UN resolution calls upon to
unite efforts in fight against new challenges and threats
- Valery V.Nazarov
Ambassador of the Russian Federation, NEPAL
In less than a month we shall enter the year
of 2005 during which the whole mankind will observe and celebrate the 60th Anniversary of
the Great Victory over nazism and fascism in the World War II. This Victory went down in
history as the most important achievement of all peace and freedom-loving people of the
world including those in Germany, Japan, Italy and other then enemy countries, who
corageously fought for the right cause and did not allow their nations to be brought to
knees by the sinister forces of nazism and fascism.
The forthcoming 60th Anniversary of Victory
gives us a good reason to look back at the lessons of the Second World War. We know how
fascism emerged and how its aggressive policy developed. It's a bare fact that the way to
the Big ar was paved by invasion of the militarist Japan into China in 1931, aggression of
fascist Italy against Abyssinia in 1935, fascist revolt and civil war in Spain in
1936-1939, annexation by the Nazi Germany of Austria in 1938 and Czechoslovakia in 1938
and 1939. We should not forget that among the major factors of those dramatic
developments, the most tragic one was lack of mutual trust, understanding and cooperation
between such non-aggressive states as Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the United
States and some other countries which failed to form a collective security system, to curb
the aggressors and as a result were attacked by them one by one.
Only with the beginning in September 1939 of
the Second World War and especially after the German army's attack on the Soviet Union in
June 1941 the situation gradually changed and the anti-fascist coalition was eventually
formed. Today we know that only due to their joint efforts the freedom-loving nations have
succeeded in crushing nazism and fascism. That's why the forthcoming 60th Anniversary of
the Great Victory is truly an event shared by all the nations of he world including those
of the then enemy countries, since in 1945 the whole world was saved by the anti-fascist
coalition from the imminent danger of falling under the fascist slavery. We can't
underestimate the fact that the traditions of partnership and unity born during those hard
and difficult years help us today to take a common stand against the new threats we face
and strengthen our cooperation in the interests of stability and security in the world.
While thinking of the Great Victory we can't
forget that the Second World War was the bloodiest war in the history of mankind. Sixty
one nations took part in that war. In Europe alone more than 50 million people died in
action, were eliminated in concentration camps and as a result of bombings, indiscriminate
killings and otherwise. According to the available statistics, during the Second World War
the death toll was as follows: 229 000 Americans; 388 000 Britons; 365 000 Czechoslovaks;
410 000 Italians; 420 000 Hungarians; 460 000 Romanians; 600 000 French people; 2 000 000
Yugoslavs; 5 900 000 people of Poland; 6 000 000 Jews; and a lot of people of other
nations. Germany lost 6.5 million soldiers and civilians. I don't have reliable statistics
on China, Japan, Korea, Australia and other nations of Asia and the Pacific, but it is
known that the total losses there in the Second World War were at least 14 million human
lives.
The Soviet people including Russians for whom
the Second World War started with the invasion of the German army on June 22, 1941, and
from the very beginning turned into the Great Patriotic War in which the nation was
struggling literally for its existence, lost 27 million men, women and children out of 150
million of the whole population. It was the colossal cost we had to pay for the Victory.
And may I remind you in this connection that in the long run it was the Soviet Union and
the Red Army that dealt the decisive, crippling blow to nazism and fascism, reduced them
to ashes, determined the outcome of the war and finished it in Berlin.
Last but not least: on Nepalese participation
in the Second World War. It is a historical fact, that after the outbreak of the War,
Nepal sent a strong contingent of more than 2 hundred thousand soldiers to fight side by
side with the British. The courageous Gorkhali soldiers fought in that war in various
fronts in Malaya, Singapore, Burma, Egypt, Iraq, Libia, Tunisia, Abyssinia, Greece,
Cyprus, Italy, and so on showing bravery and gallantry. In that war at least 7500 Gorkhali
soldiers sacrificed their lives and 23600 soldiers were wounded. According to other data,
not less than 43000 soldiers from Nepal fell victims to the war
In 1945 nazism and fascism were defeated. But
we must not forget today that various inhuman ideologies and practices are still alive.
First of all it is an evil no less dangerous than fascism, that of international and local
terrorism, an evil that also sows death and destruction. It goes without saying that the
imperative mission of the entire world community today is to ensure these terrorists meet
with due rebuff and to free the world from the disastrous challenge.
The historic Victory in 1945 created
conditions for the establishment of the United Nations Organization, called upon to save
succeeding generations from the scourge of war. Just two weeks ago, on November 22, at the
initiative of Russia and a group of CIS countries, which a number of other states had also
joined, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted without vote a resolution
declaring May 8 and 9 (the days when the war in Europe ended in 1945) Remembrance and
Reconciliation Days. From now on these days will be marked annually as a tribute to the
memory of the victims of World War II. The resolution provides for holding in May 2005 a
special solemn meeting of the General Assembly. Looking to the future, the resolution of
the General Assembly calls upon all countries to unite efforts in the fight against new
challenges and threats, with the Organization playing a central role, and to do everything
possible to settle all disputes by peaceful means in accordance with the Charter of the
United Nations. The consensus adoption of this resolution bears out the vitally important
character of the Victory over fascism, which has become the common possession of humanity
and serves as a warning against a relapse of world wars in the future. |
