HIGHLIGHTS OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE OF JAN EGELAND, STEPPING DOWN NEXT MONTH AS UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS AND EMERGENCY RELIEF COORDINATOR, ON THE HUMANITARIAN SITUATION WORLDWIDE

Jan Egeland held his last press conference this morning in Geneva in his capacity as Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, a post to which he was appointed in 2003. He will be stepping down next month. He gave an overview of the worldwide humanitarian situation, highlighting how it had changed since 2003, and notably addressed the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Iraq and Darfur. He then responded to questions from journalists.

Looking back on three and a half long and tough years as Emergency Relief Coordinator there had been almost as many failures and successes in the international community, Mr. Egeland remarked. Liberia had been one of the killing fields of the world in 2003, but it was now on the steady road to recovery. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo there had been hundreds and hundreds of deaths every day, and it was vastly improved since then. In northern Uganda, there had been 40,000 “night commuters” – kids trekking into towns at night because the security situation was so bad – and now there were hardly any left who commuted because of fear of the conflict. It was better in Nepal and elsewhere.

However, in Darfur, in neighbouring Chad and across the border in the Central African Republic, the situation had become much worse, and Mr. Egeland regretted that the international community had failed to stop the problem while there was still time in 2003 or 2004. They had realized how big the problem was in 2004. "The world woke up too late" he said.

Another area where it had become infinitely worse in terms of loss of life was Iraq. "One hundred or more dead people every day and night is an outrage" Mr. Egeland said. "I know of no other place on Earth where so many people are killed, massacred and tortured to death as in Iraq." He recalled that his first visit as USG of OCHA had been in 2003 to see the bombed out UN headquarters where his colleague and predecessor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, had been killed. Now there were three times more people killed in Iraq on average every day than had been during the Lebanese war.

On Darfur and that region, millions of people were now engulfed in a situation where there was a total security void. "Were they willing to tolerate in 2006 that millions and millions of civilians lived in fear of their lives month after month after month?" Mr. Egeland asked. It was true that the mortality in the camps had gone down, because it was the best-organized and best-resourced humanitarian operation on Earth. "My point is that it is [an] unsustainable [situation]. Every 10 months there is a million more people in a desperate situation needing emergency relief assistance to survive." Those who went on guided tours invited by the Government were not seeing the real situation – aids workers being harassed, the raped women and the abused civilians.

"We as an international community have solemnly sworn a responsibility to protect. And we are not living up to that responsibility to protect in this part of the world, nor in the other areas, like Iraq ... or in Gaza – which I called a ticking time bomb earlier this year", Mr. Egeland commented. He warned that Gaza was going to explode very soon unless there was progress on the new political process that had started between Palestinian leaders and Israelis.

Finally, he noted that there had been a very marked deterioration in the situation in Sri Lanka since 2003. At that time the ceasefire had been in place, and foreign investment had been pouring in. Now the parties had broken that all down.

Neither in the Darfur-Chad-Central African Republic subregion – the biggest conflict area in the world today – nor in Iraq, in Afghanstan, in Gaza, or in Sri Lanka were the situations the result of natural disasters. They were manmade disasters. And man needed to put it right. "A plaster on a wound could keep people alive; but they could not heal the wound", Mr. Egeland observed. Those who had started the problems had to help stop it.

Following his statement, Mr. Egeland responded to questions from journalists.

On the issue of cluster bombs, Mr. Egeland felt that they were seeing the being of the end of use of cluster bombs. They were a medieval type of weapon; they should not to be used by civilized nations today. He had been pleased to see the whole discussion in Israel following the launch of a survey that showed that hundreds of thousands of bomblets had been spread out over southern Lebanon, as fathers and mothers and children were returning there. They were becoming better at cluster munition clearance, he added. Perhaps that was part of the problem, people were relying on their expertise, but they simply could not clear all of the bomblets up.

Asked whether UN humanitarian relief efforts had failed in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Mr. Egeland was clear: "No they had not failed, neither the UN nor the international humanitarian community." Palestinians remained one of the best-educated and best-immunized people in the world. There was no hunger or massive malnutrition in those areas. The problem was that people felt they were caged and could be killed by an incoming bombshell at any moment. They were caught in the political and military crossfire, where civilians should not be caught. The Central Emergency Response Fund had just released funds for the Beit Hanoun civilians who were so hard hit by the Israel incursions, and as he spoke, effective humanitarian work was reaching those victims.

Regarding the Human Rights Council decision on Darfur, adopted last night, Mr. Egeland did not have exact details. What he could say was that it was strange that they had not formulated a resolution on Darfur earlier, when it was very clear that it was one of the worst human rights crises of the world. He hoped that the now the Government, the rebels, the ethnic leaders, and the neighbouring Governments would now behave, and would understand that they were playing with a powder keg.

They had all failed Darfur, Mr. Egeland insisted: the African countries had done too little too late, as had the Arab countries and the ASEAN economic partners of Sudan. It was, however, not too late. They could still have an international force, which should be African led, African driven and have an African face. But the UN had to be a part of it. That was the lesson of these 3 and a half long years. The employees of the UN had done what it could. It was now time for the Member States to step up to the plate.

They had been able to reform considerably over the past few years on the humanitarian side, Mr. Egeland observed. They were more effective than ever before as a humanitarian community, working in clusters with partners beyond the UN, where the UN actively facilitated the work of NGOs. The Central Emergency Fund had been established, with 300 million dollars already for this year and very considerable pledges for next year. On the political side, he hoped that the UN would have more resources to do political mediation and good offices. He thought it would be major priority for Ban Ki Moon when he came in to do preventive diplomacy, and get back to roots.

Regarding the effect of Security Council sanctions on North Korea, Mr. Egeland reaffirmed his confidence that the Security Council understood that sanctions must not affect and must not limit humanitarian assistance. If one wanted to send a message to a regime that was one thing; civilians should not be harmed in the process. There was, however, another danger: that the sanctions would lead the donor community to be less generous in aid to North Korea.