TRANSCRIPTS OF TWO PRESS CONFERENCES BY SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN AT HEADQUARTERS, 23 APRIL

Press Release
SG/SM/6966

TRANSCRIPTS OF TWO PRESS CONFERENCES BY SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN AT HEADQUARTERS, 23 APRIL

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: As you know, Gus Speth will be leaving the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) this summer to take up a post at Yale University. He said, when he accepted a second term, that he would only stay for two years, arguing that six years would be enough for him to complete the task he has set himself. And he has splendidly fulfilled his pledge.

For six years, Gus has been one of the United Nations' most effective and articulate leaders. He has advanced a vision of development that is both sustainable and centred on the real-life experience of human beings, and he has worked tirelessly to translate his concept into concrete and concerted action, especially in Africa.

He has also made an invaluable contribution to the success of my reform programme. Not only has he ably reshaped and revitalized the UNDP itself; he has also got the new United Nations Development Group off to a flying start and he has ensured that those reforms fed into the work of the United Nations system, contributing to greater unity of action where it counts most: at the level of individual countries. I have relied heavily on him to move the reform forward and my confidence has clearly been shared by donor governments, 13 of which have pledged to increase their contributions to UNDP this year.

We are all going to miss him very badly. In paying him this tribute, I wish Gus Speth great success in his future endeavours, and Yale is very lucky to have him.

In looking for a successor to Gus, I had three main criteria in mind. I wanted a person with experience of management in a major organization which has to change and adapt as the world changes around it, continuing and building on what Gus has done. I wanted a strong and effective advocate of United Nations development activities and ideas, not only with donor governments, but in the wider public debate. It seemed vital to me that we establish a close working relationship between UNDP and the World Bank.

I thought of Mark Malloch Brown as a person likely to fulfil all of my three criteria. He is someone I have known and admired for many years, with a strong record of service both in the United Nations and at the World Bank. He is a most articulate and persuasive person who all his life has been devoted in one way or other to the cause of development. I would note in particular his success in upgrading the Bank's presence in Europe and in attracting funds from donors both there and elsewhere, including persuading Congress to clear the United States arrears. I am sure he will strengthen UNDP's relationships with all the donors in a similar way.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to tell you that this morning the General Assembly has approved my nomination. I therefore have great pleasure in presenting to you the Administrator-designate of UNDP, Mark Malloch Brown.

Congratulations.

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We should also give a round of applause to the Deputy Secretary-General, who spearheaded this through the General Assembly this morning.

Mark, do you want to say a few words?

Mr. MALLOCH BROWN: Just a very few words. And, of course, it has to begin with saying hello to many very old friends and faces in this room, friends drawn not just from the press corps here, but from the fact that I began my career here at the United Nations. For me, this is a wonderful homecoming.

Let me start with a brief personal note which may sound a little maudlin. But I say it as a statement as much about myself as about the sad event it describes, which is that last weekend I had very bitter-sweet feelings about this job because three of my closest friends had set out to Albania for Refugees International on Friday, and one of them, a remarkable French relief worker whom I had known since we had worked together on the Cambodian border 24 years ago, called up before she left to say, "I hear Mark may be going to UNDP". She called my wife to say that, and said, "We're going to change the world". Two days later, she and David and Penny McCall -- David, who had been a business partner of mine in my consultancy years and whom I had persuaded to join the board of Refugees International -- the three of them died tragically in Albania in a car accident.

But I say it because I see myself as the candidate of a network of people, many of whom are in this room and who are led by the Secretary- General -- but people united not because they represent governments but because they believe in great international causes of development and human rights and of refugees and humanitarian work. I have always been an independent. Every job I have got is because I've worked my way through a career in internationalism. I've never, ever been a candidate of governments for anything. In fact, the only governments I've ever worked for were the developing country clients I had in my years as a consultant. I think that is the source of my strength.

I take great pride in being the Secretary-General's candidate for this job. And I also take great pride in coming from the World Bank, which some years ago would have been seen as perhaps a great negative coming to UNDP. I think it is a measure of the new partnership we have struck. And it is also a measure of what Jim Wolfensohn has done, and frankly what I have learned from Jim Wolfensohn: that today we can offer a great development partnership of the United Nations and the Bretton Woods institutions, under the leadership of our Secretary-General and of the President of the World Bank, to tackle the great issues of poverty reduction and development and of quality of life for people everywhere.

I am very proud to play a new part in that.

Thank you all very much.

