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Daily Press Briefing Statements made by [Please note that only the original French text issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs may be considered official.] PRESS BRIEFING BY BERNARD KOUCHNER MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS Paris, March 18, 2008 (excerpts)
I’d like to say a few words about EUFOR which achieved operational capacity on March 15. Naturally, the deployment will be continuing since the number of soldiers slated is 3,700 and there are 1,700 present at this time.
There are 15 countries in the field and 22 countries taking part in the chain of command under General Nash of Ireland who’s installed in the multinational operational headquarters in Mont-Valérien.
The 27 countries of the European Union have financed the operational capacity.
We’re hoping for a lot from it, particularly in terms of the encouragement that this European force means for the deployment of the hybrid force on the other side of the Chad border, in Sudan. I saw Mr. Ban Ki-moon and Jean-Marie Guéhenno, the director of peacekeeping operations, just a few days ago. No one doubts that the deployment of EUFOR strengthens the decisions that will be taken to augment the hybrid force on the other side of the border, in Sudan. The European force on the Chadian side, the hybrid force, i.e. the African Union and UN, on the other. This force should represent 26,000 men in Darfur.
In addition, it’s the occasion to welcome with hope the Dakar declaration and the agreement between the Sudanese and Chadian presidents, between Mr. Beshir and Mr. Deby.
A lot of pacts have been signed. There’ve been five, including three in Tripoli. Now there’s another in Dakar. I hope this will be the right one.
So I hope these stepped-up efforts lead obviously to a peace process, to a political process without which there will be no peace. I think the deployment of French forces and European forces together on one hand, then the international forces, specifically African and UN forces on the other, is still the best thing we could do.
I’d like to call your attention to a political meeting in Geneva today on Darfur. I hope that all these events will be beneficial to the various parties in moving towards peace.
France is organizing in close conjunction with Germany, which had originally proposed the idea, a meeting, a donors’ conference - actually more a conference for exchanging ideas - about Afghanistan. The conference will be held in Paris on either June 12 or June 17.
It’s a very important conference. There are major concerns with respect to Afghanistan about both strategy and political strategy. You’ll have seen this in various countries, particularly in Canada, Holland and other countries.
We hope that this Paris conference will produce financing for projects that are very necessary to develop infrastructure. It will allow participants to take stock of what has been done with respect to civil society, with Afghans quite simply. Without the Afghans, it is very difficult to envision the future.
We’re putting on this conference with the Afghans naturally.
Q. – About the June conference on Afghanistan. Do you have some idea of the participants and the approximate amount needed to rebuild the country? Also, is France planning to increase its military capability in Afghanistan? Three additional Rafales have been sent, you’ve got combat teams integrated with the Afghan army and there are also plans to deploy Leclerc tanks. Does France have a two-pronged policy--to inject funds and help Afghanistan on the economic front, and at the same time increase its military capability?
The Minister - You’ve heard the promises President Sarkozy has made several times in Kabul and Paris with respect to military capacities. The promise was clear: We will be engaged, we will not leave. Now, as for the military details you referred to, let’s wait a while so we can be a bit more specific. The Bucharest summit is being held in a few days.
What we wish—and I say this with much caution and modesty--is to act in consultation in the military sphere and in the much-vaunted area of “nation-building” [sic]. That’s what has to be done. And it will only be done with the full and complete involvement of the Afghans. I’m the one to tell you this--it’s France’s policy of course, but I’ve been advocating this policy in humanitarian terms and in terms of personal commitment for 40 years! If you don’t work with the local population, you’ve lost before you start. Engaging with the local population in Afghanistan has been going on a long time. It needs to be increased. There mustn’t be a single project in which Afghans are not fully and completely participating, and very soon leading. That’s the general strategy, summed up rather briefly and bluntly.
Now, there has to be a common strategy among the various participants—a lot of countries have troops over there—I’m speaking of European countries but of course I’m also thinking of the United States and of course Canada and Australia, all of them. I’m not for a moment claiming to be defining a military strategy, you understand. But we’re going to be talking together. And the reason I’m not giving you the amount you wanted is because we’re in the process of talking.
The people tasked with organizing the conference—the same ones who planned the conference on Palestine—are going round the countries. They’ve been to the US. I’m going to Kabul shortly. It’s important to organize the conference so that it’s not simply a “raise your hand and how much are you giving” event. We’re hoping for more. We’ve very ambitious. Both modest and ambitious: modest as to the results and ambitious about the message.
