CHOGM Press Conference

Media Centre Conference Room
Andrew Reynolds and Joel Kibazo
Friday, 1 March 2002

MR KIBAZO: All right. Good afternoon. Welcome to all you colleagues from the media. For those of you who either turned up or almost turned up to CHOGM 2001, thank you for your patience. We were just only slightly interrupted.

My name is Joel Kibazo and I am the conference spokesperson. I am also the Director for Communications and Public Affairs at the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. I will regularly brief the media on progress of the conference. On my left is Andrew Reynolds. He is Director of External Communications for the Australian taskforce and he's in charge of the team that built the media centre and who are helping us run it. He is also the Australian taskforce and CHOGM spokesperson.

My role and that of my team of media officers from the secretariat is to work with our Australian colleagues to facilitate and help all the media that are going to be working here over the next few days. First, however, I have to outline the rules under which my official briefings will be conducted. As far as possible, I will brief the media after each Executive Session, except where the Secretary General or Head of Government elects to do the briefing. These briefings will be conducted in this particular media briefing room and my briefings will be on the record and/or media can attend as you wish. These briefings will cover the nature and the general thrust of the discussions as a whole without naming any speakers or their countries, as I am not a spokesman for any individual country and for that there are individual spokespeople.

I will, of course, take questions at the end of each session and transcripts will be available as soon as possible, as will footage from the host broadcaster, and digital images from the official photographer will always be available both for these sessions and all the other sessions that are taking place. Where the Secretary General or Head of Government, unless specifically stated - their views, too, are on the record.

Most of the facilities of the media centre are outlined in the media handbook which you will find in the media satchel that has been given to you. Briefing notes on some of the issues which will be raised at the Conference have been prepared by the Secretariat and are available in the Secretariat's media wallet which has also been given to you at the Welcome Desk. You may, of course, quote directly from any of those should you wish or, if not, you can always ask us any further questions. The rules governing photo and TV opportunities are outlined in the media handbook and details are available from Andy or myself or our colleagues.

Other than that, all I have to say is that my team will be available to you any time. The office is just behind here at the - you know, behind this briefing room and the media centre will be open for 24 hours until the end of the Conference, so hopefully for those people concerned with time differences and needing to fly back to their own countries, that should at least facilitate that.

Before I hand over to Andy, just a word about the retreat. This is the part of CHOGM where heads meet with officials and what goes on there is really informal discussion on issues that they may choose, usually issues of the day.

During this period there will be opportunities for the media and the nature of my briefings, however, will change a little. I will not brief on the substance and nature of discussions but on what the activities of the heads have been for that particular day and that particular time. After this particular briefing the Secretary General will brief you on the substance of the Conference, including the report which will be discussed. He will also take questions.

Meanwhile invitations are coming to some of you for reception tomorrow by the Secretary General where you will be able to meet heads and informally mingle and chat with the Presidents and Prime Ministers. These are strictly off the record and for background only except where the Head or Prime Minister or Head of Delegation agrees to speak on the record. So that means there are no tapes, no cameras and no notebooks allowed and if you turn up with them, they will be removed. Do please cooperate for those of you who may come to that function, otherwise, I am afraid, you will be asked to leave and/or the Heads themselves may decide to withdraw if they feel that their comments are being quoted when they were not supposed to be.

I will be there and I look forward to seeing you, but there are other details about how the media centre is going to be run and for the moment let me hand you over to Andy Reynolds and just after he's said a few words it will be back to me.

MR REYNOLDS: Thanks, John. Welcome all and welcome to Australia and, half of you, welcome to Coolum in Queensland. This media centre that you are currently sitting in is far from ideal, I realise that. Those of you who are working in interview rooms without roofs, et cetera, radio, know that sound, of course, carries within these structures, so we are well aware of that and I apologise in advance. What I don't apologise for is the efforts of my team putting this together. We are sitting in a structure that is 4,500 square metres in size; that is both of these tents. We were working in Brisbane on a structure that was 7,000 square metres, so we have come right down in size but we have got pretty much the same number of media here. So here life has not been easy along the track in getting this together. I ask you to bear with us. My team has had five and a half months to put this together, design everything around this media centre and put away the design that we had back in October.

That said, I think you have got a workable media centre here. There are going to be some problems associated with the media centre, not the least of which is security. I know a few of you have bleated to my staff already about security. I am making no apology for that either. Following the events of September 11, this is a very secure Conference. You are seeing this as you come in and out of the gate and as you are conducted around in pools. We are looking after 51 countries here. There are only two countries that are not coming to CHOGM and they are both west Indian countries that is Barbados and Antigua. That is unfortunate that they are not going to be with us or not going to send a delegation but all the other countries of the Commonwealth are going to be represented, including Zimbabwe, by a delegation.

