Dili, 31 July 2001
SRSG ADDRESSES SECURITY COUNCIL

Speaking to the United Nations Security Council in New York yesterday, SRSG Sergio Vieira de Mello said that numerous goals have been achieved since he last addressed the Council six months ago.

"But, as I have told the Council before," SRSG added, "the mandate with which we were entrusted in East Timor was much more than a list of tasks, much more than a catalogue of problems to be solved. It was nothing less than to work with the traumatised and brutalised people of East Timor and together create an independent sovereign state."

SRSG Sergio Vieira de Mello also reiterated the need for a consorted effort to deliver as much coordinated assistance possible for East Timor.

"Let us on this occasion really pull together in the spirit of a truly integrated mission to show what the UN working as a team can do," SRSG said.

"I have no doubt that we have done well in East Timor," he said. "Historians will be able to tell us with hindsight how much better they would have done in our shoes. But even the harshest of critics must be surprised at what we, the United Nations, have achieved in turning the ashes and debris that we found at the beginning of UNTAET, working ever more closely with the people of East Timor, into a functioning state, heading fast towards a democratic future."

Cabinet Member for Foreign Affairs José Ramos-Horta also addressed the Security Council and Emilia Pires, Director of the East Timor Planning and Development Agency, attended the session.

SRSG returns to East Timor on 8 August.