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Mr. ECKHARD: Does anyone have any questions for Mark?

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: Mark, you stay there; I have to run.

QUESTION: Do you have any ideas already about ways to coordinate the work of UNDP and the World Bank? Will you be discussing this with Mr. Speth and Mr. Wolfensohn in the next few months?

Mr. MALLOCH BROWN: I certainly will. And of course that has been part of my brief for the last several years, and there has been striking progress in overall coordination with the United Nations and with UNDP as well. I think every day new challenges come up, which can move forward the coordination. So I think it is a work in progress, and hopefully my arrival at UNDP can give it another big step forward. But it is work based on the comparative advantages of the two organizations. UNDP has some real strengths: it is a grant-giving organization, not a lender; it has great technical assistance strengths; and above all else it has the confidence of G77 governments. And these mean that the partnership with the Bank is very much a partnership of equals. This is not one where the United Nations Development Programme is the junior partner.

QUESTION: I remember that you were instrumental in the communications task force for strengthening the message of the United Nations. Do you have any ideas for strengthening the message of the United Nations Development Programme and having more media initiatives?

Mr. MALLOCH BROWN: It won't surprise you that I suspect we will try to do a lot in that area. I strongly believe that all international organizations do not enjoy the luxury of strong domestic constituencies anywhere in the world. Therefore they have to constantly build support for themselves.

Secondly, I think that change in today's world very much comes from powerful advocacy and constituency-building across nations and across sectors. So it's not just that we will, obviously, put an emphasis on making sure that we tell our story through the world's press. It will also be that we will try to be an advocate for development in partnership with non-governmental organizations, politicians, parliamentarians, think tanks across the world, and in very constructive ways build global coalitions of support for our development objectives.

QUESTION: We heard from the person you said you learned a great deal from, Mr. Wolfensohn, that official development assistance has been reduced to an all-time low. As a person who has worked at the World Bank and now is to be the new head of the United Nations Development Programme, what plan do you have to reverse this trend?

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Mr. MALLOCH BROWN: We have to reverse it. It is unacceptable that it should be at those levels. I think there are several stages to reversing it. First, my own experience at the Bank, where we had the good fortune to be beating a trend in terms of funding, is that you have to demonstrate real effectiveness to governments and parliamentarians around the world. We have a particularly notable problem with doing that in the United States, but it is not limited to that. You have to prove results.

Secondly, you have to excite political support for important achievable objectives, whether they be securing improvements in education or the environment. You have to put them together in ways that coalitions of supporters will agree to.

So, we're going to reverse it, but I don't think that the first thing I'm going to do is to go to Governments short-term, saying, "Give us more money." This has got to be part of a longer campaign where we build our credibility and on the basis of that come back to governments -- and build it not just as an institution but as part of a total development community, which must get more support if the poor countries of the world are to get the chance they deserve in the new globalized society we are moving into.

QUESTION: The Secretary-General just announced that 13 countries have increased their contributions to the United Nations Development Programme. What do you intend to do with these increased funds?

Mr. MALLOCH BROWN: I wish I could tell you that it was therefore spare money available for new programmes. As I understand it, and I am not yet familiar with the details, the United Nations Development Programme is not yet in a situation in which its budget is as yet fully funded. So it's a very important gesture of support and a real compliment to Gus' leadership that this has been achieved. But we have to go a lot further. We have to build broader support from more donors before we have the luxury of having fresh monies, and therefore the ability to introduce fresh programmes. This is a tough road ahead of us.

End of press conference, Part I

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PART II - EAST TIMOR

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: Ladies and gentlemen, I am back again, this time with more good news, so today is a good day. We don't have many of those these days.

I am pleased to inform you that after a very productive and successful round of meetings in which a lot of ground was covered, we have an agreement between the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of Portugal on the question of East Timor. The agreement has been finalized and will be signed together with its annexes in New York on 5 May.

There are two additional documents which were presented to the delegations for the first time this week. These cover the security arrangements for the peaceful implementation of the popular consultation in East Timor and the modalities for the consultation.

Foreign Minister Alatas has indicated that while his side has no substantive difficulty with either document, he would have to obtain the approval of his authorities before he can sign them.

I look forward to concluding this historic process on 5 May this year, when all these agreements will have been signed. I am grateful for the customary spirit of cooperation and statesmanship displayed by the two Ministers, which has enabled us to make such progress.

