SECRETARY-GENERAL RETURNING TO NEW YORK AFTER DAY OF EVENTS IN PARIS, FOLLOWING VISITS TO NORTH AFRICA AND UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Press Release
SG/T/2163
SECRETARY-GENERAL RETURNING TO NEW YORK AFTER DAY OF EVENTS IN PARIS, FOLLOWING VISITS TO NORTH AFRICA AND UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
19981209 Address to French National Assembly; Human Rights Meeting at UNESCO; Press Conference with Prime Minister; Speech at Amnesty Petition Ceremony(Received from a spokesman travelling with the Secretary-General.)
Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Paris from Abu Dhabi in the early hours of yesterday, Tuesday, 8 December. Later in the day, he addressed the National Assembly on the occasion of the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. He was welcomed by Laurent Fabius, President of the Assembly.
In his speech, the Secretary-General said the United Nations had a privileged relationship with Parliamentarians who directly represented the people. He said that further thought needed to be given to the raison d'être of the Organization in the new world order. At the political level, the United Nations could play a balancing role, as it showed recently in the Iraqi crisis, until a truly collective security system was put in place. The Secretary-General insisted that all military intervention by the international community must be subject to Security Council approval. (For text of speech, see Press Release SG/SM/6823.)
Late in the afternoon, he participated in the closing ceremony of a meeting in Paris organized by the French Republic and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) -- "Human rights at the eve of the 21st century". He attended with Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, the Director-General of UNESCO, Federico Mayor, and the President of the Inter-ministerial Mission for the Celebration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Robert Badinter.
Addressing the meeting, the Secretary-General said the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration gave the United Nations its inspiration and its guidance. "It is a mirror", he said, "that reflects how far we have come and how long we have yet to go. It is a mirror that, at once, flatters us and shames us, that bears witness to a record of progress for part of humanity,
while revealing a history of horrors for others. Above all, it teaches the United Nations that without human rights, no peace and no prosperity will last".
Mr. Annan stressed that human rights were now included in a growing number of peacekeeping and peacemaking operations, "because we know that in post-conflict societies, reconstruction begins with human rights". He also said that human rights were increasingly emphasized in United Nations development activities, "not only because there is a right to development, but because lasting and genuine development cannot take root in the absence of human rights". The Secretary-General added, "Many thought, no doubt, that the horrors of the Second World War -- the camps, the cruelty, the exterminations, the Holocaust -- could never happen again. And yet they have. In Cambodia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Rwanda. Our time, this decade even, has shown us that man's capacity for evil knows no limits. Genocide is now a word of our time too, a stark and haunting reminder of why our vigilance must be eternal". (For text of the Secretary-General's address see Press Release SG/SM/6825-HR/4391 of 8 December.)
After the closing ceremony, the Secretary-General and Prime Minister Jospin gave a press conference. The Secretary-General then went to the Palais de Chaillot to receive from Pierre Sané, Secretary-General of Amnesty International, a book representing 10 million signatures in favour of human rights. Accepting the petitions, the Secretary-General made a statement in which he paid tribute to human rights defenders around the world. "These exceptionally brave people", he said, "lawyers, reporters, trade unionists, ordinary men and women who risk their freedom or even their lives to promote and uphold the rights of us all. We owe it to them, these defenders of our freedom, to do all we can to defend theirs". (For text of statement see press Release SG/SM/6826 of 8 December 1998.)
Early today, the Secretary-General met with François Hollande, Secretary-General of the French Socialist Party. They discussed the programme of the Fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations reform and Franco-African cooperation following the Franco-African Summit.
Completing his recent round of visits to France, North Africa and the United Arab Emirates, the Secretary-General departed Paris for New York later this morning (Paris time).
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