Transcript E&OE
17 June 2009
Press Conference with Botswana's Foreign Minister, Mr Phandu Skelemani
Subject: Australia and Botswana's bilateral relationship; New South Wales Budget; Iran; Sri Lanka.
STEPHEN SMITH: Can I officially welcome to Canberra and Australia Botswana's Foreign Minister, Foreign Minister Skelemani. We're very pleased to see you here. This is not your first visit to Australia, but it is your first visit to Canberra.
PHANDU SKELEMANI: To Canberra, yes.
STEPHEN SMITH: And it's your first visit to Australia as Botswana's Foreign Minister, and it's also the first official bilateral visit by a Foreign Minister of Botswana to Australia, and so we welcome that very much.
Foreign Minister Skelemani and I, of course, spoke and formally met in Addis Ababa at the African Union Executive Council meeting of Foreign Ministers.
Australia and Botswana have a very warm and very strong relationship. We work closely together in the Commonwealth. We work closely together in the World Trade Organization and we work closely together in the international institution, the United Nations. We are both strong regional activists and multilateralists.
We have a relationship which is warm and strong, but one which we very much see the potential to grow. There is great potential to enhance the investment in Botswana from Australia's mineral resources industry. There is potential, we think, for closer engagement on agriculture and agribusiness.
We currently have a small number of Botswana students in Australia and a small number of scholarships and we're proposing to enhance and increase those scholarships. The Foreign Minister and I very strongly agree that one of the best things you can do to enhance people to people relations is through education.
We also provide some very practical assistance to Botswana as a result of some of our long standing expertise. Regrettably, Australia is a country which is well-versed at fire prevention and coping with bushfires and Botswana is also the subject of terrible bushfires which have adverse implications for the cattle industry and also for the tourism industry, in addition to the safety and welfare of their citizens. And through the New South Wales Fire Brigade, we're rendering assistance in capacity building on that front, in Botswana.
We're also, through the Western Australian Department of Agriculture, building the capacity of Botswana to introduce a planned quarantine regulatory system.
So the conversations we've had this morning on the bilateral front, have spoken about those areas where we can do more and we're looking now at building a plan of action in these and other areas.
One new area that we're looking at is assistance on building the capacity of Botswana's law enforcement agencies, particularly the Botswanan police, and so we're looking at what we can do with and through the Australian Federal Police and our law enforcement agencies, to build capacity on that front.
We're also very like-minded when it comes to very many of the international issues. We have admired, from afar, the very strong and principled stand that Botswana has taken on Zimbabwe, and we spoke this morning about Australia's desire to do more to help the people of Zimbabwe and do more to help Prime Minister Tsvangirai and his ministers.
We also spoke about some other difficult peace and security issues in Africa: the expanding and enhanced role of the African Union through its regional peace and security and peacekeeping missions and the capacity for Australia to share its expertise, built up over the years, through Peacekeeping United Nations and regional peacekeeping missions.
Later today Foreign Minister Skelemani will officially open Botswana's new High Commission in Canberra, so we very much welcome that sign that the relationship is here to stay for a long period of time.
The Foreign Minister then goes to Sydney and then to New Zealand and, in that respect, we're both travelling a similar path. I'm also leaving tomorrow morning to go to New Zealand for the second of my bilateral meetings with Foreign Minister McCully this year.
So Minister, we're very pleased to see you and your delegation here. We're very pleased that this is the first official bilateral visit by a Botswanan Foreign Minister to Australia. We know your predecessor came here on a private visit. Now Vice-President Merafhe came here on a private visit a few years ago. But we very much welcome you to Canberra and we very much see that as a sign of the warmth and strength of our relationship and we look forward to doing good works together.
So please if you could make some opening remarks.
PHANDU SKELEMANI: Thank you very much Foreign Minister. We are very happy that as it were, at last we've made it. We have enjoyed ourselves. I know the time difference, sometimes, causes me problems, but I learnt it the first time when I came to Sydney that you've got to manage the eight hours difference.
We have enjoyed ourselves. The weather, somebody said, well, we shudder about the weather. I said, well, it's exactly the same at home: it is winter. And it's exactly the same. We had our own rain also in June. So we are at home in both cases. And, as the Minister has said, there are many areas where we do and should cooperate more. Australia, it's a continent by itself - it's a huge country - but a country that has made strides in its own developments and we have the opportunity and the privilege of relating and sending our own officers, young people, to come and imbibe as much as they can from the wealth of this Commonwealth.
