YouSaid · the spoken record

Donika Gërvalla-Schwarz

lines on the record
13
first
2021-04-13
most recent
2021-04-13
sittings or episodes
1
sources
un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “We want it to calm down, to open up, to start making friends in the region. It should identify war criminals and bring them to justice, cooperate with the United Nations and us in finding the mass graves of those who remain missing, fight fascism in their country, stop playing games and come to the table and talk seriously. Then we might find a historic solution not only to our bilateral problems but also in terms of reconciliation in the Balkans in general. We on our part remain open, despite all the harm Serbia did to our people, to extend a hand, to talk and to recognize each other. Let us begin a new era.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  2. “We are a tiny but very special country. We are small, but we are standing tall. We have a lot of reliable friends, and we on our part are reliable. My own father, a dissident, an intellectual, a writer, a musician and a journalist, was assassinated by the Belgrade regime, on foreign soil, in Germany, where we had fled from the brutality of that regime. I tell my children that this is not about the Serbs in general and that one has to make the distinction. Serbia has to make that distinction, too. The world knows, and most of its adversaries even know, that the independence of the Republic of Kosovo is a done deal. The earlier Serbia accepts that reality, the quicker it can move from its dark past into a bright future. Serbia is a still dangerous neighbouring country, and not only for Kosovo.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  3. “We are convinced that once Serbia recognizes the facts, if it addresses its dangerous history of aggression and destabilization of the region, if it stops aggressively interfering in the affairs of its neighbouring countries, from Bosnia to Montenegro to Kosovo, it has the potential to normalize its behaviour and thus become a normal country that its neighbours do not have to consider to be a ticking time bomb. Once Serbia has achieved that, it will move from being the greatest threat to peace and stability in the region to a perhaps complicated but no longer risky partner. We as a neighbouring country have every interest in normalizing our relationship with Serbia. We have an interest in a European-minded, not a backward- minded Serbia. We have an interest in an open dialogue about our common past and, hopefully, our common future.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  4. “Serbia should confront its past, free itself from its genocidal roots and try to become a truly civilized, European country. Serbia has locked itself in the past — a dark past. It was a medieval kind of thinking, staying in the dark and staying in the past, within too many of the Serb elites that drove Serbia to racism and finally fascism and genocide in the 1990s. It was exactly 80 years ago today that Nazi Germany started to bomb Belgrade and committed genocide against the Serbs, the Jews and others, including the Albanian people, who stood up against fascism. Let me ask in all openness: what is it that makes victims of genocide and fascism commit genocide themselves, ending in fascism, and not even face their responsibility in the aftermath?”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  5. “Serbia is doing all that, and it is not even admitting that the greatest crimes against humanity committed on European soil after Nazi Germany were committed in the name of Greater Serbia just in recent decades. Serb leaders still praise war criminals and refuse to fully cooperate with international United Nations bodies; alleged war criminals are even still sitting in Parliament. All those blatant violations of most basic norms of the United Nations, and, moreover, of humanity, are not things about which you can say, “Just get over it”. This is about the basic values of humanity, and this is about our country, which will never, ever get under the command and control of those who committed those atrocities and do not even acknowledge it. Serbia has to acknowledge and accept that it has to pay a price for its murderous atrocities.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  6. “Most of the perpetrators who committed those unspeakable crimes, which caused more than 15,000 deaths in just a few months in our tiny country, are still alive. They are enjoying their life in Serbia and elsewhere and are even celebrated often for those atrocities. To put that in perspective, imagine the figures if they applied to your own countries. That number of victims would amount to more than 1.2 million Russians killed in Russia in just one year. It would mean 2.6 million Americans killed in America in a year. It would mean more than 11.6 million Chinese murdered in China in just one year. The world is watching and seeing that only a few of those war criminals are being seriously prosecuted, in many cases in show trials, and just cleared of any guilt.