LONG LIST OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN AFGHANISTAN, BUT CHALLENGES REMAIN IMMENSE,
SAYS SECRETARY-GENERAL IN MESSAGE TO GENERAL ASEMBLY PANEL
Following is Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s message to the panel on "Afghanistan:� One Year Later", delivered by Kieran Prendergast, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, in New York on 18 November:
It gives me great pleasure to welcome all participants of this panel on “Afghanistan:� One Year Later”.� I would also like to commend the President of the General Assembly for organizing this panel on a subject with critical lessons for the work of the United Nations.
For almost a decade prior to the Bonn Agreement, the United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA) sought to bring peace to Afghanistan.� Even if it was ultimately unsuccessful in ending the war, its day-to-day diplomatic efforts on the ground to secure ceasefires and to bring the parties back to the negotiating table may well have saved thousands of lives.� The UNSMA was also the core of what became, last April, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA).
The Bonn Agreement set an ambitious schedule for 2002.� An interim government was to be established, a Loya Jirga to be held, a number of commissions to be created.� All this, along with the provision of humanitarian assistance, was to take place in a land where infrastructure, both physical and institutional, had been destroyed.� And yet much of this has been accomplished.� The Interim Administration was created on schedule.� The process of convening the Emergency Loya Jirga was another major accomplishment in the implementation of the Bonn Agreement.� It elected President Karzai and created a Transitional Administration.� Aid is now being provided.� Salaries of government officials are being paid.� Roads are being rebuilt.� A record number of refugees have been assisted to return home.� The list is long, and is one everyone associated with the work of the United Nations in Afghanistan can be very proud of.� To the extent that we have achieved some success over the past year, I would like to note the excellent work of my Special Representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, and his team in Afghanistan.
This is not a time to rest on our laurels, however.� The challenges facing Afghanistan remain immense: from security to development to creating the political and social institutions necessary for a stable, free and prosperous society with equal rights for all.� I look forward to an engaging and interesting panel today.� I hope, and expect, that in examining the past year you will also help us to light the way forward through the next year.
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