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INTRODUCTORY
REMARKS BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE MIXED COMMISSION AND SPECIAL
REPRESENTATIVE
OF THE SECRETARY-GENERAL OF THE
UNITED NATIONS, MR. AHMEDOU OULD-ABDALLAH
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Abuja,
4 February 2003
I
should like first of all to thank His Excellency Prince Ajibola for his
warm welcome to our delegations and for the kind words he addressed to me.
I want also to acknowledge the distinguished presence here of the
Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency Mr.
Atiku Abubakar. Your presence
in this room, Sir, is an honour deeply appreciated by all of us here, and
which lends to our meeting a special prominence.
It is yet another pleasure to meet again with His Excellency the
Minister of State for Justice and Keeper of the Seals of Cameroon, His
Excellency Mr. Amadou Ali.
As
some of you may know, I flew in yesterday directly from Abidjan, where I
was meeting with President Obasanjo, President Kuofor and a number of
other regional leaders. To
see such a rich and well-organized country as Côte d’Ivoire in such a
volatile situation was quite disheartening.
I am all the more pleased to be here today with two countries that
have chosen to solve their differences peacefully rather than by the
traditional use of force.
My
delegation and I have come to Abuja with a sense of both encouragement and
anticipation. A sense of
encouragement for what you, the delegations from Nigeria and
Cameroon, achieved in Yaoundé on 1 and 2 December 2002 under the
distinguished leadership of His Excellency Mr. Amadou Ali and His
Excellency Prince Ajibola. And
also a sense of anticipation for the constructive dialogue that I trust
will characterize our second meeting.
Your
two Presidents, their Excellencies Mr. Olusegun Obasanjo and Mr. Paul
Biya, have shown statesmanship and vision when they decided to establish
the Mixed Commission. In
doing so, they are setting a new standard for Africa as regards relations
between countries. The
Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Kofi Annan, wrote to them
early in December to acknowledge the success of the Yaoundé meeting, and
especially to pay tribute to the heads of the Nigerian and Cameroonian
delegations who made that success possible because they showed the
requisite goodwill and knew how to address the basic problem.
Because
it is important for us to keep our eyes focused on the purpose of this
Commission, allow me to recall again the thrust of its mandate as defined
in the communiqué issued at Geneva on 15 November 2002. Under the broad heading of “following up the 10 October
2002 judgment of the International Court of Justice on the boundary
between Cameroon and Nigeria and moving the process forward,” the Mixed
Commission has been mandated:
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To
consider all implications of the decision, including the need to
protect the rights of the affected populations in both countries; |
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To
demarcate the land boundary; |
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To
make recommendations on additional confidence-building measures, such
as: |
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the holding, on a regular basis, of meetings between local authorities,
Government officials and Heads of State;
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developing projects to promote joint economic ventures and cross-border
cooperation;
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the avoidance of inflammatory statements on Bakassi by either side;
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troop withdrawal from relevant areas along the land boundary;
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eventual demilitarization of the Bakassi peninsula with the possibility of
international personnel to observe withdrawal; and
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reactivation of the Lake Chad Basin Commission.
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In
addition, the two Presidents agreed to consider what further
assistance their countries would need from the United Nations. |
Such
is therefore our mandate. In
Yaoundé, the Mixed Commission took the first important steps towards
implementing it. I should
like now to touch briefly on the follow up action that was taken since.
As
one of its very first measures, the Mixed Commission decided to establish
a Sub-Commission which would be responsible for the demarcation of the
land boundary between the two countries.
That was a great achievement and the Sub-Commission met
successfully in Geneva from 7 to 9 January 2003.
Another
decision our Commission made at Yaoundé was that both your Governments
should proceed with the project relating to the improvement of the Mamfé-Ikom
road and the related socio-economic projects.
For his part, the United Nations Secretary-General has been
actively seeking a more urgent engagement on the part of a number of donor
and financial institutions. He
has written to the President of the World Bank, to the Administrator of
the United Nations Development Programme and to the President of the
African Development Bank. The preliminary response he has had from them is
encouraging, and efforts are under way to coordinate action by the three
institutions. In addition, a
few members of my team have been making arrangements with your Governments
to travel shortly to the area of the Mamfé-Ikom road, in order to see
what is being done and to speak with the local authorities.
Yet
another decision you took at Yaoundé was that the Lake Chad Basin
Commission should be re-energized at the earliest possible date.
In that connection, the United Nations Secretariat in New York has
been in touch with the United Nations Development Programme in Chad, where
the Lake Chad Basin Commission is based, as well as with the World Bank in
Washington, both to acquaint these two institutions with the mandate of
that Commission and to see what further contribution they could make.
Regarding
the agreement by the Mixed Commission to consider the assignment of a
single United Nations military liaison officer in each of your capitals at
a later date, we will be attentive to any further discussion on the
subject in the present meeting.
Regarding
the agreement by the Mixed Commission to consider the assignment by the
United Nations of a single military liaison officer in each of your
capitals, we will be attentive to any further discussion on the subject in
the present meeting.
I
shall now turn to the question of the way forward.
It is our expectation that the present meeting will take further
decisions that will move forward the implementation of our Commission’s
mandate. Subject to your
approval of the programme of work for this meeting, we shall consider,
with a view to their adoption, the work plan prepared by the
Sub-Commission on Demarcation of the Land Boundary when it met at Geneva,
as well as the modalities for the implementation of the Sub-Commission’s
report.
We
shall also review the various measures envisaged in previous statements
and communiqués in order to further prioritize them and to chart a course
towards their full implementation.
The
commendable outcome of our meeting in Yaoundé has created high
expectations in your countries as well as in other countries.
The work of the Mixed Commission certainly deserves better exposure
in the media than it seems to get, if only to counter the unfair image of
Africa as a continent from where only bad news can come.
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