I welcome the reaffirmation by the Indonesian Government that it will effectively carry out its responsibility for law and order and the protection of civilians. I should also underline the responsibility of all the parties that signed an agreement this week to end the violence in East Timor to fulfil their obligations without delay. Peace and stability are vital in East Timor.

I will be happy to take your questions, or maybe the Ministers both want to say something briefly before we open it up to the questions.

Mr. GAMA: Mr. Secretary-General, it is for us on the Portuguese side very important that these steps lead to a lasting solution to the problem of East Timor and that peace be restored there in order to allow a consultation on the future of the territory. The effectiveness of these agreements we are going to sign next 5 May is crucial in restoring stability and peace in the territory, disarming the militias and not giving them weapons or means to counter acts against the spirit of the negotiations, which have been so professionally conducted by Ambassador Marker and by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: Thank you very much. Ali.

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Mr. ALATAS: Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General. I too would like to say how pleased we are to have achieved agreement on the documents that you have just mentioned. The only thing was that the two documents on security and on the modalities of how the United Nations will conduct the consultations, et cetera, were put before us only at this meeting. Although we have [inaudible] referendum agreement among us about the text, I will need to bring it to my Government for their final approval. So we are very much looking forward to the signing of the main agreement, its annex on the proposed autonomy plan and the two agreements on security arrangements and the modalities of the consultation process, on 5 May.

Meanwhile, I would like to share with the media here a very important development that has occurred in East Timor. All the parties concerned -- on the one hand, of course, the armed forces; and then the two bishops of East Timor; all the conflicting parties on both sides, those who are pro-integration and those who are pro-independence; plus the local government, et cetera -- have come together as a response to the initiative taken by our national commission on human rights. They signed a very important agreement on 21 April, the text of which we can distribute to the press also. I think this is a sign that we will indeed assume our responsibility to make sure that a conducive situation will be existing in East Timor -- conducive towards the implementation of the agreements that we have just reached on consulting the views of the East Timorese on the proposed autonomy plan that will hopefully soon, in a few days, be fully publicized.

So, again, I very much look forward to the day that we can sign this agreement so that we can start the process rolling, Mr. Secretary-General. Once again, thank you very much for all your help and the help of Ambassador Jamsheed Marker.

THE SECRETARY-GENERAL: As Fred told you, I will have to leave to receive a Head of State. But, finally, I would also really want to pay tribute to Ambassador Marker, an outstanding negotiator, and his team for the work that they have put into this effort. I think they really deserve our gratitude and appreciation for the work they have done. Thank you very much.

QUESTION: We welcome you on behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association.

The most important thing may be the disarmament of the militia and ensuring peace and tranquillity. In the agreement, who is going to supervise that? The United Nations, or Indonesia and Portugal? What is the mechanism?

Mr. ALATAS: In the agreement that was signed between the parties concerned, we will note that it is first and foremost the laying down of arms by all parties, not only the so-called militia. I think the international press and the international community must come around to acknowledging that what we have in East Timor is a conflict between two groups of people: those

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who want independence, and those who have accepted integration. And that has been the situation for 23 years. It is continuing now and is becoming, unfortunately, more pronounced and sharper as we move towards the day when they are going to have to express their views on whether they would like to have autonomy or whether they would reject autonomy.

It is not a question of only disarming the so-called militia -- this is confusing the issue. It is disarming both sides. And this is the next step, of course, because disarming means also that the Falintil, who are in the mountains, should also be disarmed. Otherwise, the groups that are now fighting against them -- the pro-integrationists -- will never surrender their arms. So it is a much more complex problem. But fortunately, now we have the means, we have the forum -- and this is very important -- of leading personalities, including the two bishops, who will now work very hard to ensure that after the laying down of arms, after the cessation of hostilities, we can move forward to disarmament, et cetera, to reconciliation. But, in the meantime, the first thing is that we make sure that an atmosphere and condition that is conducive is created in East Timor for the implementation of the agreements that we have now reached, and which will be implemented.

QUESTION: The United Nations is going to supervise the disarmament or the parties?

Mr. MARKER: We are still waiting for a final confirmation of the security arrangements. But at that time the United Nations presence will definitely be there. And exactly what shape or form that will take has to be worked out. But the objective is quite clear, that there has to be a stopping of the fighting. The quickest and most effective way to do that of course is to have disarmament. But you can also have a stop with a ceasefire. We will have to find out and see when we go in there what the situation is. But I am confident that an effective method can and will be found.

QUESTION: Could you please outline what the proposals are -- I realize that it still has to go back to Jakarta -- but what the proposals are for an international presence in the lead-up to the vote. What international presence are you envisaging?

