UN NEEDS JOURNALISTS TO CONTINUE ‘VITAL WORK’, REPLACING MYTHS WITH UNDERSTANDING, SECRETARY-GENERAL TELLS DAG HAMMARSKJOLD FELLOWS

UN NEEDS JOURNALISTS TO CONTINUE ‘VITAL WORK’, REPLACING MYTHS WITH UNDERSTANDING,

SECRETARY-GENERAL TELLS DAG HAMMARSKJOLD FELLOWS

Following is the message by Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the annual luncheon of the Dag Hammarskjöld Scholarship Fund, today, delivered by S. Iqbal Riza, Under-Secretary-General and Chef de Cabinet:

It is a great pleasure to send my greetings to all who have gathered for this annual luncheon.

First, let me congratulate the newest fellows of the Dag Hammarskjöld Scholarship Fund who have been introduced here.

You have overcome considerable competition, and so should feel proud to be here.  Some of you are from countries with first-hand experience of United Nations peacekeeping –- through the missions called United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) and United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), the latter being the largest of today’s operations.  Each of you is also familiar with the development work of the United Nations throughout the world from our long-standing and wide-ranging efforts in your own country.  But now, through the scholarships that you have been awarded, you will have a unique chance to immerse yourselves in the life of the United Nations here at Headquarters -– educating others about its strengths and its quirks, and informing others of the Organization’s people and processes.  I wish you well in that pursuit, and hope you find it a rewarding experience.

I would also like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all the veterans of the UN press corps for the vigorous and rigorous work you have been doing, especially in the past several months.  This has been no ordinary period for the United Nations.  We have suffered greatly lately.  Once the debate on Iraq gave way to war, some of us may have felt a little lonelier without the press trucks camped outside.  But it was good to know that our old friends continued to follow our fortunes, and misfortunes.  You joined us in mourning the death of colleagues and friends killed in the Baghdad bombing, even as you lost loved ones of your own around the world.  Beyond Iraq, you have been very diligent in covering many other issues of great concern to the United Nations, from AIDS to trade.  So let me say “thank you” for filing those reports, and for fighting for airtime and column-inches.

A poet once described members of his profession as “the unacknowledged legislators of mankind”.  The same could be said to apply to journalists.  Neither poets nor reporters have a vote in the Security Council or in other organs of the United Nations.  But you are a vital presence here just the same:  bringing into this building the hopes and fears of the world’s peoples, especially those whose voices are neglected or oppressed; and sending from this building news of action -- or inaction.  The United Nations needs you to continue doing that vital work, so that people and governments alike grasp what the United Nations can do and cannot do; and so that myths and misconceptions about the UN are replaced by facts and understanding.

Congratulations again to all the Hammarskjöld scholars.  I hope that the Dag Hammarskjöld Scholarship Fund will continue to receive the donations it needs to carry out its worthy programmes.  In that spirit, please accept my best wishes for the continued successful lunch and for the success of your work.

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