The media centre is quite purpose-built. We have a facility which will look after your needs. I am aware that there is a shortage of telephones and we are trying to redress that for those of you who are without telephones at the moment. I do ask that when you attempt to leave this complex you are escorted by one of my team. The security guards should prevent you from leaving here. As I said, it is a very secure venue.

I would like to finish up by saying that we are trying to give you as many opportunities as we can within this CHOGM. Pools are limited in size. We are trying to limit some pools to journalists and some pools to photographers and cameramen. We are doing that deliberately because we are hopeful of giving you a transcription service through the intranet, which is enabled on computers here, which will allow you access to all the coverage you require and if you need anything else you can ask John or I for the information. I think I would like to pass back to Joel.

MR KIBAZO: Having taken on board what Andy has had to say, let me say quite a lot of times the Heads of Government themselves may decide, you know, to come over to the media centre and once we are aware of that we will sort of announce it or anybody of that sort of seniority who feels they want to come in here and use that. So let's not assume that everything will just be sort of in the pools, so do put in your interview requests, particularly if you feel that there are particular people, Ministers or whatever, that you do want to see. We will, of course, put those requests in. We can't force the Prime Ministers and Presidents to speak, but as far as possible shall encourage them to come in and be able to speak freely to the media here. That, of course, will help us very much in terms of the security element because then you are only guarding them, rather than having to guard or to make arrangements for a lot of people. Is that correct?

MR REYNOLDS: Yes.

MR KIBAZO: Yes, so, as I said, through myself, my team, do put those requests in. Of course, those who have individual delegation - may have been in contact with individual delegations, that's going to be fine, too, and at least once we know, we shall of course announce and tell everybody that that particular Head of Government is going to be coming in and if they want a chat with the media and that, that you are completely free to do so and there are briefing rooms other than this one over there for that. Is there anything else? There's probably going to be quite a number of questions, so maybe it's a good time now to try and take them. Some I'll take, some will be particularly Australian questions, so, you know - but I will concentrate very much on the substance of the meetings and the issues that are raised, but there are sort of specific Australian issues which I would defer to Andy when that is the case.

MR REYNOLDS: We have a microphone, Dennis. Probably everyone would like to hear the question, so the microphone is being handed around.

QUESTION: When the pools go wherever they go, is it possible to stream-line the procedure for when they come back because the CMAG TV pool this morning, having gone through umpteen different security procedures, was dumped at the entrance point here and had to queue up behind a whole series of journalists and 40 school kids as well? These are time-sensitive pictures. We need them; we need them quickly.

MR REYNOLDS: I understand it.

QUESTION: Is it possible that those pools can be escorted directly into the building and back into...

MR REYNOLDS: We will have a look at that...

QUESTION: There have been quite a few conjectures as you can imagine as we are starting to roll from today. I have been a aware of that and the Australian officials have been made aware. Any other questions?

QUESTION: Andrew, I was wondering in relation to any security concerns and incidents, particularly involving the air force patrols that are going on, who can we get full information about any incidents that have occurred? I understand there's been one/two today?

MR REYNOLDS: Me, I can give you any information on anything that occurs with the air force and there haven't been one/two today to my knowledge. They have been exercising over the past two days, involving light aircraft and involving practising intercepts on light aircraft. So you may be confused about exercises.

QUESTION: But I was told there was some form of light aircraft that was escorted away this morning?

ANSWER: Yes.

QUESTION: That was an exercise, was it?

ANSWER: The FA-18 aircrafts that are overflying this venue at various times have been exercising over the past two days. Those exercises should finish today, tonight actually, and from then on in it will just be operational for them.

QUESTION: Can I ask you why this particular site was selected in the hotel complex, which is basically completely removed from the Conference facilities themselves and we can't even look across the golf course to see where these people are meeting. It's as if you've deliberately chosen a position which will isolate us as much as you possibly can.

ANSWER: Originally the decision was to put this at Twin Waters which would have even been more isolated and then they were looking at the front gate for ease of access which would have meant no security clearance, which meant you would have gone straight into the media centre. It was a juggling act as to where we put this media centre, how we designed it. We actually designed it so the roadway was nice and accessible and hence the reason why it was facing this way, rather than the other way. Originally we had it facing the other way. It was just a matter of where it would fit, really. This is the biggest structure within this complex, 4,500 square metres, and this is the only place we could really put it.

QUESTION: Out of the 49 delegations, would you tell us how many leaders are coming and will be headed by the Head of State or the leader and which leaders are not coming?

MR KIBAZO: The last number I heard was about 37.

MR REYNOLDS: Up to 40.

MR KIBAZO: But it seems - it's been oscillating between 37 to 40. You would have heard, of course, that there has been the Indian Prime Minister for domestic reasons who sort of pulled out at the last minute but he was due to be here and the other 48 Governments that are represented will be represented at senior official - very senior officials. Most of those arrivals will be today.