As the Minister has said, there are many areas where we cooperate. We come from long way back and that the colonial masters, that's where our roots began. We are now, of course, members of the Commonwealth, equal to Britain.
We value the friendship we have with Australia, because there's a lot that we can learn.
You didn't mention it, Minister, but we sent one of my colleagues - two, two of them, way back when I was still a public officer, to come and study law. One of them is a Deputy Attorney-General, as we speak, thanks to the help we got; the other one is a Deputy Director, Public Prosecutions. So you can see that's way back in the early '80s, that's when they came. And we continue. We're receiving scholarships for masters and doctorates for those who are going for their junior degrees.
But the capacity building which means a lot practically, it's in the areas as we have indicated where the ordinary Motswana feels affected, like the bushfire. Botswana is a cattle country. At one time we had 3 million cattle to less than a million people which meant that every Motswana literally had a cow or two. And when grazing goes up in smoke the ordinary person is affected, and when you can contain the fires with your help, the ordinary Batswana understands what the Australian help means. And one of our districts has benefited greatly - the Chobe - where most of our wildlife is, and they protect that and that's where our tourism is.
I've told the Minister that it would be a good idea if some Australians can come and pitch up a chalet or two in the bush, the Australians are going - more of them can come there as tourists, and of course we reap the benefits and it's part of direct - foreign direct investments when that happens. And we're very thankful.
We value greatly the part that Australia plays in the international arena, not just in the UN but very close to home in Africa, in Darfur where unfortunately we seem to have the capacity as Africans for butchering ourselves and then we cry so that people can come and help us to get ourselves in order.
And of course the piracy, can you believe it? Why the poor continents like Africa should engage in piracy, why the pirates can't do something better with their energies, I don't know. But thank you very much for helping to control the high seas because if we can't then that means that commerce is going to dry up.
The ships which would otherwise come to our coast, the Kenyan coast, the Tanzanian coast right down to Mozambique, even South Africa won't feel safe, and we who are landlocked are the victims. So we appreciate very much what you are doing, sending your young people to go and secure our shores as it were. That is how we relate with Australia.
Of course the scholarships we need more. I was telling the Minister that when some of us grew up. I mean when we were - not that I'm grown up that much - when we were still at school we were being taught to push pen and paper and nothing on the practical side where you combine the brain and the hand, the technical college we just didn't do much on that. And of course Australia somehow you've managed both, the practical side and the academic side and we intend to take every opportunity to send our own people so that they can get the knowledge which we need.
The law and order, we want to avoid a stage where the criminals would have the upper hand and so if we can train our own police services to better police as part of law and order. For that we are very thankful, minister that you're willing to look at how best you can help us on that score and we look forward to having one or two of our officers coming here to learn and then going back with the greater multiply effect that we expect.
Thank you very much.
STEPHEN SMITH: Minister, thank you very much for that. We are happy to respond to your questions on the bilateral relationship and then I'm happy to take your questions on other issues. I think we've got to be out of here sort of around 11.30, so I'm not quite sure how much time we've got.
QUESTION: On law enforcement capacity building, what - have you talked about a scale and will it just be Botswanan police coming to Australia or could the AFP go to Botswana to help the capacity building?
PHANDU SKELEMANI: Both. Both because we think our own officers can come here and learn and then go back. But we think the Federal Police can also go there, work with our police service, see on the ground what is happening, see the shortages and advise as to how best we can manage the situation.
QUESTION: What sort of size would you like to train? I mean would it just be a dozen or could it be hundreds of officers who might come here?
PHANDU SKELEMANI: That would be nice wouldn't it if we had hundreds of officers, but I'm sure somebody here would be complaining that we can't have Australian force all going to Botswana. No, I think we'll be quite happy if we have a dozen or so. Both sides.
STEPHEN SMITH: We've done some preliminary work. There's been contact between our officials. We knew this was an issue so an AFP officer visited Botswana in the course of this year. We've done some preliminary work.
We're looking in the first instance at a couple of Botswanan senior police officers coming to Australia for a period of time, then going back to add that expertise. But we're also looking at whether it's possible to bring some more and also whether it would be of assistance for a small number of AFP officers to go to Botswana to do that work.
But the Minister has summarised it, we're at, if you like, the early stages of it but it is one of those areas where we think we can do more and it's obviously a good thing to do to try and help enhance the law enforcement capacity in Botswana.
