SG/A/671

SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS PAUL EUGENE LABERGE OF CANADA TO INVESTIGATIVE TEAM IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

13 February 1998


Press Release
SG/A/671
BIO/3140


SECRETARY-GENERAL APPOINTS PAUL EUGENE LABERGE OF CANADA TO INVESTIGATIVE TEAM IN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

19980213 Biographical Note Secretary-General Kofi Annan today announced the appointment of Paul Eugene Laberge of Canada to his investigative team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The team has a mandate to investigate grave violations of human rights and international humanitarian law alleged to have been committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) since 1 March 1993. Mr. Laberge will take his post at the end of February 1998.

Mr. Laberge is a former member of the Canadian Foreign Service who served as Permanent Representative of Canada to the United Nations from 1986 to 1989. Between 1982 and 1986, he was Canada's Ambassador to Algeria. In the course of his career, he has also been assigned to diplomatic posts in Washington, D.C.; Paris; Viet Nam; Senegal; Mali; Mauritania; and Trinidad and Tobago.

From September 1993 to January 1994, and again from February to June 1995, Mr. Laberge was training coordinator for some 200 human rights monitors in the joint United Nations/Organization of American States International Civilian Mission to Haiti (MICIVIH). In April 1994, he served as electoral observer with the United Nations Observer Mission in South Africa.

Mr. Laberge received a Bachelor of Commerce degree in 1955 from the University of Ottawa, Canada. He earned a postgraduate diploma in economic studies from the Free University of Berlin, Germany, in 1957 and a Master of Arts in Economics from the University of Ottawa in 1959. He is fluent in French, Spanish, English and German.

Mr. Laberge was born in St. Boniface, Manitoba on 3 September 1934.

* *** *

For information media. Not an official record.