Speeches, Remarks & Statements

Remarks on Human Rights Day, December 10, 2008 

Ambassador Philip T. Reeker
(as delivered)

To view a video clip, please click here.

Ambassador Reeker addresses the guests at the Law Faculty (WMV/size 24.8MB)

Thank you so much, Dean Davitkovski, the honorable rector and good afternoon to all of our distinguished guests.  It truly is a pleasure for me to be here today.  I came directly from a visit with my colleague, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Minister of Justice to a prison in Shutka.  It was part of our Human Rights Day exercises, and I must say it is far better to come back to the faculty of law after being at the prison, than the other way around.   Human Rights Day is indeed a chance for all of us to reflect on the progress we’ve made and how far we still have to go in protecting the rights of all people.  This year, as you heard, we also honor the 60^th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  I am very proud that the United States contributed to the process of development of that declaration through our own experience and our ideals under the leadership of Eleanor Roosevelt, one of the greatest Americans of her generation, and indeed a model for all of us.

The Universal Declaration is much more than a catalogue of rights - it is indeed a call to action.  It calls upon "every individual and every organ of society ... to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance..."  That is a tall order and yet a very worthy one.  It gives us all much work to do.

Our President- elect Barack Obama, in a well-known speech he delivered last March spoke of the United States’  “original sin,” slavery.  He talked about this openly, as an African-American, how slavery had marred the founding of our nation more than 230 years ago, and how we still work every day to overcome it.  Slavery was written into the American Constitution, “We the people, we hold these truths to be self-evident”; under our Constitution each slave counted as three-fifths of a white man.  Can you even imagine today, 2008, that we could have had such a thing?

Obama said, “And yet [the Constitution] would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle . . .  and always at great risk to speak out and to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.”

The key to understanding and respecting human rights in the 21^st century is exactly that-  how do we narrow the gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of our time?   As a nation, the United States has come a long way from when counting fractions of human beings would even be considered, but all people from all countries have room for improvement with regard to human rights, including the United States, including Macedonia.  President- elect Obama speaks of a “hunger for unity,” and I know it is one that we all feel.

At the U.S. Embassy here in Macedonia, we have a democracy commission—a board that gives small grants to NGOs who work to build democracy here in Macedonia.  We have supported human rights projects related to the right to vote safely and democratically, the right of education for the disabled, as well as training in inter-ethnic communication and many other programs.  In one project, for example, called “Youth for Human Rights,” a group of Macedonians educated 96 teachers and more than 2,400 students in Skopje about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which we celebrate today.  They stressed the important role that civil society plays in protecting the rights contained in that Declaration.

Yet today, this anniversary, this global day of human rights, is the day to ask:  what is the gap now, for Macedonia, between the promise of ideals and the reality of right now?  How can it be narrowed?

We all know that it is a basic right of all citizens of Macedonia to express their democratic will in a free and safe fashion, and to have their votes counted fairly and accurately.  There should be no tolerance for electoral violence, intimidation or irregularities.  The problematic June elections initially denied some of your citizens the right to vote in a safe environment.  There were electoral irregularities which denied many citizens the right to have their individual votes counted equally.  Macedonia must work to implement the recommendations offered in good faith by The Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (ODIHR/OSCE), of which of course the United States is also a member.  Those recommendations were offered following the June elections and can rectify electoral shortcomings ahead of the elections scheduled for March 2009 at the local level and as you elect a new president.  All citizens of Macedonia deserve and expect, free and fair elections in March.

All young people in Macedonia should have access to a good education and opportunities to use that education as a tool for improving themselves, their families, their communities and their country.  Macedonia’s classrooms should provide this to all, regardless of ethnicity or original language.   When we consider what the future of this country should and hopefully will be, and can be, it seems to me that segregation of students is not the foundation on which to build.   While the challenges in some communities are serious, ethnic segregation of students, where it exists, as in the United States, reinforces some of the problems and challenges we see at other levels of society.   In the United States, we have learned clearly-  a society that progresses beyond inter-ethnic tolerance to multi-ethnic integration starts with its youth.   Providing an integrated educational environment that gives the best possible education to every single student will be an investment in Macedonia’s future.  It will change all levels of society.

But if this is a day for stark assessments, it is also a day for celebration and for hope.  I want to commend Macedonia, personally and on behalf of the United States, for the crucial steps it has taken to protect some of its most vulnerable citizens and those in the region.  By successfully achieving what we call Tier 1 status in the State Department’s 2008 Trafficking in Persons report, Macedonia not only worked towards eliminating trafficking in persons, a modern day form of slavery, but also improved the overall capabilities for this country’s protection of human rights.  Legislative changes have resulted in stiffer penalties for crimes against women and children.  The development of improved social institutions and new standard operating procedures for victims of trafficking has contributed to better support and protection for victims of abuse in general.  The Public Prosecutor’s Organized Crime Unit has broken up and successfully prosecuted a number of high profile criminal networks in the last year, in part due to a heightened focus on training and international best practices.  We applaud Macedonia’s success and hope Macedonia will continue its progress in these areas.  Here you have narrowed the gap and we are proud to be a part of that process.

As I close, I’d like to turn to the work of an African-American writer whom Barack Obama himself read as a young man.  His name is James Baldwin and he said, “Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.” To deny someone else’s basic human rights is not only to cause an affliction but to be afflicted.  And it is time for the citizens of Macedonia, indeed, for all of us, to give up our crutches of saying what we cannot do.  On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will swear an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, the same constitution that originally would have made him three fifths of a white man.  He will be the 44^th president of the United States and the fact that he will be our president is a testament to the efforts of generations and decades of our civil rights movement. When he takes that oath of office, he will do so on the steps of the United States Capitol, at one end of the Mall in Washington D.C.  From the other end, 40 years ago, at the Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King gave his famous speech “I have a dream.”  And we are seeing 40 years later, after decades and generations of a great struggle, a great effort by many, that that dream is coming to reality.  Let me say to you that to make your dreams a reality requires constant attention, dedication and dialogue, and a focus on the dignity of each human person, your neighbor, your family member, your fellow citizen, in your country and around the world.  It requires a faith and a confidence in who you are and what your goals are.  So on this day of human rights, I ask each of you students, faculty, distinguished guests, to think clearly about what you will, along with your friends and your partners, what you will do to move Macedonia forward.

Thank you very much.