Secretary-General, in Town Hall Meeting, Pledges Back-Up for Staff Who Risk

 

Their Lives to Fulfil United Nations Global Mission, Common Values

 

Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s remarks at the staff town hall meeting in New York today, 30 October:

I wanted to bring us together, this morning, today, following the murder of our dear friends and colleagues in Kabul.

I would like to tell you that I am very grateful to all members of the CEB [Chief Executives Board], the heads of funds and programmes, and all the heads of specialized agencies and Bretton Woods institutions ‑‑ they are all together with us to show their strong support and solidarity at this time of sorrow and difficulty.  I am very much grateful to all our distinguished heads of the United Nations family systems for their strong support.

Now that we have notified the families, I can share their names with you:  Jossie Esto, a Filipina who worked for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) election team; Louis Maxwell, a close protection officer from the United States; Lawrence Mefful, a United Nations security officer from Ghana; Lydia Wonwene, a UNDP elections officer from Liberia; to this sad list we must add one other person, whose identity needs to be confirmed.

I would like to again tell you that we are here with some of the family members of our colleagues who died.  I want to recognize Mrs. Emma Mefful and her daughter and family, who are here with us today.  I am so moved that you have joined so that we may personally share our grief and our love and our admiration and our gratitude for your husband’s and your father’s outstanding and unselfish service.

These women and men went to Afghanistan with many talents.  But they shared a common goal, that is, to help the Afghan people.  They went despite the risks.  They went to support another election and the opportunity for the Afghan people to shape their destiny.  Together, we send our deepest condolences to their families ‑‑ and also to the families of those Afghans who lost their lives to this terrorist attack.  Please join me in a moment of silence in their memory.

[…]

Thank you.

Dear colleagues, let me share with you what we know.  Militants attacked a UN guest house, where 34 members of the UN Mission were staying.  They carried grenades and automatic weapons and wore suicide vests.  Two Afghan security guards outside appear to have been killed immediately.  Our security officers held off the attackers for at least an hour.  These brave men fought in the corridors of the building.  They fought from the rooftop.  Their actions saved lives ‑‑ many, many lives.  I am so grateful for their courage and bravery and sacrifice.

Colleagues, too often, we take our security for granted.  In the coming days, I urge you to recognize those who ensure our safety, here at Headquarters and abroad.  Take a moment, and say thank you.

I also want to pay tribute to our women and men in Afghanistan from across the UN system who do such vital work.  They labour, under very difficult circumstances, dangerous circumstances, to help build better lives for the Afghan people.  We are with you.  You are in our thoughts and prayers, and your safety and security are paramount in our minds.

It is essential that we take stock of the changing security situation and appropriately respond.  Let me tell you what we will do.  First, we are urgently reviewing the security environment throughout Afghanistan and elsewhere.  I have asked the Security Council yesterday to consider asking the international community to step up its support, with a special emphasis on areas such as Kabul and elsewhere in the country as necessary.

Second, I am exploring the feasibility of bringing in additional security units to guard UN facilities and guest houses. This would require the full cooperation of the Afghan Government.  Yesterday, I received a telephone call from President [Hamid] Karzai of Afghanistan and I urged him, and he reaffirmed that he would spare no efforts, to further strengthen the security measures by the Afghan Government.

Third, we will be consolidating UN staff now scattered among many different locations, and we may suggest that personnel not directly engaged in critical duties be re-located over the coming weeks.  Fourth, I will send a senior official from our team to Kabul to express our sympathy and solidarity with the staff.

I have also brought the matter to the Member States.  In the Security Council yesterday, I appealed for more support ‑‑ political, material, and financial.  This afternoon, I will brief the General Assembly and ask for rapid action on our security budget.

Despite the clear need, our security management system continues to suffer from resource constraints.  I will ask for expanded authority to enter into commitments required for security measures in case of crisis.  I will also ask for funds to help build what is long overdue:  a support unit for staff who have been victims of malicious acts.  I am also very concerned about the well-being of families ‑‑ we need to put in place better systems during this difficult time.

This is not the first time we have gathered to mourn the deaths of those killed in the line of duty.  Earlier this month, five World Food Programme workers perished in Pakistan.  Dozens of peacekeepers have died this year.  Twenty-seven civilian personnel have lost their lives to violence, more than half of them in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.

And yet, our courageous staff carries on.  They continue to risk their lives day after day in the name of our global mission and our common values.  The international community has an important responsibility to back them up.  We owe them the strongest commitment to security and protection.  I pledge to do everything in my power to make that happen.

Finally, let me say that we truly are a family ‑‑ an extraordinary UN family.  Our work is not just what we do.  It is who we are.  An attack on any of us hurts me deeply.  I know it hurts you, too.

So let us remember.  Let us honour.  And let us continue.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record