Secretary-General's interview for UN Radio and UN Television on the launch of the UN and Africa radio programme [PLEASE CREDIT UN RADIO]

Q: Mr. Annan, we thank you very much for making the time, despite your heavy schedule, to talk to UN Radio and UN Television particularly on issues concerning Africa. We want to begin with Darfur, Sudan. It is now estimated 100,000 people have been killed and more than a million dispersed as refugees and displaced people. Your own head of UNICEF just coming back talked about –and I read –“I was struck by the stories of women who fled their homes with their children”. Many say their husbands had been killed. People talk about genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur, what are your views and what is the UN doing about this?

S-G: The situation in Darfur is extremely worrying. Last week I spoke to the head of UNICEF, Ms Carol Bellamy, before she went to the region. And I am not surprised of the findings that you refer to because other officials on the ground have been extremely worried and have reported things back to us. And we did two reports on Sudan for the Security Council, and I, myself, have been pressing governments to work together to assist the people in Darfur. What we need is protection for them and I have been in touch with the Sudanese government, and other governments, asking them that they do have a responsibility to protect their own citizens particularly the internally displaced, as you refer to the numbers –about a million and over 100,000 or so in Chad. It is the responsibility of the government to protect but if the government can't do it, it should be prepared to ask for the help of the international community to assist them. And the international community must insist that these people be protected. We are also accelerating humanitarian assistance to them and we are in a race against the clock because of the raining season.

Q: Some people accuse you, the United Nations and its agencies of doing too little too late in this Darfur crisis. What would you say to that?

SG: I think it's not entirely fair. Quite a bit has been done. Maybe one or two of our units had been slow but, first of all, the war went on for much longer than one had expected so the security situation was not conducive to delivery of humanitarian assistance. We have taken some risk sand we are doing that but I think the tendency sometimes is to say that the UN is not doing enough, or the Secretary-General has not done enough. What is needed here is a collective action and the political will to act. We should avoid the situations where we allow member states to hide behind the Secretary General, use him as an alibi for their own inaction. I think it is important that we work together and demand action by the Sudanese government and we pool our efforts to make resources available for the humanitarian activity. And it's much better to act than start pointing fingers.

Q: A lot of people look up to you personally and they wonder if you personally could intervene one way or the other; whether there is something you, Mr. Annan, could do to compel the Sudanese government of President El-Bashir and the leadership there to do what exactly you want them to do to protect their own citizens. Could you personally do something?

SG: Obviously I can talk to the government, and I have been doing that. I have been talking to the government. I've talked to other governments to work with me and the Sudanese government in making this happen and in fact I intend to go to Sudan myself fairly shortly. But it is not an issue for the Secretary-General alone. Other capitals, other countries with influence must also weigh in. I'm pressing on. In fact I even met with the Sudanese delegation only two days ago in Sao Paolo and I'm on the phone with the authorities and we are doing that. It was because of my pressure that they opened up and offered visas, not only to the UN, but also to the humanitarian agencies and have indicated they will allow supplies and equipment to come in unimpeded.

Q: At the same time that this crisis is raging on in Darfur there is some good news in Sudan in the sense that the rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army and the Movement have reached a peace accord with the Sudanese government in Khartoum. A UN peace mission is expected in Sudan soon. What exactly would be the scale of this mission, its role and its functions, and how soon would it be established?

SG: Let me say that on unless we deal with the situation in Darfur –yes, there have initialled a peace agreement between the north and the south but unless we deal with the situation in Darfur this is going to be a fragile peace. You cannot have a comprehensive peace in Sudan without dealing with the situation in the west. What is being contemplated is that the UN will go into Sudan and work with the parties in implementing the agreement that they are going to sign. And obviously they are working out the details and we will be of assistance and we will be there to help them implement the agreement that they have signed. And of course I will have a special representative on the ground who would coordinate the UN activities and supervise our own efforts in the implementation of the agreement.

Q: If we could move on to peacekeeping in Africa … The talk lately within the UN is about a surge in peacekeeping, particularly in Africa, where 81% of peacekeeping personnel are currently being deployed. Peacekeeping missions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Ivory Coast, Burundi and particularly –

SG: And possibly Sudan.

Q: --and possibly Sudan. And then the Democratic Republic of Congo where after many months of what many see as successes, peace coming, transition coming to the DR Congo, over the last few weeks things appear to be unravelling over Bukavu and over the whole of the Congo. The UN is being attacked, vehicles being destroyed by people. How concerned are you? How worried are you that things could completely go back to square one?

SG: As far as the Congo situation is concerned I am not the only one who should be worried. We should all be worried. I believe that we need to work with the government to try and get them –the transitional government to work as a cohesive government, to get the government to jell and for them to focus on the future of the country and the people, the people's needs. Until we do that, there will be a tendency for the various components of the government to still think of themselves as representing this region or that region and not quite certain what the future holds and therefore hedge their bets. But we need to really, really get them to work. We need to reform the army and pooling as many of the soldiers from the three groups into the national army, and of course try and direct others into productive services. But we also need to work with the governments in the region. To some extend that is being done and in fact several of the governments in the region have sent in delegations to talk to that government and to work with my envoy, Swing. But if we are not able to stabilize and the Congo were to revert back into violence or anarchy the whole region will pay a price. And this is why we are focusing so much attention on this issue. We would also have an opportunity of discussing with all the leaders concerned hopefully at the beginning of next month at the African Union Summit.

