On his journey from Greece to England, Baron Michael Bates, member of the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom and member of the British Parliament, visited today Montenegrin Olympic Committee. In his conversation with the President of MOC, Dušan Simonović, Baron Bates explained the aim of this campaign to draw attention of the public and Governments of the UN members to the Resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, that calls for respect of Olympic Truce. According to him, it is not nenough to sign the Resolution but to implement it too. “If we succeed to have peace during the Olympic Games, it means that we might have it forever.” President Simonović said that the mission of Baron Bates carries lots of Olympism messages, having in mind that it is greatest global idea, greater than sport and competition itself. Nowadays, when business and money are taking over, and as fopr sports, race for the bigger number of medals, it is really important to constantly remind of oldfashioned and basic postulates, such as meaning of friendship, respect, culture, education and fair play. The Olympic movement is constantly making efforts to use sport as instrument for promotion of peace, dialogue and truce in conflicted areas. For the first time, UN Assembly in 1993 called for global truce during the Olympic Games in its Resolution, but connection between sport and peace has ancient tradition. Olympic Truce, in antique Greece known as “ekcheiria”, was respected by the entire Greek world of that time. According to this tradition, during the Olympic Games all wars and violence would stop in order to provide athletes and viewers safe trip to Olympia, even if they roads lead through states that were involved in wars at the time.
