SECRETARY-GENERAL VISITS SWEDEN, 25 - 29 MAY
Press Release
SG/T/2182
SECRETARY-GENERAL VISITS SWEDEN, 25 - 29 MAY
19990602 The Secretary-General began his official visit to Sweden on the morning of 25 May, with an address to a donors' conference on Central America called to address two themes -- the unfinished political and human rights agendas of the Peace Process, and the reconstruction agenda following Hurricane Mitch. The high-level meeting in Stockholm was attended by the Presidents of Honduras and Nicaragua, delegates from all Central American countries and representatives of donor countries and multilateral aid agencies. The Secretary-General called for the building of a new compact between the region and the international community so that the paths of peace and reconstruction could be brought more closely together (see Press Release SG/SM/7002, issued 25 May).In the margins of the Central America conference, the Secretary-General had the opportunity to meet with Brian Atwood, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, and Charles Josselin, France's Minister of International Development, to discuss the humanitarian response to Kosovo.
Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson then hosted a working lunch for the Secretary-General and his delegation, which focused almost exclusively on Kosovo, although they also discussed a Swedish government initiative in support of action to prevent conflicts.
At a joint press conference with the Prime Minister afterwards, the Secretary-General was asked if he saw progress in the peace efforts on Kosovo. He said "... there's lots of activity and lots of discussions going on, but I cannot say that we are going to have peace tomorrow. We need to do some more work".
The Secretary-General praised the Swedish initiative on preventive action and took the opportunity to announce his three-member team to investigate the United Nations' role in the Rwanda genocide of 1994: Ingvar Carlsson, the former Swedish Prime Minister, who was to head the team; Han Sung-Joo, the former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea; and General Rufus Kupolati of Nigeria, who had served three years as head of the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), based in Jerusalem.
After the press conference, the Secretary-General met with Swedish Defence Minister Bjorn von Sidow, with whom he reviewed Sweden's contribution to United Nations peacekeeping and the security situation in Africa. He then met with
Swedish business leaders, members of the Svenska Dagbladet Executive Club. In his address to the Club, he renewed the offer of a compact between the United Nations and the business community, first made at Davos in Switzerland the previous January, by saying that "Increasingly, business leaders recognize that their responsibility -- and their interest -- lie not only in how their actions affect their shareholders, but in the way they affect all life on this planet." (See Press Release SG/SM/7004, issued 25 May.) Afterwards, he went to a reception hosted by the African ambassadors in Stockholm on the occasion of Africa Day, and the thirty-sixth anniversary of the Organization for African Unity (OAU).
The Secretary-General continued his official visit to Sweden on Wednesday, with an address to the Swedish Parliament (under the Parliament's rules, a United Nations Secretary-General is the only person outside the Swedish Government who can address a parliamentary plenary meeting). In his speech, entitled "The United Nations and Global Governance", he called for rules and procedures to be established to govern the emerging international border. Parliamentarians must not just listen to the people, he said, but must lead them as well, to help them broaden their understanding of the national interest to include working with other nations to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law (see Press Release SG/SM/7013, issued 28 May).
He later met with the Speaker of the Parliament, Birgitta Dahl, and other parliamentary leaders. They discussed Kosovo, United Nations reform, and plans of the Inter-Parliamentary Union to hold a millennium conference in the Year 2000 in support of the United Nations.
He then met with two of the three members of his recently appointed investigative team on the United Nations role during the 1994 Rwanda genocide -- former Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson and the former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea, Han Sung-Joo. They discussed the team's mandate and its approach to its work.
The Secretary-General and Foreign Minister Anna Lindh then met privately for half an hour. They were subsequently joined by their delegations for an additional half an hour. They discussed Kosovo, United Nations reform, and African problems.
Their Majesties, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Her Majesty Queen Silvia, hosted a luncheon for the Secretary-General and his wife, Nane.
After lunch, the Secretary-General travelled to Hage Palace on the outskirts of Stockholm, where he conferred for three quarters of an hour with his two Special Envoys for the Balkans, Carl Bildt and Eduard Kukan.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov arrived at Hage at 4:15 p.m. He and the Secretary-General were joined by the two Special Envoys for further
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discussions, which lasted until 6 p.m. Following their meeting, the two men met with the press.
The following morning, the Secretary-General travelled to Lund, in southern Sweden. On the way there, he visited Backäkra, the summer residence of Dag Hammarskjöld, the second United Nations Secretary-General. He toured the home, then walked across the fields, where the Secretary-General had a brief moment alone at Hammarskjöld's meditation site -- a circle of fieldstones overlooking the sea. He later commented, "Given what Dag Hammarskjöld represents for the UN and for me personally, it's a great inspiration to be here. It's a wonderfully peaceful place."
Upon arrival in Lund, he was guest at a luncheon hosted by the Law Faculty of Lund University. Asked by the press afterwards about his reaction to the indictment that day of President Slobodan Milosevic and other Yugoslav officials by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, he said, "Louise Arbour, the Prosecutor, came to tell me in person of the decision of the Court to indict President Milosevic and other officials of his Government. As you know, the Tribunal was set up by the Security Council, and under its rules, it acts independently. And, therefore, the Prosecutor must go where the evidence leads her. I believe justice must be allowed to take its course." (Press Release SG/SM/7008, issued 27 May)
He then spent over a half hour with students from the University's Raoul Wallenberg Institute, responding to their questions.
That evening, he gave an address at the University on the subject of "Human Rights and Humanitarian Law". In his speech, he said that all members of the international community, especially governments, must give support and cooperation to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals on Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia. "As human beings, we cannot be neutral -- or at least we have no right to be -- when other human beings are suffering", he said, adding that each person has a duty to intervene even though it would be much safer to do nothing. He also noted that ad hoc tribunals, set up only when gross violations have already occurred, are not enough. He called on States to ratify the Statute of the International Criminal Court to bring it into existence, with as near universal jurisdiction as possible, in the very first years of the new century (Press Release SG/SM/7009, issued 27 May). That evening he attended a dinner hosted by the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Boel Flodgren.
The Secretary-General concluded his official visit to Sweden on Friday, 28 May. At a press conference in Lund that morning, he said, in response to a question, that he felt the indictment of President Milosevic by The Hague Tribunal would complicate the peace process. He added, however, that he did not expect it to be "an unduly complicating factor" in the United Nations relations with Russian envoy Victor Chernomyrdin, who was in Belgrade that day.
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He also expressed his concern for the situation in Kosovo, which had destabilized the entire region, from blockage of the Danube River to driving tourists away from the Adriatic Coast. "Yugoslavia is being destroyed", he added, "which could prompt a Serb exodus, compounding the problem. This is why", he concluded, "we are intensifying our efforts to find an end to the conflict."
At midday, he participated in the commencement ceremony at the University of Lund, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Law. University Vice-Chancellor Boel Flodgren commented, "if Dag Hammarskjöld could consider Uppsala University his alma mater, you may consider Lund yours".
From southern Sweden, the Secretary-General travelled to Copenhagen, Denmark, en route to New York. While in Denmark, he met with the Danish Prime Minister, Poul Nyrup Rasmussen. Their discussions focused almost exclusively on Kosovo. They later met with the press.
The Secretary-General returned to New York on Saturday, 29 May.
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