SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN BRAZIL, MEETS WITH PRESIDENT CARDOSO, STAFF OF UN SYSTEM

Press Release
SG/T/2028

SECRETARY-GENERAL, IN BRAZIL, MEETS WITH PRESIDENT CARDOSO, STAFF OF UN SYSTEM

BRASILIA, 1 March -- At 10 a.m. on Friday, 1 March, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali arrived at the World Health Organization building in Brasilia. Upon arrival, the Secretary-General was greeted by the heads of the different agencies and programmes of the United Nations system in Brazil who, together with Cesar A. Miguel, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Brazil and Coordinator of United Nations activities in that country, escorted the Secretary-General to the building's auditorium.

At 10:15 a.m., the Secretary-General addressed the staff members of the United Nations system in Brazil. This was followed by a question-and-answer session.

At 11:30 a.m., the Secretary-General and Mrs. Boutros-Ghali were seen off at the Brasilian Air Force Base by the Chief of Protocol of the Government of Brazil, Ambassador Frederico Araujo; the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations, Celso Luiz Nunes Amorim; and Mrs. Celso Amorim, as well as by senior officials of the Ministry of External Relations and personnel of the UNDP in Brazil.

The Secretary-General and Mrs. Boutros-Ghali will spend the weekend in Mexico privately, before the start of his official visit to that country, on Monday, 4 March.

On Thursday, 29 February, at 10:30 a.m., the Secretary General arrived at the Presidential building in Brasilia, Planalto Palace, where, in the course of an official arrival ceremony in his honour, the Secretary-General reviewed an honour guard and was greeted by the President of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. After the hoisting of the United Nations and the Brazilian flags and a 21-gun salute, the Secretary-General and President Cardoso met for half an hour in the President's office.

President Cardoso was accompanied by the Foreign Minister of Brazil, Luiz Felipe Palmeira Lampreia; Ambassador Celso Amorim; and the Special Adviser to President Cardoso, Ambassador Gelson Fonsecca. The Secretary- General's party included Assistant Secretary-General Rosario Green, Special

Adviser to the Secretary-General; Under-Secretary-General Gert Rosenthal, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean (ECLAC); Assistant-Secretary-General Fernando Zumbado, Assistant Administrator of the UNDP and Regional Director for Latin American and the Caribbean; and Mr. Miguel.

The Secretary-General and President Cardoso discussed the situation in the Middle East, stressing the need to support the peace efforts of Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and the President of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat.

President Cardoso told the Secretary-General there were positive developments in the border dispute between Peru and Ecuador and that an agreement appeared within reach. The Secretary-General outlined the latest developments in the peace process in Guatemala.

The President and the Secretary-General reviewed a number of topics related to development, including Agenda for Development, follow-up activities to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio, 1992), and the increasingly important role of non-governmental organizations in the international arena. The Secretary-General affirmed that the continuum of international conferences held after Rio had kept the issues alive and encouraged the energetic participation of civil society. President Cardoso endorsed the convening of international conferences, and recalled Brazil's proposal to hold a conference in 1997 on development globalization. They also discussed cooperation between the United Nations and the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in an effort to promote development in third world countries.

Before leaving the Presidential Palace, President Cardoso and the Secretary-General witnessed a brief ceremony during which a UNDP programme for the protection of tropical forest was signed between the UNDP and the Government of Brazil. This programme, which resulted from an agreement between Brazil and the Group of Seven, postulates a need to reconcile economic and social aims with environmental objectives in the use of tropical forests.

At 11:45 a.m., the Secretary-General visited the Brazilian Congress where he paid a courtesy call on Jose Sarney, former President of Brazil and the current President of the Senate. This was followed, at 12:05 p.m., by a meeting with Luis Eduardo Magalhaes, President of the Chamber of Deputies. During both meetings with the leaders of the Brazilian Congress, the Secretary-General discussed questions of mutual interest, including the increasingly important role that world parliamentarians have in shaping domestic and foreign policies.

At 12:30 p.m., the Secretary-General met with the President of the Federal Supreme Court, Jose Carlos Moreira Alves. They reviewed activities of

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the recently created International Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, as well as the work of the International Court of Justice and yesterday's election in New York of Gonzalo Parra-Aranguren, of Venezuela, to the World Court.

At 1 p.m., the Secretary-General attended a working lunch in his honour, hosted by Foreign Minister Lampreia, at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Itamaraty Palace.

At 3 p.m., the Secretary-General addressed students from the Rio Branco Institute, a centre for advanced diplomatic studies in the Foreign Affairs Ministry (see Press Release SG/SM/5902, of 29 February). A question-and- answer period followed.

At 4 p.m. and also at Itamaraty Palace, the Secretary-General and Foreign Minister Lampreia participated in a 45-minute press conference with local, national and international correspondents.

At 8:30 p.m. in the Alvorada Palace, the President and Mrs. Cardoso hosted a dinner in honour of the Secretary-General and Mrs. Boutros-Ghali.

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