DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL ADDRESSES JOURNALISTS AT ANNUAL LUNCHEON, URGES CONTINUED SPOTLIGHT ON PERSECUTION AND SUFFERING

Press Release
DSG/SM/66

DEPUTY SECRETARY-GENERAL ADDRESSES JOURNALISTS AT ANNUAL LUNCHEON, URGES CONTINUED SPOTLIGHT ON PERSECUTION AND SUFFERING

Following are remarks by Deputy Secretary-General Louise Frechette delivered today at the Dag Hammarskjold Luncheon at United Nations Headquarters:

Thank you, Sanaa and Erol, for those kind words of introduction. This luncheon has become a wonderful tradition, and an occasion to meet before the General Assembly begins.

I would like to begin by acknowledging the three Dag Hammarskjold Memorial scholars for 1999: Deon Antoinette Brown of Jamaica; Ahmad Abdulaziz Khatib of Jordan; and Jeff Otieno of Kenya. They form a remarkably diverse group of journalists and I trust that they will try to make some sense of the workings of the General Assembly. It will not be easy. But I am confident that you will find among your new colleagues in the press corps, friends and mentors who will help you explore the issues of greatest concern to you.

We meet at a time of extraordinary challenges for the United Nations -- from Central Africa to Kosovo -- and most urgently today, in East Timor. The past two weeks have been among the most difficult and demanding for our Organization.

After carefully preparing for a referendum that would allow the people of East Timor the freedom of choosing their own future, we were all overwhelmed by the appalling response of the Indonesian militias and their supporters in the military to the results of the ballot.

After a week’s intensive and unrelenting pressure from the international community, President Habibie has accepted the presence of international peacekeepers in East Timor. Beginning yesterday, we have begun the difficult and detailed work of ensuring that this force will be equipped and mandated to carry out the task with which it is entrusted.

Throughout this perilous time of violence and danger in East Timor, we can be proud to say that our mission has behaved with truly inspiring courage, dignity and sense of responsibility toward the people of East Timor.

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Even after we were forced to relocate a number of our staff, almost 100 civilian and military personnel volunteered to stay behind -- in solidarity with those who had sought refuge in the compound, and determined to show the men of violence that the United Nations would not allow the freely expressed wish of the population to be overridden.

They and the refugees who sought shelter in the compound have now been evacuated to Darwin until such time when they can return in safety.

What gave our staff hope throughout their ordeal was the knowledge that they were not alone in their defence of the people of East Timor. Truly, the world was watching, and the world was outraged. Why?

Because you, the press, had the courage to tell the story -- in print, on television and on the radio, over the Internet, around the clock without delay. Let me, therefore, also pay tribute today to those journalists who also chose to remain behind as Dili was evacuated.

They showed no less courage -- and, if I may say so -- no less commitment to peace for East Timor than the United Nations staff with whom they sought shelter.

I am well aware of the dangers of attributing to the press other duties and virtues than telling the truth as you see it. But it is clear that without your commitment to tell a story like East Timor as urgently and clearly as possible -- without your ability to see through the excuses for the inexcusable -- our mission would be infinitely more difficult.

You and your colleagues made it impossible for the world to look the other way, and by doing so, made it impossible for the world to do nothing as the people of East Timor were set upon by the militias.

Now, we all know well that very difficult times still lie ahead of us. But today there is a chance that the killing can stop and East Timor can fulfil its dream of independence. That is an important achievement.

Friends,

As you know, the Secretary-General has made it a hallmark of his mission to help expand the writ of human rights. He has argued that national sovereignty in the traditional sense can no longer be used by Governments as a shield behind which to commit gross or systematic crimes against humanity.

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Because of you, the world is watching in more and more places where individuals are being persecuted, and the world is acting in more and more places to alleviate suffering.

We have, however, also sought to cast light on the forgotten crises and abandoned peoples of the world. Once again, we need to engage the global public in ways similar to the case of Kosovo, and now, East Timor.

Here, I believe you and your new colleagues here in New York can do invaluable work in directing the lens of global conscience toward the dark corners where too many cries go unheard and too many needs go unmet.

This is a heavy responsibility, I know. But it is also one that brings with it great rewards. In this sense, truly, we are in the same boat.

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