ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN FRANCE, 19 - 23 FEBRUARY
Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Paris early in the evening of Wednesday, 19 February.
On arrival at the Africa-France Summit the following morning, the Secretary-General was greeted by French President Jacques Chirac. In his address to the gathering, the Secretary-General welcomed the formation of the African Union and the blossoming of civil society on the continent, although he said there was still much work be done.
He singled out Côte d’Ivoire’s dangerous ethnic and religious tensions, and called on all Ivorians and their political leaders to honour the power-sharing agreement they reached in Paris last month. But he also acknowledged the progress made to settle the conflicts in Angola, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Now, he said, Africa must come to grips with the AIDS pandemic and its impact on food security, on governance and on society issues.
In agriculture, he called for the regreening of Africa through a green revolution, drawing on new agricultural techniques suited to a depleted workforce. On governance, he said that when we once spoke of capacity-building in Africa, we must now speak of capacity replenishment, restoring the State’s ability to provide essential public services. He also announced his intention to establish a high-level commission on HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa to help leaders address the profound structural impact of AIDS.
Finally, he appealed to the leaders to continue speaking out, stressing the need for safe sex and the use of condoms and to pay greater attention to AIDS orphans.
“In makeshift households”, he said, “far from schools, far from opportunities ... indeed suddenly far from childhood itself ... they face the bleakest of futures. It would be unconscionable to allow their plight to persist any longer.”
Above all, he concluded, African women must be put at the centre of the fight against AIDS. “A green revolution in Africa will happen only if it is also a gender revolution”, he said. “Governance will improve only if women are genuinely empowered.”
“In short”, he declared, “if you want to save Africa, you must save the African women first.” (See Press Release SG/SM/8611.)
The Secretary-General then participated in the first working session of the Summit on “political partnership, security and peace”.
In the early afternoon, the Secretary-General had a private meeting with the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, to discuss primarily the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He then participated in the Summit afternoon working session on “partnership and development priority”.
He then had a meeting with President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt to review the Iraq situation. They discussed the need for Iraq to accept its obligation to disarm and to work proactively with the United Nations inspectors to get the job done urgently. They emphasized the central role of the Security Council and the need for the inspectors to press ahead with their important work.
In the early evening, he met with President Mbeki and the President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, and they agreed to get together the next day with President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo to discuss the peace process in that country. Later in the evening, he attended a dinner hosted by President Chirac in honour of the heads of delegation attending the Summit.
On Friday at 7:30 a.m., the Secretary-General met for over an hour with Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to discuss ways to advance the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The proliferation of armed groups in the eastern part of the country is destabilizing the situation and undermining the peace process, they agreed. The Secretary-General felt that the mandate of the United Nations mission in the country might have to be strengthened to address this concern. In the end, stability could best be achieved by the establishment of a broad-based government, formed through the inter-Congolese dialogue, which could extend its control to all parts of the country.
The Secretary-General then attended the final working session of the Africa-France Summit. In the margins, he held a series of bilateral meetings. He first asked to see President Pierre Buyoya of Burundi, with whom he discussed ways to accelerate the peace process in that country. Afterwards, they had a brief one-on-one session.
President Idriss Deby of Chad then asked to see the Secretary-General to brief him on the current state of relations between Chad and neighbouring Central African Republic.
The Secretary-General also met with the new Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, Seydou Diarra, who described his efforts to form a government of national unity along the lines agreed in Paris last month. He stressed the urgent need to assure the public and to get the economy back on track. The Secretary-General said that a United Nations team would arrive in Abidjan soon to assess the security situation in the country, and he had asked that two United Nations human rights experts be part of that team. The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Côte d’Ivoire, Albert Tevoedjre, was present at this meeting.
Finally, the Secretary-General met privately with President John Kufuor of Ghana.
At the close of the Summit, the Secretary-General joined President Jacques Chirac of France, President Mbeki of South Africa and President Paul Biya of Cameroon for a concluding press conference. In his opening comments, the Secretary-General repeated a theme from his address of the previous day, saying, “AIDS today in Africa has a woman’s face. If we are going to save Africa, we must save the African woman.”
Asked what can be done to make men more aware of their responsibilities regarding AIDS, the Secretary-General said it was a question of leadership, at the national, as well as at the community, level. He cited Senegal, Uganda and Botswana as countries that have taken positive action and said, “all around the continent, there are good practices that we can learn”.
He said that he pleads with leaders to empower women and respect their rights. “My message was intended to encourage them”, he said, “and for us to focus on the women and the crucial role they play. There has been no successful development policy without putting women at the centre and really giving them their place in society.”
He then returned to his hotel, where in the late afternoon he met the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, Prince Saud al Faisal. The Minister briefed the Secretary-General on his Government's latest thinking concerning the crisis in Iraq.
On Saturday morning, the Secretary-General met with his Special Envoy for the inter-Congolese dialogue, Moustapha Niasse, to review outstanding issues. They discussed military and security matters, as well as legal ones having to do with the Constitution. Mr. Niasse felt that, with flexibility on all sides, compromise could be reached in a short time. The security situation in the eastern part of the country, however, was troubling for the peace process as a whole, they agreed.
Mr. Niasse would soon travel to South Africa to continue negotiations with the Congolese parties.
The Secretary-General departed France for Turkey on Sunday, 23 February.