PRESS BRIEFING BY UNITED KINGDOM ON WEST AFRICA SECURITY COUNCIL MISSION

The Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom, Jeremy Greenstock, briefed correspondents at Headquarters today on the upcoming Security Council mission to seven West African nations later this week and said the Council would today or tomorrow establish a new peacekeeping mission in Côte d’Ivoire.

As part of several efforts under way to ease the crises in West Africa, the Security Council mission from 15 to 23 May has, among its objectives, to demonstrate continuing Security Council interest in the subregion, encourage more cooperation among the countries there, and identify any obstacles to improved cooperation.  The 15-member mission will visit seven nations in the subregion:  Nigeria; Ghana; Côte d’Ivoire; Guinea; Liberia; Guinea-Bissau; and Sierra Leone.

Also according to the terms of reference of the mission agreed by the Council (document S/2003/525), it seeks to examine the links between the conflicts in Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone and their impact on neighbouring countries, including the question of mercenaries, arms trafficking and refugees.  Among its other aims is a review of the activities of the Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for West Africa and an assessment of progress towards Council objectives on the protection of civilians and children affected by armed conflict.

Speaking in his capacity as leader of the mission, Mr. Greenstock encouraged correspondents, when assessing the purpose of the mission, to take account the recently adopted resolution on Liberia renewing the sanctions regime for a further 12 months until 7 May, as well as the resolution about to be adopted on Côte d’Ivoire, which establishes a peacekeeping mission there (MINUCI) and further helps the Office of the Special Representative.  That resolution, to be adopted just before the mission leaves, would be very useful in addressing the Council’s main objectives in Côte d’Ivoire.

The main reason for the timing of the mission, he said, was to take forward a number of agreements for restoring peace, stability, and normality to the West African region, following, particularly, the Sierra Leone saga, which saw a deterioration in 2000, when a mission last went to West Africa.  That mission had brought back a number of recommendations about restoring peace in Sierra Leone and within the three Mano River Union countries -- Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone -- and which set out some recommendations on the coordination of United Nations activity, which the Secretariat followed up very effectively and which made a difference in Sierra Leone, itself.

He said that the situation next door in Liberia and those parts of Guinea that bordered on Liberia, and, more recently, the deterioration of the situation in Côte d’Ivoire from political fracas to an actual rebellion, had highlighted the fragility of the West African region in terms of maintaining its own security and political cohesion, and with respect to the business of putting the interests of the ordinary population first.  For the latter, it had been necessary to sustain Council interest in the region and to take specific action with respect to Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia, from which the main threats to stability in West Africa still emanated.  The mission was both conscious of, and somewhat dependent on, the efforts of the main regional players, he said.  It was placing itself in a strong regional context, therefore, both in terms of the number of countries being visited and the itinerary.  From the perspective of a regional focus, the mission was going to the largest country in the region first, Nigeria, on Friday, 16 May.  He recalled his visit to Monrovia in October 2000.  That was a desperate place to live, because of the years of civil strife and neglect of the Government, partly from circumstances and partly a matter of political priorities.  That had showed “how much we owe, as an international community, to the ordinary people of the region to try to restore things with a further sustained effort”, he said.

Now, the western region of Côte d’Ivoire, bordering with Liberia and not unconnected to the situation there, remains desperate for the ordinary people, he said, in response to a briefing to the Council earlier today by Carolyn McAskie, United Nations Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator and Humanitarian Envoy for the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire.  As many as three-quarters of a million people were internally displaced throughout the country, and the situation was particularly desperate in the west and north-west.  In Liberia, the situation was comparable to the worst days in Sierra Leone. 

He said that was why, as part of regional objective, there was a need to assess how the Council could take forward its business on the protection of civilians and children in armed conflict.  He also wished to take forward gender issues.  He had just met with Angela King, who was especially concerned with the advancement of women’s issues in that context.  The degree to which women locally could contribute to the rebuilding of normal life had been gravely underestimated, and he wished to take that forward as part of the mission’s regional and general objectives.  He wanted to produce conclusions from the mission that had a practical, and not just exhortatory, influence on what was happening in West Africa. 

