UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY-GENERAL VISITS ICRC IN GENEVA AND OFFICE OF HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

SG/T/99/2
25 January 1999



This morning in Geneva, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Cornelio Sommaruga, and will meet in the afternoon with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson.

After concluding an official visit to Ireland, the Secretary-General arrived in Geneva on Saturday, 23 January, where he will stay until Tuesday, 26 January.

The Secretary-General paid an official visit to the Geneva Headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross this morning where he was welcomed by ICRC President, Cornelio Sommaruga. After shaking the hands of members of the ICRC as well as senior aids, the Secretary-General listened to a speech by Mr. Sommaruga in which he noted that the world was having the greatest difficulty in living up to the ideals of peace and friendly relations among nations that the Member Staters had enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

Mr. Sommaruga said new conflicts had been added to the old conflicts carried over from the Cold War. Now that the spectre of the Cold War had ceased to haunt the world, it was seeing instead a proliferation of new conflicts whose unavowed objective was not mere military victory but the total annihilation of the other side. The Secretary-General, through his political action, his good office, and his unfailing personal commitment, endeavoured to bring about negotiated settlements that would lead to the restoration of peace. The ICRC, for its part, concentrated on coming to the aid of the victims. Their respective roles were different, but they were complementary and quite indispensable.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, Mr. Sommaruga said the ICRC was seeking to give a voice to victims of war and secure greater respect for the law. The ICRC’s priority of priorities was to ensure compliance with international humanitarian law and thus guarantee that the victims of conflict in fact enjoyed the protection to which they were entitled.

The Secretary-General then made a statement in which he said the United Nations and ICRC were good and effective partners: independent of each other, yet close in spirit and together on the ground. Their common aim was to prevent and ease the suffering caused by war. The Secretary-General said he had sought to revitalize the United Nations so that its entire family of organizations worked toward common goals like promoting the rule of law, ensuring respect for human rights and encouraging the peaceful resolution of disputes. He had also tried to deepen the United Nations ties with regional organizations, with the private sector and with non-governmental organizations and the rest of civil society, because the simple fact was that the common challenges being faced today were too big for the United Nations alone.

Mr. Annan said the humanitarian work carried out by the ICRC and the United Nations had come under unprecedented stress in recent years. Civilians had become the preferred targets of combatants, so that even low-intensity conflicts generated enormous human suffering. Breaches of humanitarian law and human rights had become almost routine means to an end. Humanitarian assistance had been used as a fig-leaf, hiding a lack of political will to address the root causes of conflict. The consequences had been dire: needless suffering, needlessly prolonged crises, and damage to the credibility of international institutions and to the very idea of an international community.

In the past year in particular, the Secretary-General noted that high numbers of individuals wearing United Nations Blue or the Red Cross and Crescent had been murdered, held hostage, assaulted or robbed. He stressed that the United Nations and the ICRC must not resign themselves to this state of affairs. It was unacceptable and they had to fight it.

After the public exchange of speeches, the Secretary-General signed the ICRC’s Visitors’ Book. Then, Mr. Sommaruga handed him as a present a leather-bound copy of a book by Francois Bugnion, an senior ICRC official, entitled “Le Comite International de la Croix Rouge et La Protection des Victimes de la Guerre.”

Following the public statements, the Secretary-General and the President of the ICRC held a working session in which they discussed a number of subjects of common interest such as the situations in Sierra Leone, Angola, and other African countries, as well as in Kosovo. They also discussed the security of humanitarian staffers in the field.

Mr. Sommaruga hosted a lunch in honour of the Secretary-General at 12.30 p.m. It was attended by members of the ICRC and senior staffers. Before he concluded his visit to ICRC, the Secretary-General visited the “Jardin de Souvenirs”. The garden commemorates the memory of men and women who gave their lives for humanitarian causes.

The Secretary-General will pay an official visit to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the Palais Wilson at 3.30 p.m. today. He will first be meeting with High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and Bertie Ramcharan, the Deputy High Commissioner. Following this meeting, the Secretary-General will address the staff of the Office of the High Commissioner.