UN General Assembly
2001

reforms are needed to achieve this, in order for the United Nations to become this? We cannot wait with the answers. I am also speaking from the experience of Slovenia, which I represent. In gaining independence 10 years ago, we experienced brief but serious violence on our own territory. In our immediate vicinity, South- Eastern Europe, we were faced with one of the most barbaric policies since the Second World War, a policy responsible for genocide and other forms of widespread violence. With independence, Slovenia stepped into a world that is prepared to behave better than the self- enclosed world that the former Yugoslavia had become in the final years of its life, when the equality of rights of people and nations was violated and when hope for a 12 different future was denied. We have stepped onto the path of freedom, and Slovenia has accepted its own share of the responsibility for our global world. I believe that this global world will tend toward a dynamic balance, provided that States — large and