ACTIVITIES OF SECRETARY-GENERAL IN BANGLADESH, 13 - 15 MARCH
Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrived in Dhaka in the evening of Tuesday, 13 March, at the beginning of a two-day visit to Bangladesh.
On arrival at Zia International Airport, the Secretary-General was asked by journalists about the destruction by the Taliban of the Buddha statues at Bamiyan. He replied that he thought it was "outrageous", and added, "There is no way that anyone can accept or condone what happened."
Before turning in for the night, the Secretary-General had a brief meeting with the representatives of United Nations agencies working in Bangladesh. He urged them to work closely with the Government, saying, "Government can't do it alone -- all hands on deck." He then gave words of encouragement to about 200 United Nations staff who had gathered in the hotel to greet him.
The Secretary-General's official programme in Bangladesh began on Wednesday morning, when he travelled by helicopter north-west of the capital Dhaka to the National Martyr’s Memorial at Savar, which honours the memory of the 3 million Bangladeshis who died in the struggle for independence. The Secretary-General laid a wreath at the base of the 150 foot-tall monument, then planted a tree in the surrounding gardens.
He then went to the Peacekeeping Operating Training Centre in Rajendrapu, where he was briefed on the training programme for Bangladeshi military before they serve in UN peacekeeping missions. Bangladesh is currently the second largest contributor of troops to the United Nations, with some 4,500 soldiers on various UN missions worldwide. He witnessed a field demonstration on the site, involving a helicopter and armoured personnel carriers, showing how a Rapid Reaction Unit would rescue kidnapped military observers. He was briefed on plans to expand the centre from a staff of about 40 to more than 300, and he unveiled a plaque marking the beginning of construction of the expanded site. He met with former peacekeepers, and lingered with the wives and children of Bangladeshi soldiers killed while in United Nations service.
He returned to Dhaka and was joined by his wife Nane to visit the Bangabandhu (Father of the Nation) Museum, the house where Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Bangladesh’s first President, was shot by assassins on 15 August 1975, along
with his wife, his sons and their newly wedded wives, his youngest son, who was 10 years old, and all other members of his family who were present in his residence. His daughter, Sheikh Hasina, who was in school in Europe at the time, is the current Prime Minister. The Secretary-General placed a wreath at a portrait of the late President, marked “with our deepest respect, the Secretary-General and Mrs. Nane Annan”.
He then met with Foreign Minister Alhaj Abdus Samad Azad for a review of a range of foreign policy issues –- the global trading system and least developed countries, democracy and human rights, sanctions regimes, regional stability, follow-up to the Millennium Summit, financing for development, and others. The Secretary-General said he looked forward to receiving the report of the Security Council’s Working Group on Sanctions, chaired by Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative in New York, Anwarul Karim Chowdhury.
Their discussion then resumed over a luncheon hosted by the Foreign Minister.
In the afternoon, the Secretary-General met with Bangladesh’s President, Justice Shahabuddin Ahmed.
He then went to a conference centre at the Office of the Prime Minister, where he delivered his first major address of the year on an environmental theme, titled “Sustainable Development: Humanity’s Biggest Challenge in the New Century”. Bangladesh, he said, “is expected to suffer, more than almost any other place on earth, the devastating impact of climate change”. He predicted cleaner energy in this century, called on the United States, Japan and the European Union, the major sources of carbon emission, to adopt the Kyoto Protocol on control of greenhouse gases, and laid out a four-part strategy that developing countries could adopt to help. Policy-making is moving in the right direction, he said, but is moving too slowly. The challenge is to take what seems like an abstract idea, sustainable development, and turn it into a daily reality (see Press Release SG/SM/7739).
That evening, the Secretary-General met with Bangladesh’s Finance Minister, Shah A.M.S. Kibria. He then met with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, before attending a dinner hosted by her.
During that day, while the Secretary-General was at meetings, Mrs. Annan visited an open-air school that provides job training and education for street children in Dhaka, a project which is supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). She also visited a pilot project, also supported by the UNDP, that provides small loans and training to women entrepreneurs.
On Thursday, 15 March, the Secretary-General met with four leaders of Bangladesh's opposition. They discussed the upcoming elections in the country and the possibility of United Nations electoral assistance.
He then went to the site where the Government plans to establish an International Mother Language Institute, where he was joined by the Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina.
He was welcomed by Dr. Saadat Husain, Secretary to the Ministry of Education, who explained that the Prime Minister had decided to establish the Institute after the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1999 named 21 February as International Mother Language Day. The Institute, he said, would work to preserve all languages and conduct research to attain "excellence of languages".
The Secretary-General said, in a brief statement, that "Bangladesh is a nation built on the understanding that, along with faith and homeland, language is an essential component of identity ...”.
"The very essence of belonging, in an increasingly rootless world", he continued, "is to hear a language of one's own, to understand and to be understood with ease" (see Press Release SG/SM/7740).
At the airport before leaving Dhaka, the Secretary-General told the press, "As I leave, I think we have strengthened the bond between the United Nations and Bangladesh, which has always been strong."
The Secretary-General then flew from Bangladesh to India, arriving in New Delhi at midday.