SLOVENIA ALONGSIDE THE USA AMONG THE COUNTRIES COMMITTED TO THE PROTECTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Toast by President Milan Kucan on the occasion of the visit by the President of the USA William Jefferson Clinton

Brdo by Kranj, 21 June 1999




Mr. President, Mrs. Clinton, Madam Secretary Albright,
Distinguished guests, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

I am greatly honored and pleased to be able to greet you this evening on behalf of the country of Slovenia and all of our people. It is my profound desire that you will sense the sincere goodwill, from myself and from all of us, as well as our friendship and respect for you, for your work and for the people of the United States. I trust that you will also sense the gratitude to yourself and the members of your administration for the understanding and support that you have given and demonstrated towards Slovenia.

Your visit here, Mr. President, just before Slovenia's own National Day, is especially symbolic for us. It is also of paramount importance for our country and its future. Indeed, your visit has a solid foundation in the history of relations between our two countries.

In formulating the American Declaration of Independence, President Thomas Jefferson himself relied heavily on the historic ceremony performed by our Slovenian ancestors, in which the Carantanian prince was democratically enthroned a thousand years ago on Gosposvetsko polje.

Back in June of 1919 President Woodrow Wilson met with a delegation of the then Slovenian provincial government. He searched for an answer to the question of how to settle the political situation in Central Europe and the Balkans after the First World War. The founding of an independent Slovenian state was one of the possible options. Indeed he had great respect for the right of nations to self-determination, and he gave due consideration to the social and cultural differences between the Slovenians as a Central European nation and the Balkan nations. And although the European decision in favor of the state of Yugoslavia later prevailed, President Wilson remained skeptical and did not foresee a long future for this state.

In a special way, Slovenia has encountered the USA through the more than one hundred thousand Slovenian men and women, who together with many other European immigrants helped to create the spiritual and material image of present-day America. And many of them stand as great personalities, including the writer Louis Adamich – a personal friend of President Roosevelt – Bishop Friderik Baraga, the astronaut Ronald Sega, commander of the Pacific Fleet Ronald Zlatoper, and outstanding members of Congress and the Senate. These inspiring people are and were good citizens of the USA, yet we are happy that they have cherised the roots of their Slovenian homeland.

The United States and Slovenia were also allies during the Second World War. At that time, the Slovenian partisan units, which were host to an American military mission, operated in extremely difficult conditions to rescue several hundred American and other Allied airmen who parachuted to safety from their stricken craft. The memory of this action is kept alive through continued, genuine contacts between those involved.

Mr. President,
Three times this century the United States has provided decisive assistance to the nations of Europe in protecting democracy. In the past, Presidents Wilson and Roosevelt, and now you, Mr. President, have taken upon yourselves, in your deep democratic conviction, a great responsibility for the destiny of European peace and democracy. All three of these experiences speak to us of the importance of the Euro-Atlantic alliance. Moreover, events in south-eastern Europe now arouse the hope that humankind will choose, as the value above all other values, human dignity and basic human rights, and that it will regard the protection of this value, wherever it is threatened by systematic mass aggression, as its own moral and mutual duty. I am convinced that the international law of the future will be established on this principle, and we consider ourselves honored, Mr. President, to stand alongside the USA as one of the countries that is committed to defend and implement this value.

Mr. President,
I would like to believe that in the short time of your stay here with us, you have become convinced of the firm foundations of Slovenian-American cooperation; and also that the independent country of Slovenia has fulfilled the expectations of the democratic world. We know from our own experience that freedom is the only realistic basis for peace, and for respect of the unique value of each human life. “Who saves one human life, saves the world entire,” goes the Jewish proverb, and the same holds true for our world. In this belief and through our actions to fulfill it, we wish to enter the new millennium together with all other democratic countries.

May I now raise my glass to success in your work, to your happiness, to the happiness of Mrs. Clinton, to the prosperity, wisdom and principles pursued by the United States, to your approaching Independence Day celebration, and to the firm friendship between America and Slovenia, to our cooperation for peace and humanity in the world.