SG/T/2257

ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN SWITZERLAND, SIERRA LEONE 30 NOVEMBER - 3 DECEMBER

Secretary-General Kofi Annan departed New York on Thursday, 30 November, en route to Sierra Leone, with a stopover in Switzerland. His trip would later take him to Benin, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Italy.

On Friday, 1 December, World AIDS Day was being celebrated around the world. Mr. and Mrs. Annan joined a solidarity march in Geneva and attended an ecumenical service in observance of the Day. Also on that day, the Secretary- General met with his Special Representative for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kamel Morjane.

The Secretary-General and Mrs. Annan left for Sierra Leone on Saturday, 2 December, where they arrived early in the afternoon.

Foreign Minister Sama Banya greeted the Secretary-General at Lungi International Airport. �We believe that peace in Sierra Leone is possible and that if the people, the Government and the international community work together, we can bring peace to this land�, the Secretary-General said on arrival. He told the press that this was his second visit to Freetown in about a year, which indicated the importance the international community attaches to the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL).

His first activity was a briefing by his Special Representative, Oluyemi Adeniji, and senior UNAMSIL officials. He was also briefed on humanitarian and development activities of the United Nations system.

The Secretary-General then met with United Nations staff working in Sierra Leone, thanking them for the way they were working as a team. He told them: �It is vitally important that you pull together as one �- as a single United Nations. You may be military or civilian personnel. You may be legal officers or involved in humanitarian relief. You may be part of the country team for development, or work very closely with our many valuable partners in the non- governmental organizations community. Whatever the case, success will depend on teamwork, and on pooling your efforts.� (See SG/SM/7651)

Later in the afternoon, he met with President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah at the Presidential Lodge. During the first part of the meeting, with the Secretary- General�s delegation and members of the Sierra Leone Cabinet, President Kabbah thanked the Secretary-General for the role the United Nations was playing in Sierra Leone. He also said he was pleased the Secretary-General was visiting other areas because �Sierra Leone is not only Freetown�.

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The Secretary-General told the President that the Sierra Leonean Government and the United Nations �had done a lot together, but we still have a long road to go�. The President and the Secretary-General then went into a t�te-�-t�te, which lasted for about half an hour.

On Saturday evening, the Secretary-General attended a reception hosted in his honour by Foreign Minister Sama Banya. During his toast, the Secretary- General paid tribute �to the wise approach taken by the Government in these latest stages of the peace process�. Addressing the Foreign Minister and the other Sierra Leoneans at the reception, he added that the United Nations would continue �to be your partner�.

The Secretary-General added: �UNAMSIL remains committed to its mission, and is being strengthened to carry out its mandates. The humanitarian community continues to provide both emergency aid and help with longer-term peace-building projects. These efforts have real potential to build confidence and bear fruit.�

The Secretary-General�s day ended with a private dinner hosted by Mr. Adeniji.

The second day of the Secretary-General�s visit to Sierra Leone was mostly dedicated to field visits. He flew by helicopter to Port Loko, where he was initially briefed by the Commander of UNAMSIL�s Sector 1, Brigadier General Ba Yinadu, who told the Secretary-General that Sector 1 was perhaps �still occupying the most volatile area in UNAMSIL�. As such, he said entire units had remained �on high state of alertness since the beginning of hostilities in May this year to date�.

Following that, the Secretary-General, accompanied by Mrs. Annan, visited a disarmament, demobilization and reintegration camp -- Camp South Port Loko -- one of the four such camps established in line with the provisions of the Lom� Peace Accord of July 1999. The camp is designated for ex-combatants of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the Sierra Leone Army (SLA), the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the West Side Boys.

Since it was established in late 1999 until May 2000, when fighting broke out, the camp discharged over 6,000 ex-combatants. A further 347 were discharged from the camp between 15 and 25 November 2000. At the time of the Secretary-General's visit, there were 55 ex-combatants in the camp, which is administered by UNAMSIL in cooperation with the National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration.

While going from one location to another in Port Loko, the road through which the Secretary-General�s motorcade moved was lined with crowds of cheering local inhabitants of all ages. At one location, the Secretary-General and Mrs. Annan decided to stop at a camp for internally displaced persons on the roadside. They were told by a representative of the Norwegian Refugee Council that the camp sheltered thousands of people and that its main problems were overpopulation, idleness and deforestation.

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After this stop, the Secretary-General visited UNAMSIL's Nigerian Battalion, where he was awarded the title of honorary paramount chief by traditional leaders. He would be known as Paramount Chief Bai Bureh Kabbi II Annan and Mrs. Annan would be Madame ya Bomposseh Kablai Annan.

The Secretary-General thanked the Port Lokans for the great honour bestowed on him. He took the opportunity �to call on the RUF to demonstrate its commitment to peace by allowing free access for UNAMSIL, the Government and humanitarian agencies to the entire territory of Sierra Leone, and desist from blocking the roads and preventing people from going about their lives�. He also urged all Sierra Leoneans �to continue with confidence-building measures, and so help to revive the political process� (see SG/SM/7652).

The Secretary-General then flew to Lakka, where he visited a rehabilitation centre for ex-child combatants. The St. Michael�s Interim Care Centre of the Family Home�s Movement in Lakka is one of the 12 such centres in various parts of the country providing similar services for the demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration of child ex-combatants. It is managed by the Xavarian missionaries, with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and non- governmental organizations support. The Secretary-General and Mrs. Annan were briefed by Father Giuseppe Bertow, who told them that the children �- from a few months old up to sixteen to eighteen years old �- are grouped in family units, all with a �mother�. Father Bertow said that the greatest crime of the war in Sierra Leone is �the moral and physical destruction of so many children�. The Secretary-General was very moved by the visit and said that the centre has given a gift to the children �- it had given back their childhood.

The Secretary-General and Mrs. Annan were able to see the children engaged in different activities -� music, dance, handicrafts -� as well as to have a closed-door private talk with the children, offering them the opportunity to hear the children express their views and feelings. Assan Bangure, fifteen years old, was carrying a sign which said, �Thank you UN scribe. We love you�. He said he was captured by the RUF in 1994 and went to the centre in 1998. He also said the activity he liked most at the centre was to study.

The Secretary-General then flew back to Freetown where he met with senior UNAMSIL civilian and military officials, and with the diplomatic corps.

Before a farewell visit to President Kabbah, the Secretary-General held a press conference. He told journalists that the ceasefire signed in November in Abuja was holding. He added it represented an opportunity to be seized, but he sounded a note of caution �since we have seen all-too-many agreements fall prey to renewed hostilities and thrusts for power�.

In answer to questions on the deployment of further UNAMSIL troops, the Secretary-General said that �we in Africa cannot go around brutalizing our people, creating conflicts and immediately turn around and say where are the troops, who is coming to stop us? Quite frankly, I think we have a responsibility, our leaders have a responsibility. We have a responsibility towards our people. There must be loyalty towards the people. Leaders after

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all are supposed to protect and look after the people; it is the reverse that is happening here. What I will say is that the international community can help and will continue to help. Peace cannot be imposed ... by foreign troops coming in�.

The Secretary-General left Sierra Leone for Cotonou, Benin late Sunday afternoon, 3 December.

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