POINT DE PRESSE DU SERVICE DE L'INFORMATION (en anglais)
Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which also heard from Dennis McNamara, United Nations Special Adviser on Internal Displacement, and spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC).
Programme of the Secretary-General
Ms. Heuzé said that the Secretary-General had left Geneva yesterday and was in Paris this morning. He had met with Ms. Michèle Alliot-Marie, Defense Minister of France, early this morning to discuss peacekeeping operations. At the moment, the Secretary-General and Mr. Jacques Chirac, President of France, were visiting the new Quai Branly Museum. The Secretary-General would then have a working lunch with Mr. Dominique de Villepin, Prime Minister of France, which would be followed by a joint press conference at around 2:30 p.m. The Secretary-General would return to Geneva toward the end of the afternoon.
Ms. Heuzé confirmed that the Secretary-General would make an important speech to the Conference on Disarmament at 11:00 a.m., Wednesday, 21 June 2006. However, it was possible that the press conference of the Secretary-General, which had been scheduled for Wednesday would be moved to Thursday morning.
Geneva activities
Ms. Heuzé said that the High Level Segment of the First Session of the Human Rights Council was continuing this morning. Jan Eliasson, President of the General Assembly, who had opened the session yesterday, would be departing for New York at around noon today.
The Conference on Disarmament would be hearing five speakers this morning, including two ministers – H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of the Republic of Korea, and H.E. Prof. Akiko Yamanaka, Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan.
Ms. Heuzé drew attention to a roundtable entitled “What Future for Human Rights?” that would take place at 11:30 a.m. this morning in Room XVII. The roundtable was organized by the Graduate Institute of International Studies (HEI) on the occasion of the opening of the Human Rights Council. Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2004 and Executive Director of The Green Belt Movement, would be among the speakers as well as Hina Jilani, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Human Rights Defenders.
Human Rights
Praveen Randhawa of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that the Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing as a Component to an Adequate Standard of Living, Miloon Kothari, was attending the third session of the World Urban Forum in Vancouver from 19 to 23 June 2006. Later this afternoon, the Special Rapporteur would issue a press release in which he would draw attention to forced evictions in the name of development as a cause of homelessness, displacement and human tragedy worldwide. The full text of his statement at the Forum would be available on OHCHR’s website later this afternoon.
World Refugee Day
Jennifer Pagonis of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that UNHCR, its partner organisations and millions of refugees and displaced persons around the globe were today marking World Refugee Day with hundreds of special events and activities focusing on the theme of “Hope”. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Gutteres, was scheduled to spend the day near the Liberia-Sierra Leone border in West Africa where he was expected to meet a repatriation convoy bringing Liberian refugees back from Sierra Leone and accompany them on their journey home.
While the global number of refugees, some 8.4 million people, had fallen to the lowest level in 26 years, UNHCR’s main concern was that returning refugees often still faced a bleak future back home. The international community needed to devote much more attention to the transition between relief and development and to rebuilding societies ripped apart by violence so that refugees who went home, could stay home.
Among the events taking place around the world today was the launch, in London, of a year-long global campaign entitled “ninemillion.org” aimed at delivering education and sport programmes to nine million refugee children around the world. The campaign was supported by Nice Inc. and Microsoft, both founding members of UNHCR’s Council of Business Leaders. Nike had donated 43,000 soccer balls, designed specifically for durability in harsh refugee camp conditions, which would be sent to children in 200 refugee camps around the world.
Dennis McNamara, UN Special Adviser on Internal Displacement, said that while the number of refugees worldwide was at record lows, the number of internally displaced persons was at record highs, totalling more than 20 million around the world. These people were, in many respects, the “new refugees” but without an agency, without a convention and without an internationally accepted framework for their protection. The internally displaced had traditionally fallen between the cracks of international action and responsibility. By definition, they were subject to the constraints of state sovereignty. They remained dependent on their own governments for their protection and often those very governments were themselves responsible for their abuse and displacement. Humanitarian access was also dependent on the sovereign state. “We don’t have access perhaps to a third of the world’s globally displaced today, according to the best estimates,” said Mr. McNamara. This included 250,000 displaced Somalis in Mogadishu, who the international community had not had access to for more than six months.
According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, 14 million IDPs remained at risk of death through violence today. Mr. McNamara noted that while globally there had been an acceptance of the responsibility to protect, including at the World Summit in September 2005, these commitments were too often not honoured. “The collective responsibility to protect has to be translated from the rhetoric of New York to the realities of Africa.” A new development was the fact that the last five peacekeeping missions that had been established had been given a Chapter VII mandate to protect. While this had resulted in more vigorous action by peacekeepers, it was not enough. There were not enough resources on the ground to carry it out properly. Mr. McNamara concluded by highlighting a very important and welcome part of the new humanitarian reform agenda, namely that UNHCR had nobly taken upon itself the lead responsibility for the protection of displaced civilians from conflict globally. Mr. McNamara said he was looking forward to improvements in the conditions of displaced persons with this new arrangement.
Asked whether there was reason to believe that aid agencies would be granted access to displaced persons in Mogadishu now that the Islamic militia had taken control of the city, Mr. McNamara confirmed that discussions were actively under way with Somali officials, including the Governor of Mogadishu, following public statements that humanitarian agencies would be welcome. The United Nations was evaluating the security situation in the city and would hopefully be able to mount humanitarian mission once the situation was cleared by the Organization’s security apparatus.
Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme (WFP) took advantage of the occasion of World Refugee Day to draw attention to the shortage of funds for aid to refugees and internally displaced persons. In Angola, for example, the rations of the 47,000 returning refugees receiving aid from WFP had to be reduced in March, which unquestionably had a negative impact on the desire of other refugees to return to their homes. WFP needed an additional US$ 7.8 million in order to sustain its operations in Angola until the end of the year. A further US$ 374 million were required for WFP’s entire programme in Sudan; US$ 32 million were required for assistance to 346,000 refugees in Tanzania; US$3,4 million were required for Kenya; and in Chad, aid would run out in November if no new contributions were received.
At the conclusion of the discussion of World Refugee Day, journalists were shown a 30-second UNHCR public service announcement featuring Angelie Jolie.
Other
Mark Oliver of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) drew attention to an El Niño/La Niña update available at the back of the room. Summarizing the update, Mr. Oliver said that current conditions were neutral in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific, with no rapid changes toward El Niño or La Niña expected over the next few months. That meant that there was no major driver in that region for the global climate. Any changes that would happen would be regional or local. An expert would be available to provide further information to those interested.
Jemini Pandya of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) drew attention to two items in IOM’s press notes for the day. In East Timor, amidst growing concern that food shortages in districts outside Dili might be resulting in malnutrition for displaced families and their hosts, IOM had today begun an operation to deliver one-month food rations to internally displaced persons (IDPs) and their host communities in 12 districts outside the capital. In addition, IOM was distributing a second two-week rice ration to 67,000 IDPs in 55 camps in Dili at the request of the Government. In Sudan, IOM was providing return assistance to a group of several thousand vulnerable IDPs wishing to return to their homes in Jonglei State. Additional information on both stories was available in the press notes.
Afsané Bassir-Pour, Director of the United Nations Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC), gave a brief overview of the work of UNRIC and its relationship with the UN Information Services in Geneva and Vienna. UNRIC serviced 21 countries in Western Europe and was organized into nine regional desks and nine thematic desks. It was UNRIC’s intention to strengthen cooperation with the UN Information Services in Geneva and Vienna and to jointly develop and implement public information campaigns on priority UN themes in Europe.