consideration by the Security Council. There is an objective reason for this: the situation in the Province is rapidly deteriorating because our Western colleagues have in fact given the so-called Kosovo authorities a "carte blanche" to commit whatever atrocities against the Serb population. Western countries themselves are flagrantly violating that resolution. As recently as yesterday, March 27, the Committee on Political Affairs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe recommended that Kosovo be invited to become a member of CoE, despite the fact that United Nations Security Council resolution 1244 confirms Kosovo as part of a sovereign state and a member of the United Nations, namely Serbia.
Colleagues, do you think this already should be considered the past, which the UN Security Council should not discuss? Or did these decisions of the Council of Europe, (which contradict the UNSC resolution and inherit from the West's monstrous destructive line in the Balkans) become part of "history" in your understanding as soon as they were adopted? Just as NATO ignored the Security Council in 1999 by launching an illegitimate aggression against sovereign Yugoslavia, today its members go for whatever tricks to prevent the truth about their crimes from being heard in the Security Council Chamber.
Let me ask the Permanent Representative of France. Don’t you consider the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, which is in fact the same age as the United Nations, to be a "matter of history"? For you, the Six-Day War and the events of 1973, as well as the Council's resolutions of those years had no influence on the context of UNSC discussion on this topic, had they? In light of the US statements about the non-binding nature of UNSC decisions, we wouldn’t be surprised if you said there was no influence.
I think everyone here is eager to know from what moment in time, according to your classification, a subject on UNSC agenda becomes a matter of the past. Or do you demand that any case that is inconvenient for France and its NATO allies be automatically recognized obsolete? Behind all this, there is a real reason for your anxiety. Back then, no one from NATO leadership had been held accountable for the aggression. So now you are simply afraid that this issue will rise again. That is why you engage in verbal and procedural ploy to prevent this discussion in the UN Security Council. And today is a good occasion to remind about the responsibility of politicians of NATO states, because exactly 25 years ago, on March 28, 1999, the US President after a meeting with the leadership of Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy confirmed the permission to intensify military strikes against Yugoslavia. This was followed by more than two more months of NATO bombings, as a result of which more than 2,000 civilians were killed and more than 12,000 injured.
Against this backdrop, all your attempts to hide behind UNSC procedure look twice as hypocritical. We have already repeatedly explained our position on the fact that on 25 March the Japanese Presidency put to a procedural vote the issue, which did not constitute the essence of the disagreement. We also regret that, by acting in this way, the Presidency assigned to itself a purely technical role, while it certainly has a political responsibility in scheduling meetings.
I would also like to note that on 25 March, France, the United Kingdom and the United States challenged our choice of traditional agenda item that is directly related to the Council's mandate, “threats to international peace and security”. I gather that today you are putting to a vote another item that we have proposed – “maintenance of international peace and security”. I think one can hardly say that the situation in Kosovo, the root cause of which was NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia, has nothing to do with international peace and security. I urge non-permanent members of the Security Council to think what it would make you look if you did not support the Council's discussion on this item.
Thank you.
Right of reply:
Mr.President,
I wanted to thank my American colleague, who got too anxious for some reason, for illustrating that our Western colleagues can dig into history to no limit, but only as long as they have such needs. Otherwise they are not going to do so. .
Thank you.
After the procedural vote:
Mr.President,
First of all, I would like to thank all those who supported us in the voting today. We have become more numerous, which means that our position is finally being heard. In addition, I cannot fail to note that today's vote confirmed the point that we have been raising in the context of UN Security Council reform. Western countries are clearly overrepresented in the Council. There can be no better illustration of this than our today’s situation.
We regret that the Council, at the behest of the Western troika, has been drawn into an extremely unseemly situation. In fact, the Council has just refused to discuss agenda item "maintenance of international peace and security". It actually means that the members of the Security Council have refused to fulfill their mandate. This is an extremely serious blow to the reputation of this body. France, the United Kingdom and the United States have sacrificed the Council’s reputation for their own self-interest. They needed to prevent by all means the discussion at this platform of the illegitimate NATO aggression against the sovereign State of Yugoslavia.
But I must disappoint you. You can block one or even two UN Security Council meetings through procedural manipulation. Only this will not help to erase the consequences of your destructive actions: thousands of dead and maimed civilians, territories poisoned with depleted uranium, an explosive increase in the number of cancer diseases that will haunt the next 60 generations of the Balkan population, and an unabated hot spot in the center of Europe created by NATO's hands that threatens to explode again at any moment.
In this connection, I would like to quote former US Senator and incumbent US President J.Biden as he spoke in Congress back in 1999. “I was suggesting we bomb Belgrade. I was suggesting that we send American pilots in to blow up all the bridges on the Drina. I was suggesting we take out oil supplies. I was suggesting very specific action”.
Colleagues, I hope you realize that the more you try to hide the unflattering truth, the wider it spreads. In these days, the whole world has seen with their own eyes that you fear like fire even a hint of open discussion of your illegitimate aggressions against sovereign countries, which have been plenty in the past two decades. After Yugoslavia, you invaded Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, leaving a trail of death and destruction everywhere. And if you have managed to avoid talking about this topic in the Security Council so far, do not expect that you will be able to avoid responsibility for your actions just as easily.
Thank you.
