ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN REPUBLIC OF SUDAN, 10-12 JULY 2002
Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in the Sudan from Durban, South Africa, on Wednesday, 10 July.
Upon his arrival at Khartoum airport, the Secretary-General spoke to the press and said his visit came at a time when the peace process in the Sudan was being re-energized. He said he hoped to hold talks about humanitarian efforts, so that more assistance could be provided to those in need, and so that humanitarian activities would run more smoothly. He took several questions from reporters.
The Secretary-General then met with United Nations staff and the United Nations country team in the Sudan. He also held a meeting with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and with national and international non-governmental organization (NGO) representatives in the country, including CARE, Oxfam, the Sudanese Red Crescent, and Save the Children UK, who all deal with emergency relief, human rights promotion and community peace efforts.
In the evening, he met with the Sudan’s First Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha.
The Secretary-General also spoke on the telephone on Wednesday with Secretary of State Colin Powell and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.
He began his second day in the Sudan with a visit to a camp housing some 100,000 people displaced by war and natural disaster, about a 40-minute drive outside Khartoum.
Upon his arrival, a group of camp residents unfurled a banner that read “Stop War, We Need Development. No for War, Yes for Peace.” The group of displaced from various regions also chanted, “Salam. Wahda. Sawa Sawa,” or “No North without the South. No South without the North. We are all equals.” The chant was in reference to the conflict between the two regions of the Sudan.
The Secretary-General told the group that he had come to the Sudan in the name of peace. “When it comes to peace, no one needs to convince you who have suffered from the war of the need for peace and for what peace will bring,” he said.
He then said to them, “Salam, Wahda, Sawa sawa,” drawing huge applause and cheers.
In scorching heat, the Secretary-General walked about the camp, visiting a clinic where four mothers were having their infants vaccinated. Entering a classroom at a girls’ school, he listened to a group of sixth-grade students sing and talked to several one-on-one, including one who had brought along her very young sister. She was babysitting and attending school at the same time. He also visited a church and addressed a huge crowd that had gathered.
A meeting with Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail on the peace efforts and humanitarian access was followed by a one-on-one session between the two.
Following his meeting with the Foreign Minister, the Secretary-General spoke briefly to the press, saying he had been following closely the discussions in Nairobi, Kenya, and added, “Like all concerned, I am hopeful that the parties will come to an agreement before they conclude their meeting on 20 July, and then build on it.”
As he walked to the lunch hosted by the Foreign Minister, he stopped to chat with a group of schoolgirls. One of the girls, in response to the Secretary-General’s remarks about their future leadership roles as women, quipped, to his delight: “We are going to be better than men.”
Among his appointments that day were meetings with Brig. Gen. Ian Wilhelmsen, head of the Joint Monitoring Committee of the Nuba Mountain Ceasefire Monitoring Commission and former Sudanese Prime Minister Sadiq Al Mahdi.
A boat trip on the Blue Nile, one of the two Niles that converge in Khartoum, was followed by a meeting with President Lt. Gen. Omer Hassan Ahmed Al-Bashir at the Presidential Palace and a press conference.
He told reporters that he had “a very, very good discussion” with the President, which “focused on peace and the Government’s determination to press ahead with peace and work with the neighbours and the international community to attain this peace.”
“I think we do have a very good climate at the moment,” he said. “There are very, very encouraging signs.”
He said that, on the humanitarian issue, he and the President agreed that "food needs to get to the needy, and that humanitarian workers must have free and unfettered access." They agreed on the need for comprehensive access, except in 18 locations where the Government believes it is not safe to operate. The situation in those areas will be kept under review.
The Secretary-General said, "We have decided to intensify the liaison mechanisms for working out any of these differences," adding that he and the President share the same concern for the security of humanitarian workers.
Between the meeting and the press conference, the Secretary-General had received an honorary degree from the University of Juba, which has been forced to relocate to Khartoum because of the conflict. A brief ceremony took place at the Presidential Palace.
On the telephone, he spoke with Javier Solana of the European Union.