Q: Which means you intend to maybe talk to the leaders of neighbouring Rwanda?

SG: I'm talking to them. I have spoken to them already.

Q: But is there more that could be done particularly with the United Nations Mission which had quite a relatively huge amount of respect before recent events? Could numbers be increased? What could we do as the United Nations to restore people's confidence?

SG: I think the issue is not just a military one. This is why I was talking about consolidating the government's efforts and trying to build a national reconciliation and also get the government to become much more cohesive. The military aspect and the presence of the UN troops is helpful. We have 10,800 troops in a country the size of Western Europe. It's a very small number indeed but you are not going to be able to put in the number of troops that would be necessary to pacify a country of that size. So the emphasis should not be on the military side. The emphasis, in my judgment, should be getting the political process going and that's where most of our efforts should be whilst our soldiers do as much as they can to help within their mandate.

Q: Overall for peacekeeping, the main contributing are developing nations like Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Nigeria, Ghana. The developed, rich nations do not appear willing or keen to contribute to your peacekeeping efforts. Why is this so and what can you do to get them to contribute?

SG: I think they did contribute in the past but after the tragedy in Somalia they pulled back. I think it took us quite a while to get any developed country to participate in a peacekeeping operation in Africa. The Swedes have a unit in Congo. They are participating into the Congo. We have had some units but rather very limited numbers in other operations. In Congo we have some limited numbers. In the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, UNMEE, the peacekeeping operation there, we did have European units, the group that –we call them SHIRBRIG. A group of European countries came together and formed a brigade that can be used in peacekeeping operations. So they were the first to get there and to help establish the mission until they were replaced by other peacekeeping operations. So we have had to rely on other countries rather than the developed countries and that poses a problem for us because in peacekeeping operations one of the key elements you need is effective logistics units, specialized units. Often those are available only in the developed world and even there they are sometimes stretched. And logistics is the glue to peacekeeping operations. When you don't have these specializations it's extremely difficult. We have tried to encourage some of them to fill that niche, to provide those units for our peacekeeping operations. Of course, today, you have competing demands for troops around the world. In Iraq alone there are 160,000 foreign troops. There are troops in Afghanistan and others. So it is essential that –take my own continent, Africa, that they prepare themselves, train their own peacekeepers and play a role on the continent, which most of them are doing. And what is needed is for them to continue that effort because if the others are not going to come we should be able to take care of our needs.

Q: We know about the efforts of most the West African regional grouping, ECOWAS, in getting ECOMOG to help resolve conflicts in West Africa. Nigeria bore the brunt of the expenses in that operation but what more could Africa leaders do themselves in order to have their own rapid response peacekeeping programme?

SG: I think they are doing joint regional training. There are quite a few of the countries which are training together. They are trying to upgrade their peacekeeping equipment, which is not easy. They have received help from some of the developed countries in their efforts to strengthen their peacekeeping capabilities. But once again let me say that what is needed is a political settlement. We need to be able to anticipate and prevent conflicts before they explode and require troops. And here some of the African leaders have been very good. For example, there are two recent examples which the public often don't hear about. Nigeria and Cameroon had a conflict over the Bakassi Peninsula. They went to the International Court. Before the judgment was delivered by the Court I approached the two leaders and I said, “Now, you have to implement the judgement and I'll be prepared to set up a mechanism to help you”. So they established a mixed commission and they are moving ahead, working together to delimit and demarcate their border. And it has improved the relationship between them very much. There's another two other African countries that have had a conflict of a border where there is oil and again I sent in a mediator and they have made progress and they may sign the agreement at the beginning of next month. Those are the kinds of things that they should be doing. And the leaders in ECOWAS and in SADCC, whether it's President Chisano or Mbeki, they've all been very active at the political level trying to resolve the conflicts, promote reconciliation. That is equally important if not more important than the military aspects of these operations.

Q: And just finally on peacekeeping … When you cast your eyes across Africa, across the peacekeeping missions you have sent out, what is working and is there anything we could be doing better, the United Nations could be doing better with peacekeeping in Africa?

SG: I think we are doing as best as we can. First of all, in Sierra Leone things have more or less stabilized. We are drawing down in Sierra Leone. We are also trying to pool our efforts in the region. We have three peacekeeping operations in the region –in Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone –and we are getting the commanders and the SRSGs, the Special Representatives of the Secretary-General, to work together and share information, monitor what's going on across their borders so that you do not have a situation where the crisis shifts from one country to the other and you are able to anticipate what is likely to happen or what the developments are likely to be. And I think we are doing much better at that.