QUESTION: In the past has the media been invited to the Opening Ceremony apart from just one call for TV, I think two pool organisations. Is that the case in the past or is this the first time that more media hasn't been allowed even to the opening?

MR REYNOLDS: No, there are 100 positions open, available to the media for the Opening Ceremony and what we have had to do is go through a list and try and balance them, Craig, so we are trying to balance organisations. Joel is doing them in an international sense and I am doing them in an Australian sense. So we have media able to go inside the Opening Ceremony and there are scribblers, essentially journalists. Outside we will have two pool positions for cameras, for vision to capture the stuff outside. So there will be 100 seats. We would love to be able to take you all into the Opening Ceremony and also have you all at the Secretary General's cocktail party but the simple fact of the matter is that we are in a very much smaller venue here and the tent that the Opening Ceremony is in can only hold just under 900 people. Taking into account the fact we have got to cram 1,128 delegates and nearly 1,000 media, the sums just don't work, unfortunately.

MR KIBAZO: So there's no way of keeping the media out of the Opening Ceremony.

QUESTION: Can you confirm who is representing Zimbabwe yet?

MR REYNOLDS: No, we can't.

MR KIBAZO: And that's because we don't yet know. The Zimbabwe Government has not indicated to us who it was that they were going to be sending, so we are awaiting to know.

QUESTION: When do you expect to know?

ANSWER: We should know by later today, but of course with the meeting starting tomorrow then, you know, we will hopefully have - you know, we have still got just under 24 hours to be told.

QUESTION: James Robbins with BBC. A question for both of you. For Andy Reynolds, can you tell us a bit more about the security because I heard a completely unreported report about a light aircraft being forced down, or whether that was a part of an exercise, a planned event? For Joel, just if you can tell us a bit more about the outcome of the CMAG meeting and whether you can deal with the suggestion that the CMAG ministers might be meeting again before the end of the day or whether their deliberations are over and what the outcome has been?

MR REYNOLDS: I take mine first, I guess. There have only been exercises going on today. I'm not aware of any touch and goes or forcing aircrafts to land. The aircraft had been operating about 3,000 feet apart - I use the "feet" measurement deliberately, we are a metric company but aircraft distances/separations are in feet. So I am certainly not aware of any aircraft touching down and if I certainly hear of it I will let you all know.

MR KIBAZO: In terms of - you wanted to know about CMAG and whether they will be meeting again. I'm not aware that CMAG Ministers are going to be meeting again. I left the meeting just - the meeting was slightly delayed both in the form of starting and the deliberations that have continued, so I left it just to be here in time for this, which is one of the reasons why this briefing was delayed from 12.30 because I was trying to be here. So I am not yet aware if that is the case. That is something I find out the minute I step down from here but as I said - so I will let you know as soon as I can, but I got away before the end to - because, remember, that was at Twin Waters. I did need to get back here.

QUESTION: Can you tell us about that Barbados and Antigua have given any reasons for not sending delegates at all and can you confirm how many Caribbean leaders are going to be here?

Mr KIBAZO: I can't confirm how many Caribbean leaders are here because many of them are arriving through the day. Most of the delegations are arriving today, between this morning and this evening. That's when most of those people will be here. Now when you say Carribean and Barbados, I mean Billie Miller, the Deputy Prime Minister is here because I have seen her this morning and people like Ambassador Simmons. It is not strictly true to say that Barbados is not here, at least in any form. I left a meeting with Billie Miller to arrive here. Any other issues any other questions ?

Questions? No. As I said, the Secretary-General will be here I think in about five minutes or thereabouts to brief you guys on what will be the substance of the meeting. So it will be in this room in about five minutes. I will just go and see what is going on. Thank you.

QUESTION: Before you finish. I just contradicted something. Very confused about it. You said first of all that Barbados and Antigua were the only ones who were not sending a delegation and now you are saying Barbados are actually here and these statistics we need to get them clear.

Mr REYNOLDS: I understand that. That may have been my fault. There was a report to me last night that those were the two countries not coming.

Mr KIBAZO: Some people arriving in between Twin Waters. They come off the plane and go straight into these things and was not at the meeting; I was. The Deputy Prime Minister is here.

QUESTION: They are sending?

MR KIBAZO: I have seen her this morning she came in before the meeting.

QUESTION: You think it might be Antigua is not sending; is that right.

Mr REYNOLDS: I will check.

QUESTION: How many heads of government.

QUESTION: How many heads of government are in the city to attend CHOGM.

Mr KIBAZO: I do not know because in the time we have been sitting here others have been arriving.

QUESTION: How many would be?

Mr KIBAZO: I will be able to tell you that by the end of today. As I said most of them are arriving today and we will know by the end of the day.

QUESTION: Thank you.

ENDS