Mr. MARKER: We are working on the details of that now. In fact, we have been working on it in-house over the last week. I am not in a position to give you either the extent or the nature of that. We are doing that ourselves first. Then we will discuss it with the two Governments. But clearly this is a matter of the utmost importance. We are aware of that and we are working on that.

QUESTION: I would like to know whether there is an agreement on the date of the consultations, and also whether it is going to be a consultation of one man, one vote, one day.

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Mr. MARKER: There is, in principle, an agreement on all those points. But you will have to wait until 5 May to get the details.

QUESTION: I was actually going to ask a similar question. But since we are not going to get an answer to that, I was wondering if Foreign Minister Alatas could tell us what his assessment is of whether his Government is going to accept this agreement that has been worked out. At the moment it is a tentative agreement. Are you optimistic, pessimistic that is going to be accepted without changes, and that 5 May will stand, and that it will be able to proceed with a ballot probably in July -- that seems to be the target date?

Mr. ALATAS: Well, the main agreement and its annex, I think, have been tentatively cleared already -- although the main agreement was still pending when we came here -- so there would be no difficulties there. I hope that the two new agreements on security arrangements and on the modalities -- although we have no more difficulties here [inaudible] we could agree to the text -- will not pose any problems when I present to the Government.

But of course, I cannot go ahead of my Government. I will have to say factually; I will have to present it to the Cabinet, and hopefully they will agree, because, as I said, there has been [inaudible] agreement here at our level.

QUESTION: Are you still optimistic that a ballot could be held in July? That the consultations could be some time in July?

Mr. ALATAS: Well, as Ambassador Marker said, we have tentative dates in mind, but we cannot at this point reveal it to the press, because that is still part of the agreements that we are working on.

QUESTION: I was wondering whether Mr. Alatas would comment on the statements from the Australian Foreign Ministry yesterday, indicating support for a United Nations presence, and possibly even a peacekeeping presence, for East Timor. And I was also wondering whether Mr. Gama might want to evaluate how the situation on the ground seems to be in East Timor in the last day or since the signing of the ceasefire pact.

Mr. ALATAS: Well, I don't know exactly to what statement you are referring, but as far as a United Nations presence is concerned, I think it has all along been the general agreement among us that, the minute we reach the stage where an agreement or the agreement is going to be implemented, of course there will be a United Nations presence in East Timor for the implementation of that agreement. So there is no problem there. It is only now a question of the technical implementation of it: how, when and in what manner the United Nations will be there. This is precisely the subject of the modalities paper, one of the papers that we have discussed.

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As far as your reference to an Australian statement on peacekeeping forces, I would like to say that, throughout our discussions, United Nations peacekeeping forces have never been an issue that has been raised. The United Nations will be there; there will be and adequate and, I think, sufficient United Nations presence, but there are many ways of a United Nations presence. But United Nations peacekeeping forces have never been AN issue that has been discussed.

Mr. GAMA: All the information we have is that, at least in the capital, Dili, there was a stabilizing tendency and that the signature of the agreement had a positive effect in calming down the situation. But in other areas in the countryside, there are new elements that do not go in the positive sense: intimidation, even some [inaudible] killings. Also, I showed my Indonesian colleague my deep concern about those events and the need to have stability and peace there, to stop and disarm the militias, not to give them any sort of impulse, in order to have peace agreements effective and not just a formal ritual.

QUESTION: That disarmament that you spoke about a few moments ago -- it's to be present immediately, to be use immediately right now? Both parties are agreed on that disarmament and the consequences of this agreement are to be right now?

Mr. ALATAS: Well, if you read the text of the agreement that was reached on 21 April among all the parties concerned, what they have agreed right now is a cessation of hostilities, of all kinds of violence, etc., of mutual provocations, etc.

And an important further step is that they have agreed on the establishment of a Peace and Stability Commission consisting of representatives of all those who participated in this agreement, and that this Peace and Stability Commission would do several things, among others, to endeavour to achieve disarmament among all the fighting groups, et cetera. They will do other things also, but they are, I think, going to be operational as soon as possible. And as I said, the most important thing -- the most urgent thing, however, is that even as disarmament is the next goal, at least in the absence of disarmament, temporarily, that there be a laying down of arms -- not a surrendering of arms, but a laying down of arms -- a cessation of fighting and hostilities and the creation of a situation in East Timor that would be conducive to the implementation of the consultation process.

