ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN ITALY, 10-11 APRIL
Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Rome from Madrid in the afternoon of Wednesday, 10 April.
That evening he held a meeting and press encounter with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi before attending a dinner hosted by the Prime Minister.
On Thursday, the Secretary-General chaired the second day of the twice-annual meeting of the heads of United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, now known as the Chief Executives Board (CEB).
He spent half of the working day attending a CEB retreat at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization. The morning and afternoon sessions of the retreat focused on the campaign for the millennium development goals. The discussions were on how the United Nations system as a whole could implement those goals and how to relate what the United Nations is doing in this process with governments and other partners around the world.
The guest briefers were Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the UN Development Programme, and two senior advisers of the Secretary-General, Michael Doyle –- on Strategic Planning -- and Geoffrey Sachs on Millennium development goals.
On Thursday afternoon, the Secretary-General had on his agenda meetings with the President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, President of the Senate Marcello Pera and President of the Chamber of Deputies, Pier Fernando Casini.
Sandwiched between his meetings with Ciampi and Pera at the Palazzo del Quirinale was a press event to mark the entry into force of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Speaking via videoconference with UN Headquarters in New York, the Secretary-General said, “The long-held dream of a permanent international criminal court will now be realized. Impunity has been dealt a decisive blow.” Now, he added, those who commit war crimes, genocide or other crimes against humanity will no longer be beyond the reach of justice. He congratulated the 66 countries that had ratified the Rome Statute, and urged those who had not yet done so to follow their example.
Earlier that day, the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court not only received the 60 ratifications it needed in order to enter into force, but went well beyond that threshold, with 10 nations depositing their instruments of ratification to UN Legal Counsel Hans Corell. Now with 66 States Parties, the treaty would take effect on July 1.
In addition to talking about the International Criminal Court at the press event, the Secretary-General was also asked about the situation in the Middle East. He said that he was awaiting the visit to the region of United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, which he said would not be an easy one. The Security Council's decisions are clear, the Secretary-General said, but they have not been implemented. He added that it was important, as the meeting of the "Quartet" of United States, United Nations, European Union and Russian officials in Madrid the previous day showed, that "the international community has finally come together, and we are speaking with one voice." What is needed now, he said, is international involvement, since the parties, left to themselves, cannot solve this conflict. For the full text of this event, see Press Release SG/SM/8194.
While in Rome, Nane Annan visited a centre which provides care and shelter for abused women and children, many from developing countries. She spoke privately with a young Pakistani victim of an acid attack who was in Italy for medical treatment for burns to her face. The previous day, Wednesday, at the International House of Women, she met Afghan journalist Rida Azimi, who restarted Kabul TV transmissions after the fall of the Taliban regime. The International House of Women, inaugurated on 8 March, is home to some 50 women’s organizations, including AIDOS, the largest women-in-development NGO in Europe.
The Secretary-General departed for Geneva, Switzerland, early on Thursday evening.