People have to understand what the democracies are doing in Afghanistan, what progress they’re making and what their goals are. This won’t be settled in a day--let’s not take things to extremes. But frankly, it’s necessary. There was a phenomenal discussion, maybe the finest , about Kosovo with the 27 foreign ministers in the European Council on Thursday evening--for four hours. It just so happened that there were two countries, two foreign ministers, that had been personally involved in Afghanistan for a very long time: the Polish minister, Mr. Sikorski, an outstanding journalist and Pulitzer Prize-winner who spent two and a half years in Afghanistan, and myself, and I’ve been going to Afghanistan for eight years. So we were telling the truth. And it was fascinating—that’s politics. It’s not making statements. It’s giving a bit of substance to such statements. I admire people who have a great, very simple, marvelous analysis of the world. The fact is that everyone agreed that we should give some substance to all this, and the Paris conference will, I hope, be rich in substance. The question came up, moreover, as to whether it shouldn’t be held over two days because of the large number of debates and speeches. We’ll see.
The amounts aren’t fixed yet because they’ll be calculated just before the conference. The amount for Palestine was 5 billion, and we got 7.7. There’s a minimum, and afterwards, who knows.
Q. – About Tibet where there’ve been serious incidents since Friday. What do you think of the idea of boycotting the Games or at least the opening ceremony? The Dalai Lama is asking for an international inquiry. Is France going to back that request?
We should perhaps talk a little about the Tibetans. I can answer these three questions very quickly: There’s been no international demand other than the Dalai Lama’s. If there is an international demand, it has to go through the international organizations, and France will give its answer there. I don’t see any demands at this point either from the UN or European Union. The EU did issue a statement on Friday. The Dalai Lama, whom I’ve heard and know well, isn’t asking for a boycott of the Olympic Games. (…) I also saw that Reporters Without Borders [RSF] this morning called for a boycott of the opening ceremony, not the Olympic Games. It’s a different position, which can be appreciated, and of course, if asked, it would mean that Europe in any case will confer about it. We shall be meeting with foreign ministers next week for two days of work in Slovenia and we’ll be considering all this.
Obviously, there must be an investigation into what has happened. You mentioned an international inquiry. Lots of international inquiries are requested. Incidentally we’ve not spoken about Chad, but people are asking for one there too. It’s very, very slow getting all this going. But there is one initial international inquiry that ought to be made--by journalists. Journalists don’t have access, and they must have access to the territory in question--to Tibet in particular but not just there since there are incidents apparently beyond Tibet. So that seems to me to be an obvious necessity since our Chinese friends have recognized the universality of human rights. Well, the right to information has to be respected.
And then I’m hearing with anger and sadness people talking about the figures of the dead and injured, which we don’t even know but which are very high, apparently. We need to know: 80, 100, 20, 13? These things ought to be verified. I had a message this morning from my Chinese counterpart, Mr. Yang. He says that order has been restored and that the whole thing, all these events, was orchestrated, and he’s accusing the Dalai Lama. I leave him to his opinion obviously, and I take note of this information. The Dalai Lama is not a man to spread disorder and confrontation. I know him well enough to say the opposite. In all the years we’ve known each other, he’s always displayed a very peaceful view of matters. I would remind you that the Dalai Lama has never demanded Tibet’s independence. He speaks of cultural autonomy. This is an extremely measured demand. Now, it’s not up to me to decide of course, it’s for our Chinese friends. We’re keeping a very close eye on all this and on the development of the situation. And I repeat that the first thing should be freedom of access for the press. It’s necessary, I think, without there being any provocation.
Q. - What’s your position on the proposal to boycott the opening ceremony at the Olympic Games?
The Minister - I heard about the proposal this morning and I think it’s interesting. I have said, and it’s very clear that, if there were a position—and it could only be a European one--we’ll talk about it. The proposal is less negative than a general boycott. May I remind you that I took part in a boycott in 1980 for the Olympic Games in Moscow—I just want to point out that then the boycott included about 50 countries, China being one of them. China boycotted the Moscow Games in 1980 at the time of the events in Afghanistan.
But you asked me for my position, and the French position is that France does not boycott the Olympic Games. It doesn’t seem fair to us and at the same time, after our experience, hardly useful. As I said, how can you ask us, a government that is friendly with China, that has very friendly relations with it—just recently we had further exchanges—to be more Tibetan than the man who is recognized as being the spiritual leader of the Tibetans, the Dalai Lama, who is not asking for this boycott. I understand the activists and am following them closely. I consider that it is the duty of a foreign minister to listen to civil society and the activists’ initiatives and that in the matter of human rights there is never too much advice or too many initiatives. So I’m listening to them. The initiative proposed by Reporters Without Borders, which does not have the support of the French government, dates from this morning. Let’s consider it.
Embassy of France, March 19, 2008
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