That would be part of a drive to get new resources into the region, particularly for MINUCI and resolving the conflict in Liberia, and for damping down the conflict on the ground and resolving the humanitarian issues, he went on.  In Sierra Leone, he wanted to check that the recent 18 months would be sustained.  The situation was still fragile there, in some areas.  The mission members wished to talk about the next steps of consolidation in Sierra Leone, not just with the Government, but with leaders of political parties across the country.

Asked about the role of the new mission in Côte d’Ivoire, given that it had little or no military component, he said there was military on the ground in three forms:  the indigenous military arrangements, which needed to be solidified; the French force on the ground; and plans being taken forward for an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) force on the ground. 

He added that MINUCI would be created in the form of approximately 75 military officers to back up the Special Representative and to liaise with all the forces on the ground in Côte d’Ivoire, and produce a kernel, or a core, of United Nations military advice, monitoring and other deterrent activity “to make sure that peace wins over war”.  It would make an immediate difference to have that United Nations instrument on the ground, even if it was not “weapon wielding”, he said.

He turned a related question about how the number of peacekeepers was arrived at for the new mission to Vanessa Howe-Jones, First Secretary of the United Kingdom’s mission, who said there had not been a great deal of discussion, as that had been based on the Secretary-General’s recommendations.  There was always a possibility that the numbers might increase.  It was true that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations had recommended a slightly larger number, but in the end, the Secretariat was comfortable with the present number as a reasonable start.

Today’s meeting had not been about the Congo, he replied to another question.  However, he had regarded the region for some time as an emergency.  Talks would continue “quite urgently” about whether to reinforce the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or other inputs in the region.  The departure of the Ugandan troops, beyond the due date, had led, for one reason or another, to a deterioration of the situation, which needed to be mended urgently, he stressed.

There would not be time to go beyond the capital in each country, but the mission would talk to political representatives and convene a spread of meetings across the political spectrum in Côte d’Ivoire, he responded to a further question.  “We are not going to be sustained negotiators, because we are in and out, although the Security Council would keep an eye on this whole thing very closely”, he added. 

Asked about the participants, he said there would be six permanent representatives and six other ambassadors, and a few other representatives.  The permanent representatives would be from the United Kingdom, Angola, Bulgaria, China, Guinea and Mexico.  The others were from Cameroon, Chile, France, the Russian Federation, Spain and the United States.  The final three members would be representatives, including at the ministerial level, of Germany, Pakistan and Syria.

Replying to a question about whether the absence of those Council members would affect the pace of negotiations on a new resolution on Iraq, he said he assumed that those negotiations likely would take until the end of May, anyway, and would probably be in the final stages when the mission returned.  He hoped to hear that his colleagues had made an “enormous advance” in that regard.

To another question about whether the United Nations, at a later stage, had an appetite for more substantial peacekeeping in Côte d’Ivoire, he said “possibly”.  First, account would be taken of what was already available on the ground, including to what extent ECOWAS could build up its peacekeeping mission on the ground, and how long France would wish to keep a military force in that country.  There might well be a need at least for a stronger monitoring element of the new mission “with a peacekeeping hat on”, but that would be taken up later. .

Regarding the situation in Liberia, he hoped the recent resolution would lead to positive, future steps “out of sanctions and away from a confrontational and punitive approach”, he said.  Sanctions were targeted very much on the Government and needed not affect the people as a whole, but clearly the economic situation in Liberia was a “very unhappy one” and not helped by the general image of sanctions. 

He added that he would like to move beyond sanctions, by seeing Liberia fulfil all its obligations under Council resolutions.  The timber area, the focus of one paragraph of the new resolution on Liberia’s sanctions, would not take effect until July, allowing a few months to see if it was possible to generate a positive atmosphere. 

He said he was very interested in getting a credible assurance of compliance by President Taylor and the Government.  “I felt let down following the October 2000 mission on the commitments that we got from the Government of Liberia at that point, and we don’t want a repeat of that”, he added.

Asked about linking the mission’s agenda with the question of illegal arms in the subregion, he said that was a subject of a moratorium by ECOWAS.  Their continued spread was the reason it was so important to entrench political agreement.  It would take a long time to get a universal regime restricting the spread of weapons in Africa, so a different route had to be taken at the moment.  

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