UN General Assembly
2002

﻿I would like to congratulate my friend Mr. Jan Kavan on his election to the presidency of the General Assembly and to wish him success. I also thank the Secretary-General for his leadership and his dedication to right what is wrong and to light the lamps of hope. The eleventh of September gave rise to a new world. We find ourselves facing a new confrontation: borderless, merciless, indiscriminate and inhumane. The target this time was the United States — a United States that in the past helped so many nations defend their freedoms and their liberty. Now the United States has been challenged again to defend our freedom by protecting its own and to safeguard our lives by securing its own. The attack on the World Trade Center precipitated a new division in our epoch and in the years to come — a divide created by groups that preach and cause death and agony. On the wrong side of the divide are those who are trying to destroy the free world, which is diversified and heterogeneous, cherishing the right to