DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
| Press Briefing |
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.
Good afternoon.
**Secretary-General’s Travels
In Luanda today, the Secretary-General met with Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, on the second day of his visit to Angola.
Following that meeting, the Secretary-General spoke to the press, saying that he had congratulated the President and the people of Angola for the achievement they have made. He added that many tasks remain to be done, including the need for humanitarian aid, recovery and reconstruction, demining, and the improvement of health services and education.
Noting that his first visit as a Secretary-General had been to Angola, he said he was happy to be back at a time when peace was on the horizon. He promised that the United Nations’ role would be to work effectively with the Government on all fronts. He spent most of today visiting two camps for internally displaced Angolans, at Viara and Coragem, where he and Nane Annan were greeted by large crowds of people singing and dancing. They also vaccinated two babies against polio while they visited those camps.
At the end of the visit, the Secretary-General told a crowd of several hundred Angolans that their country had one of the highest numbers of internally displaced people in the world, and he paid special tribute to Angolan women, who, he said, “had been the backbone of society when the men have gone to war, leaving them behind with the children”.
The Secretary-General met this afternoon with the diplomatic corps in Luanda and with local leaders, including church officials. He then went to the opening ceremony for the Joint Commission set up to identify pending tasks to fulfil the commitments under the Lusaka Protocol. He said at that ceremony that today was a historic day in Angola’s peace process and congratulated all Angolans for completing the military tasks and demilitarization of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), as set out in the Lusaka peace plan.
He was also scheduled to meet with UNITA leader Gen. Paolo Lukamba Gato later today.
Yesterday, he arrived in Luanda and was received at the airport by Foreign Minister João Miranda and his own Representative for Angola, Mussagy Jeichande. He met with his country management team in Angola and then attended a reception in his honour given by UN staff.
The Secretary-General requested a minute of silence in the memory of the late former Special Representative to Angola, Maitre Alioune Blondin Beye, and then told the assembled UN staff, “It is really moving to be back here.” He said he thought Angola is at a crucial stage, saying, “We are all happy and excited
with the prospects for lasting and genuine peace in Angola.” It has to be clear, he added, that the inspiration for a lasting and viable peace has to come from the leaders and the people of Angola.Before he arrived in Angola from Ghana, the Secretary-General had travelled on Saturday to Côte d’Ivoire, where he met in Abidjan with President Laurent Gbagbo. After that meeting, the Secretary-General told reporters that he and the President had discussed relations between the UN and Côte d’Ivoire, and that he was pleased to see the reconciliation process under way in the country. He said he was sure that when the political situation was calm, the country could concentrate on social and economic problems, and investors would come in.
We have the transcripts of his press comments available upstairs, as well as a description by the Information Centre in Lusaka of the Secretary-General’s trip so far in Angola.
**World Summit on Sustainable Development
The World Summit on Sustainable Development opened in Johannesburg, South Africa, this morning with statements by South African President Thabo Mbeki, Secretary-General of the Summit, Nitin Desai, and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, Klaus Toepfer. President Mbeki was elected by acclamation to preside over the Summit.
The Foreign Minister of South Africa, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chaired the first of six plenary sessions aimed at building a framework for action in the areas where the Summit is expected to produce results. The Secretary-General’s Special Envoy to the Summit, Jan Pronk, moderated an interactive discussion, which focused on health; others will deal with energy, water, agriculture, biodiversity and cross-sectoral issues such as trade and finance.
In the negotiations on the final document, agreement has been reached on paragraphs regarding the Global Environment Facility, which has recently been replenished in the amount of $2.9 billion. There was also agreement on a provision calling on that Facility to serve as the funding mechanism for the Convention to Combat Desertification, a major issue for African countries.
As of this morning, 12,625 government delegates, NGOs and media representatives have been accredited to the Summit.
**Security Council
There are no meetings of the Security Council scheduled for today. Tomorrow the Council is meeting in closed consultations to discuss Afghanistan. Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Danilo Turk is expected to provide the briefing.
**Afghanistan
Last night in Afghanistan, an explosive device went off near a trash bin just outside the UN guest house in Kabul, shattering a few windows, although the wall around the guest house was undamaged.
