June 28, 2000

12.15pm, TUES: United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan met with KeADILan leader Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail for an unscheduled private discussion shortly after delivering his speech at the World Forum on Democracy (WFD) in Warsaw yesterday.

Annan, who took the conference participants by surprise when he approached the KeADILan president, after his closing remarks, spent about 20 minutes talking to Wan Azizah while his security personnel kept journalists at bay.

When questioned by journalists on the nature of their discussion, Annan said it was a private conversation.

Wan Azizah later told journalists that the UN secretary-general had asked about her husband, jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, whose courage and spirit Annan had high respect and admiration for.

Annan had asked about Anwar's condition and about how Wan Azizah and her family, especially the children, were coping with the situation.

Wan Azizah added that Annan told her to be strong and said he believed that justice would have its day.

Annan was in Warsaw to attend the ministerial "Community of Democracies" held concurrently with the WFD. The ministerial summit, attended by foreign ministers and government officials from over 100 countries, is to discuss the state of the world's democracies and will culminate in the signing of the Warsaw Declaration on Democracy.

The three-day WFD ended today with more than 300 delegates, comprising of activists, scholars and politicians, endorsing a far-reaching appeal for a global alliance of democratic states.

In a written appeal read to the ministerial delegates, the WFD delegates appealed to the ministerial delegates to endorse and establish a caucus of democracies at the United Nations.

The president of Freedom House, one of the organisers of the WFD, said: "After the breakdown of dialogue between civil society and governments at the recent World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle, the dialogue between governments and civil society on display in Warsaw is refreshing step forward along the path toward building a more democratic world."

In his speech at the forum, Annan said that there was a place for everyone - world leaders, the business community, NGOs and others - in efforts to establish dialogues between governments and society to work towards a better world.

Wan Azizah also met informally with US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for 30 minutes at a dinner hosted by Polish Foreign Minister Bronislaw Geremek for delegates of both conferences on Monday night.

Kiriman : The Mat Matrix