Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Kosovo (SRSG)
Søren Jessen-Petersen’s address at the ‘Festival of Remembrance’
- Pristina, 6 March 2006 -
Mr President, General Ceku, Honoured members of the Jashari family, ladies and gentlemen.
Eight years on from the events in Prekaz of March 1998, they still have the power to shock. The pain and loss which those events signified are with us still. But we are eight years on and much has changed in Kosovo. So much that we can look ahead in the hope – in the belief – that never again will any family in Kosovo have to suffer for their ethnicity or for their beliefs.
Those of you who have gathered for today’s ceremony are part of this process – this building project. You have seen and learned the lessons of the past – painful lessons from a painful past. You know that there is a better blueprint for your society than hatred, intolerance and violence. That is the
message that the past has bequeathed to us.This year of all years is concerned with the future. In order to the build for the future it is necessary to look to the past for its lessons; but it is equally important not to become a hostage of that past – haunted by it. For Kosovo to normalise and stabilise, the future must be one where nobody should
worry about their ability to live, move, speak and worship in freedom and one where every person should have a role to play, a contribution to make and a benefit to gain.The past eight years have changed Kosovo fundamentally and the most profound of those changes is that its future is now in the hands of its people – all of its people. It is a change that I am sure the Jasharis would have been proud to see.
Thank you.