ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN SWITZERLAND, 4 APRIL
The Secretary-General arrived in Geneva in the morning of Tuesday, 4 April. His first meeting of the day was with his Special Envoy for the Balkans, Carl Bildt. He and Mr. Bildt were then joined by the High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, who reviewed with them the refugee situation in the Balkans, where she had recently visited.
Mr. Annan then met with members of the Bureau of the fifty-sixth Commission on Human Rights, following which he met with the Foreign Minister of Nepal, Chakra Prasad Bastola.
The Secretary-General then addressed the Commission on Human Rights. "Where dissent is forbidden, where expression is curtailed, where the flow of ideas and the exchange of views are limited by force", he said, "human well-being and prosperity are threatened and conflicts made more likely". He appealed to those States that had not yet done so to ratify the two covenants on political and economic rights, social rights, as well as the principal international human rights instruments so that the "universal realization of human rights can be given practical expression" (see Press Release SG/SM/7346).
In the early afternoon he met one-on-one with Terje Roed-Larsen, his Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Personal Representative to the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority.
He then met with Israel's Prime Minister, David Levy, who informed him of Israel's intention to withdraw from southern Lebanon by the end of July and who asked for the United Nations cooperation during that withdrawal. The Secretary- General subsequently issued a statement in which he reiterated the need for "cooperation by all parties concerned in order to avoid any deterioration of the situation during the withdrawal" (see Press Release SG/SM/7349).
The Secretary-General also met with Celso Amorim, the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations in Geneva. He also saw Hans von Sponeck, who recently resigned as United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq.
Before departing for the airport, he had a brief encounter with the press. At Geneva airport, he met with Mary Robinson, High Commissioner for Human Rights, who had returned from a visit to the Russian Federation and Northern Caucasus, including Chechnya.
From Geneva the Secretary-General flew to Rome, where he arrived on Tuesday evening.