ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN SWITZERLAND, 23 - 24 APRIL
Secretary-General Kofi Annan left Vienna late in the afternoon of Wednesday, 23 April, for Geneva.
He met the following morning with the Chairman of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Najat Al-Hajjai, before addressing the Commission’s fifty-ninth annual session in Geneva.
“What we must all hope is that a new era of human rights in Iraq will now begin, with the end of the war”, he said. He called on the coalition forces to comply with international agreements that define the responsibilities of the occupying Power. But he also called on the delegates to not be distracted from what is happening in other parts of the world, mentioning specifically the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
“We are living through a time of global tension and division”, he said, when people’s fundamental sense of security has been shaken. This is a time when the work of the Commission is more important than ever, he remarked. “And yet, divisions and disputes in recent months have made your voice not stronger, but weaker; your voice in the great debates about human rights more muffled, not clearer.”
“This must change”, he asserted, if the cause of human rights is to be advanced in a broad and universal manner.
“When we speak of human rights”, he observed, “we must never forget that we are labouring to save the individual man, woman or child from violence, abuse and injustice.”
“Freedom from want and freedom from fear must go hand in hand”, he went on. “It is that perspective –- the individual’s –- which must guide your work, and not the point of view of contending States. At the same time, he said, “we all recognize that for that individual’s rights to be secured, States must act”.
“You, who are gathered in this hall”, he concluded, “must want to make these rights a reality for every citizen of every nation.” (See Press Release SG/SM/8675-HR/CN/1043 of 24 April).
After the speech, he met privately with the United NationsHigh Commissioner for Human Rights, Sergio Vieira de Mello, and then with a cross-section of about 20 members of his senior staff, from Headquarters and the field. They reviewed reform efforts and programme content, including in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Sri Lanka.
In the afternoon, the Secretary-General announced that due to current developments in Iraq, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and elsewhere, he was cutting short his current trip and returning to New York Headquarters.
He arrived in New York that evening.