Transcript: Powell, Natsios Press Conference

27 May 2001

Transcript: Powell, Natsios Press Conference

Q & A following meeting with UN, NGO representatives

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Administrator Andrew Natsios made remarks and took questions from the press after their meeting with representatives of the United Nations and Nongovernmental Organizations the morning of May 27 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Moved by the plight of starving people in Sudan, Powell called on the government of Sudan to "do everything possible to provide access to these people desperately in need and to remove all barriers to providing them with humanitarian aid."

Natsios said "usually it takes three or four months to move food" into such areas of need, but that the U.S. authorities have diverted a ship with seventeen thousand tons of food "and I've ordered the ship to port Sudan in two weeks."

Following is the transcript of their remarks May 27:

(begin transcript)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
(Kampala, Uganda)

For Immediate Release May 27, 2001

Remarks By
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios
Following Their Meeting With UN and NGO Representatives

Grand Regency Hotel, Nairobi, Kenya

SECRETARY POWELL: Good morning ladies and gentlemen. I just finished having a meeting with representatives of the NGO (nongovernmental) and other private organizations that are providing support to the people of Sudan. I was deeply moved by the dedication that these organizations bring to their task, and I was also moved by the desperate situation that exists in the Sudan -- people who are on the verge of starvation, people who have children who are not being educated -- and I pledged that the United States would continue to do everything we could to assist them.

I call on the government of Sudan to do everything possible to provide access to these people desperately in need and to remove all barriers to providing them with humanitarian aid. I hope that as we move forward we can find a way to bring a cease fire into effect and then move toward peaceful reconciliation of this long standing conflict which has caused so much distress in the region. I have with me today the administrator of the Agency for International Development, Mr. Andrew Natsios, and I would like to give him the mike for a moment so that he can make an announcement. Excuse me a minute.

ADMINISTRATOR NATSIOS: As many of you know, we are in the second year of a drought, superimposed over a civil war that has been going on for, in this phase at least, nineteen years now. That drought is complicating the humanitarian situation to a remarkable degree. It is usually in the second year of a drought that we start seeing peoples' coping capacity collapse and people start dying. There is an alarming set of reports now coming out of the northern provinces.

In Darfur we have a Save the Children UK, Nutritional Survey that just came out with 52 percent malnutrition rate among children under five. Oxfam UK is about to come out with a report on the Red Sea Province, and CARE is coming out with reports as well that things are deteriorating fairly rapidly in the north. There are no food stocks left. In both sides of the conflict in the drought- affected areas we do not believe that people will make it until the fall, and so we have announced today an additional 40 thousand tons of food that will be distributed regardless of need on both sides of the conflict. And we have diverted a ship -- usually it takes three or four months to move food in -- but we have a ship where a deal fell through, we don't know what to do with the food, it is seventeen thousand tons, and I've ordered the ship to port Sudan in two weeks. So we think we can move fairly rapidly to begin to avoid this drought turning in to a famine.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, please, yesterday you said the U.S. had completed its policy review on Sudan. What is U.S. policy on Sudan?

SECRETARY POWELL: We're going to work hard to bring a cease-fire into effect if possible. We're going to work with all the parties in the area. The review has been pretty much completed -- obviously there will be additional things we have to look at. Some of the elements of the review included designating a humanitarian coordinator, and as you know we've done that with Mr. Natsios. And as you've also heard me say, we are going to dedicate or find a special envoy -- designate a special envoy. I've got a candidate under consideration now and that will be announced in due course. The action that we just took to provide additional aid is part of our efforts to deal with this problem. But I don't have a grand plan to announce for you right now

QUESTION: What will the special envoy do?

SECRETARY POWELL: The special envoy will engage with the parties to see if we can re-energize some of the peace processes that have been in place for a number of years, or whether there is a need for a new direction. But I'm not going to pre-judge yet what he or she is going to do until I've gotten that person in place; that person's had a chance to make their assessment and report back to me and to the President.

QUESTION: Will this be (inaudible)

SECRETARY POWELL: We will see whether the Khartoum government is interested in a constructive engagement. We noticed that they -- when the Bush administration first came in they stopped bombing for a while, then it's picked up again. Recently, in the last few days, they have announced a new cessation of bombing. I think this is a good step but it can't just be for a short period of time, they ought to stop bombing humanitarian sites all together. So we will measure their behavior, we'll measure their response to our actions and see whether or not we have a basis for moving forward.

Thank you.

(end transcript)