delivered on 10 December 2003
at the City Hall Pristina
UNMIK/PR/1081
Mr. President, Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today is International Human Rights day. I am glad of that because today is also an important day for Kosovo, the day when the Prime Minister and I are launching "Standards for Kosovo".
The announcement of a review date for a decision on final status has opened a new chapter. Now it is time for us to write that chapter.
Our task, together, is to prepare Kosovo for final status. There is now a date for a decision, but there is nothing inevitable about that decision. That decision depends on what is said and done here in Kosovo, because there s only one route to final status. And that is through progress on standards.
For the first time, the document "Standards for Kosovo" sets out point-by-point what the standards mean. Here, in ten pages, is described in detail a society where people of all communities are respected, whatever their ethnic background, where they are free to travel, work and use their own languages, where the institutions of government serve all the people, in all of Kosovo, without discrimination, and where there is fair justice and security for everybody. Ask me what this means in reality, and it is described here.
It means that all communities are recruited into the police and the Kosovo Protection Corps. It means that official signs and documents must appear in all official languages. It means economic progress for everyone in Kosovo, without discrimination. It means that all those who want to return to Kosovo are able and encouraged to do so.
What we are launching just now is a document without an introduction. We have not yet been able to agree on the introductory text. We shall continue our efforts to fight an acceptable wording.
I want to say a word now about representatives of the Kosovo Serb community. I am sorry that they could not join us here today. I am sure though that they will continue their work with UNMIK and as part of the government to improve the living conditions for their community. Their work with us is an essential part of what the standards process is all about.
It is easy to say what the standards mean. It is harder to reach them.
Kosovo has made enormous progress over the last four years. It is a more peaceful place; there is less violence. The government, led by Bajram Rexhepi, comprises all communities and is tackling the problems that Kosovo faces.
But the standards are not yet achieved. To achieve them means change.
Change will only come about if we work together. UNMIK and the government need to work more closely in partnership. The Prime Minister and I have agreed to start up a joint process to make policy to achieve these standards. Later this morning, he and I will chair the first joint meeting of the government and UNMIK. And we will get to work. Our first task will be to produce a joint plan to implement these standards.
But change is not just about the government and UNMIK, documents and implementation plans. If standards are seen as just another exercise by the bureaucrats and diplomats in Pristina, we will have failed. Because the creation of a just and tolerant society is a task for all the people of Kosovo.
In a sense, this document represents a choice. Work for the standards, and the goal is within reach of a democratic, prosperous and lawful Kosovo, a peaceful place for all its communities, in a stable relationship with its neighbours. Reject the standards, and the nightmare of an intolerant and chauvinistic province, dominated by the criminal and the corrupt, comes closer. Achieve the standards, and the international community will in due course make the necessary decisions to consider Kosovo's final status. Fail them, and Kosovo will remain stuck, backward, left behind perhaps for decades to come.
I cannot change the attitudes of people in the towns and villages of Kosovo. This is not my place and it is not my custom to dictate. It is for the leaders and people of Kosovo to make this choice. I have not been here long, but I know already that good people here, whatever their ethnic background, reject hatred and intolerance, criminality and extremism. This document is for them. I am confident that they will make the right choice.