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TRAN
SCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE BY SECRETARY-GENERAL KOFI ANNAN AT
UN HEADQUARTERS, 29 JULY 2002
Mr. Eckhard: Sorry for the delay. The
Secretary-General’s last appointment ran about 15 minutes
late.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary-General of the United Nations
and his guest.
The Secretary-General: Good morning, ladies and
gentlemen. This morning, I should like to introduce the next
High Commissioner for Human Rights.
I think you all know Sergio Vieira de Mello very well. He is
taking on one of the most difficult challenges in the system, but
challenges are nothing new to him. As you know, he has just
completed his difficult assignment in East Timor, which he
accomplished brilliantly. We look forward to having an
outstanding High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Mrs. Mary Robinson, who stands so much for the Organization
and for the cause of human rights, will be leaving us next
month. Hers will be a tough act to follow, but I am sure
Sergio will not let us down.
Mr. Vieira de Mello: Thank you, Mr. Secretary-General.
This, as I told you on the way down, is not the first time you have
introduced me; it is becoming a habit. Thank you for another
smooth-sailing assignment, after the one with which you entrusted
me in East Timor.
Needless to say, I shall be very brief.
First, I would like to pay very warm tribute to Mary
Robinson. Her act will be very difficult to follow, as the
Secretary-General just indicated.
Secondly, I will do my best, in very close consultation and
partnership with the Secretary-General, the United Nations system,
the non-governmental community, other representatives of what we
now call civil society -- and there are many of them -- and with
you, the Fourth Estate, the media -- to build upon the legacy of my
two predecessors to transform human rights into a source of unity,
not of division, and what governments and non-State actors should
see as a bonus, and not just as an onus on them -- something that
is truly consubstantial with our lives as individuals and as
societies, and not something exogenous or extraneous to our lives,
an abstract agenda -– which it is not.
Once again, the Secretary-General and all of you can count on the
enthusiastic commitment of a person who has served this
Organization and no one else, and who believes like he does in what
we still refer to as the Hammarskj
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