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  7. “Again and again, they request to know and ask nothing else than to be told where their children are. They are aware that they have to expect the worst. But it should not be an issue at all to tell those mothers where their children were buried after they were assassinated. So our question is: why is it that Serbia seems incapable of showing some empathy for mothers looking for the remains of their children? It is important to note that we are not talking about events that took place in the nineteenth century here. We are not talking about the brutal, outrageous and unspeakable war crimes committed during the First World War or the Second World War in the Balkans, Europe and in many other places on our globe. What we are talking about here is living memory. Most of the victims who survived are still alive.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  8. “The current UNMIK report, touches, quite far down, on a topic that ranks among the top five priorities in our country. Every one of us has here a mother — my American colleague, my Serbian counterpart, my Norwegian colleague, my Russian counterpart, literally everybody. I am a mother myself, and a proud one, too. There is nothing, literally nothing on earth, that is more painful, more horrific and in a true sense unbearable than losing a child. I would like to invite you to read and to listen to the group of mothers known as “The mothers of Gjakova”. Those brave women, who lost their innocent children to a merciless and murderous campaign waged by the Serb regime, are filled with sorrow and in pain. But they are standing tall; for many, many years they have not given up.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  9. “Our newly elected Vice-President of the Parliament of Kosovo, when she was only 13 years old, survived a wilful massacre carried out by Serb forces against civilians in which her mother, her grandmother, two of her younger brothers and other relatives were murdered. That innocent girl was found with 16 gunshot wounds and barely survived. One of the new members of our Parliament who received the most votes from the people was raped by Serb soldiers when she was only 16. She had the courage to overcome the painful burden of talking about those crimes in public. She gives a voice to all the 20,000 victims of rape, and she is widely admired for carrying that burden. None of the Serb rapists in all those cases has been held accountable so far.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  10. “On the contrary, we are eager to enter into substantial, serious talks even with those who are responsible for most of the conflicts and even the genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo in recent decades. In this new Government of the Republic of Kosovo, you will find courageous, open-minded, internationally experienced people who do not shy away from addressing even painful issues in order to find a solution. We are open, we are proud, and we are not afraid of anything or anyone. We are in favour of reconciliation, even though many of our people have had horrifying encounters with Serbia. The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo was tried as a student in a political show trial by the authoritarian Serb regime and subsequently terribly mistreated in jail for more than two years.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  11. “Now the people have entrusted us with that historic change, and we are committed to delivering. Kosovo continues to be committed to the path of integration into the European Union and NATO, as you might easily determine from the flags behind me. For many a great joy, for some a concern, we are also looking to become a Member of the United Nations at a certain point in future. We extend our hand to everybody of good faith, since all of us are bound together in a common fate on our tiny and fragile planet. With our cultural heritage of more than 3,000 years, we are, along with the Greeks, one of the two most ancient cultures in Europe. Our tiny but very special country is not afraid.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  12. “We will refer to details of the report later, but it is important to understand the qualities of the new Government and its approach. It goes without saying that Kosovo, like all countries, is still fighting the pandemic. But at the same time, we are preparing measures for the implementation of that new era, dealing with a wide range of issues in a way that will enable us to leave a corrupt era behind and transform ourselves into a real state based on the rule of law. Pressing issues range from justice reform to investment and jobs, foreign investment and the rule of law instead of corruption, in a young, vibrant, European- minded country. We fought for those changes for many years, within parties, in non- governmental organizations or as private citizens.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source

  13. “The period covered by the current United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) report (S/2021/332) ends just a week before the new Government of the Republic of Kosovo was elected by a new Parliament, following a historic election. For the first time in any Balkan country to date, the majority of the people voted to free themselves from corruption and crime. The Republic of Kosovo is entering a new era. We are on a journey to fulfil the will and the requests of our people, namely, to make our young country a fully recognized and respected member of the family of nations where the rule of law, democracy and a fair chance for everyone is the law of the land. As the Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, I therefore take the liberty of addressing you in all openness.”

    2021-04-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/2021/370 (2021) · source