No UN personnel were hurt, although one Afghan girl was slightly injured from the blast; she was treated at the emergency hospital in Kabul and then released an hour later.
We do not know who was responsible for the blast. Additional Afghan police and security guards were placed around the compound last night.
On Saturday afternoon, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers arrived in Kabul for a five-day visit to Afghanistan. Yesterday, he met with President Hamid Karzai to discuss ways that the UNHCR can assist the Afghan Government in dealing with one of the largest refugee returns in history.
Today, Lubbers is visiting Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan; more than 400,000 Afghans are displaced in the south, the UNHCR says.
We have more in today’s briefing notes from Kabul.
**Millennium Declaration
In a report to the General Assembly that is out on the racks today, the Secretary-General reviews the progress in implementing the goals of the Millennium Declaration, and says that the record over the past two years in implementing those goals “is, at best, mixed”.
In the remaining 13 years, he says, progress will need to be made on a much broader front, or, otherwise, “the ringing words of the Declaration will serve only as grim reminders of human needs neglected and promises unmet”.
The report includes a statistical annex that details, as of the year 2000, how far the international community had gone in meeting such specific goals, from the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger to gender equality to the battle against AIDS, all enshrined in the Millennium Declaration.
** UN Industrial Development Organization
In a new publication, the UN Industrial Development Organization, or UNIDO, says that corporate social responsibility must become part of the global agenda. It says that corporate social responsibility can enhance market access, as well as productivity and innovation, for small- and medium-sized enterprises, and it recommends that such responsibility become part of core business strategies, rather than being seen simply as philanthropic.
The text of the report is available on UNIDO’s Web site, and we have a press release upstairs with more details.
**Signings
Two treaties were signed here this morning.
Slovakia became the thirty-eighth country to sign the protocol on firearms supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, and Chile became the eighty-fourth country to ratify the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
**Press Conferences
There is one press conference to announce for today: At 12:45 in this room, Ambassador Revaz Adamia, the Permanent Representative of Georgia, to the United Nations will brief on the situation in his country.
**Water in Zimbabwe
As the Johannesburg Summit opens today, we begin our second and final week of daily features on the five priority areas for the summit as defined by the Secretary-General -— namely, water, energy, health, agriculture and biodiversity.
Today, the focus is on safe water and sanitation in Zimbabwe. Our subject is eleven-year-old Shupikai, who lives in the Binga district. Her father was seriously ill with an undiagnosed disease, and then her mother came down with tuberculosis, forcing her to drop out of school to care for them as well as for her two younger sisters, aged one and three.
Shupikai's home had no latrine and her village had no running water. She walked each day to a bore hole three kilometers away to fill a 20-liter bucket.
Enter the UN Children's Fund. UNICEF's Hygiene, Water and Sanitation programme works with governments worldwide to provide just what Shipukai needed. Under UNICEF's guidance, Zimbabwe worked with the community to dig a well.
Shupikai's father paid a builder in chickens and goats to build a latrine behind the house, making the bricks for the pit himself.
With a well in the village and a latrine behind her home, Shipukai's life became easier and after a few months she was able to return to school.
That's a sustainable development story with a happy ending, one that is being repeated throughout Africa and the developing world.
That’s all I have for you today.
**Questions and Answers
Question: Has the Secretary-General responded yet to the letter from the Iraqi Foreign Minister?
Spokesman: No, he has not.
Question: Are you expecting anything in the near future?
Spokesman: I am not aware but I would have to check with the thirty-eighth floor to see what the status is.
[The Spokesman’s Office later announced through the squawk box that the letter was still being studied by the Secretariat.]
Question. When Timor joins the UN will it be the 190th or the 191st member?
Spokesman: Well, we have East Timor and we also have Switzerland scheduled to come into the UN next month so one of them will be the 190th and the other the 191st depending on who comes in first.
Question: Has the investigation resulted in knowing who is behind the blast?Spokesman: In Afghanistan? No, all we know as of today -- because it only just happened -- is that we have no idea who did it. I have to assume that the Afghan police are conducting an investigation. We’ll have to see whether they come up with any suspects.
Thank you very much.