QUESTION: Is the constitution of the Commission under way?

Mr. ALATAS: The Peace and Stability Commission is being established now; it is in the process of being established.

QUESTION: Mr. Alatas, you talk about a process of disarmament. Are we to take it that if there is to be no peacekeeping force and the United Nations

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presence is to be civilian and mainly connected with the consultation, that the only agency that will actually be policing disarmament will still be the Indonesian military, about which there has been, obviously, some criticism on the international scene in the light of recent events?

Mr. ALATAS: The Indonesian military and the Indonesian police are determined to take their responsibility to keep law and order and peace and tranquility in East Timor. And when the United Nations presence will be there, of course, they will consult one another, et cetera, but there will be no foreign peacekeeping forces, because that has never been discussed. So yes, the main responsibility will be shouldered by Indonesia.

QUESTION: So as you see it the United Nations main job will be a political job in terms of preparing for consultations as opposed to any kind of a security role.

Mr. ALATAS: Well, they will contribute to security. That is why we have a paper on security arrangements. But it will certainly not be in the form of a United Nations peacekeeping force.

QUESTION: I have a question for Ambassador Marker. Why does the United Nations not propose the sending of a peacekeeping force to East Timor? The United Nations considers that that is not necessary at this stage?

Mr. MARKER: The United Nations has, as you know, been in active negotiations in this whole process. As we see it right now, the process is on track. We have taken the word and the understanding of the Government of Indonesia that peaceful conditions will prevail. The United Nations cannot send a peacekeeping force by itself; there is a whole process to be raised, including discussions with the Government of Indonesia itself. We have not found it necessary under the present circumstances to send in a peacekeeping force, to parachute a whole lot of Blue Helmets down there. We don't think that that situation calls for that. We think it is much more important that we should give the diplomatic process a chance. And I think events have probably justified so far the validity of our reasoning.

QUESTION: Mr. Alatas, yesterday you used the word "referendum", and we were surprised by that.

Mr. ALATAS: In what context?

QUESTION: At the end of the day, when you were answering the questions for the reporters. And we were surprised. Is that is going to happen? A referendum?

Mr. ALATAS: I don't recall using the word "referendum", and if I had, I would have used it in the same context that I have always used it, and that is

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that we do not accept a referendum. And that hasn't changed. Our basic position is that we do not accept a referendum.

QUESTION: Prime Minister Alatas, you said that the date of a consultation is also included in the tentative agreement. Do you think that your Government -- the cabinet or parliament -- will definitely accept that date for the consultation?

Mr. ALATAS: From the very beginning of the negotiations we have proposed, and we have suggested, that we try to get the consultation process actually implemented before a certain date in August. It is we who want it as quickly as possible, but we will have to take into consideration the logistical arrangements that will have to be made and evaluated by the United Nations and so on.

So don't think that we will have difficulties with a date that is close. It is we who have proposed that [this take place as soon as possible] -- if possible in July. So it is now being negotiated on the basis of technicalities: what can be done in the remaining time in order to set the process in motion, what will be needed in terms of personnel, what will be needed in terms of material, and so forth. We have agreed on a date, but unfortunately we cannot reveal it yet. But I can tell you that it is a date that is very much in line with what our position has been all along, namely to have the consultations as soon as possible before the end of August.

QUESTION: Mr. Alatas, could you tell us please about the future of Mr. Gusmao.

Mr. ALATAS: The future? Well, we have said on several occasions that Mr. Gusmao will be released as part and parcel of the overall solution. So he cannot be released beforehand, as many have demanded, but he will be released as part and parcel of the solution. So we will have to discuss and determine later on at what point in the implementation of the solution he will be given a special pardon.

QUESTION: Is that in the agreement, for example will he be released on 5 May when the agreement is signed?

Mr. ALATAS: No, not yet, no agreement yet. No discussion yet either on this.

QUESTION: A question for Ambassador Marker. I know, Ambassador, that you cannot give us the precise shape and structure of any United Nations presence, but if we assume that the signing goes ahead as envisaged on 5 May, how soon would you expect United Nations personnel -- presumably civilian personnel -- to actually be arriving in East Timor.

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Mr. MARKER: We have been working on it right now. We have been making all the preparatory arrangements in anticipation. One has to do that. So after that it is a purely logistical matter. I can't tell you that because we're still working on it. I hope to be here next week to work with my colleagues regarding what we can do. But certainly, as I see it, that light turns green on 5 May. It's red and amber at the moment.

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