QUESTION: Foreign Minister, Mark Dodd from The Australian, specifically what areas and expertise is the Botswana police looking at learning from the Australian. Is it smuggling, or just crime, forensics, is there any particular area?
PHANDU SKELEMANI: Well, I suppose smuggling and everything else is all crime, but we have a problem of trying to control those who - they'll commit a robbery here and then they run and disappear. And trying to trace them on land alone is very difficult. So we want to be able to trace them on land and in the air, and to be able to communicate. So that's one area.
Of course, there's no area that we can really say that we are self-sufficient, because we are not. The drugs - remember, we're having 2010, the football fanatics who'll be coming to South Africa…
STEPHEN SMITH: We're trying to get them here, 2018.
PHANDU SKELEMANI: Oh, you see. So we want to be prepared to make sure that they don't come and sniff or they call it snook on our side and go back and then you've got the drugs.
So it's really - well, with particular reference to controlling, you know, this kind of crime who - people who are running around disappearing in the bush or on the roads, but also trying to make sure that our borders are safe.
QUESTION: Minister, from SBS Television. You mentioned you discussing Zimbabwe in your meeting this morning. What are your - both of your thoughts on the call for EU sanctions [indistinct]?
PHANDU SKELEMANI: Well, as you know, we in Botswana have supported the Zimbabweans and the rest of the world has also come on board. We have political argument by the Zimbabweans forming the Unity Government.
We think that once you've put in a government, whether people are happy with it or not, it is the duty of all of us to support, to be supportive.
And sometimes we normally be a contradiction of that kind of support and we speak to our friends and ask them that they should re-examine the position, because we think there's a good thing happening here.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai is doing his best and we dare not allow him to fail. Because if he fails, then everybody will say, we told you so. The [indistinct] is right. We don't know why they didn't allow the Zimbabwe to collapse literally. That we can't afford, because the ordinary Zimbabwean is the one who suffers.
So whenever people speak about sanctions, I think of the ordinary villager, who is the one who is not receiving what they ought to receive.
As politicians, some of us will be flying around, going Malaysia - I'm not saying who'll be going to Malaysia - but then, you know, the ordinary person suffers because of the sanctions. It's an area, we think, sooner dealt with and lift it.
STEPHEN SMITH: Australia has, for some time, had sanctions - travel and financial sanctions on people associated with the Mugabe regime. And we're not proposing to disturb those for the present.
We've also effectively had a ban on Ministerial contact, and we've also had restrictions on assistance, limiting that to humanitarian assistance to the people of Zimbabwe themselves.
There are two areas where we have moved, if you like, and two areas where we are looking very carefully at what we're proposing to do for the future.
One, of course, is contact with Ministers. And whilst we are not proposing to have contact with Mr Mugabe's Ministers, we are proposing to have contact with Mr Tsvangirai and his Ministers. Indeed, since Mr Tsvangirai became Prime Minister, I've spoken to him myself. Secondly, in the area of development assistance, last month, or the month before in April, I announced $10 million worth of assistance to Zimbabwe to build capacity in two areas: in their water and water sanitation, and in health. Five million for each. And both of those programs, the money goes, in the case of water and water sanitation, to the local authorities who now have responsibility for water sanitation. And in the case of health, a joint program with the United Kingdom development assistance agency to get additional payments to health workers to get their health workers, and nurses and midwives, and doctors back into the system.
We're now looking at what more we can do to help build Zimbabwe's capacity in areas that will benefit the Zimbabwe people: health, education, water and water sanitation, and the like.
We've been very careful about that, because if you like, the jury is still out on the success of the transitional government. We would have preferred Mr Mugabe walked off the stage and Mr Tsvangirai became Prime Minister in his own right, and we think that would have properly reflected the will of the Zimbabwe people. But that is not how it emerged.
When I made that announcement, it was seen internationally as being the first contribution to Zimbabwe which went beyond pure humanitarian assistance, emergency food, and the like.
We are looking at what more we can do on that front to build the capacity of Zimbabwe, to bring real benefits to the Zimbabwean people. At some point in the cycle, Mr Mugabe will go. We hope, at some point in the cycle, that an election by the Zimbabwe people genuinely elects a democratically elected government who can get on with the job of fixing Zimbabwe's economy and fixing the social circumstances.
But together with Botswana, we are looking very carefully at what more we can do to push the boundary, if you like, of assistance to Mr Tsvangirai and his Ministers, and to the people of Zimbabwe. But for the present, we're not proposing to disturb our longstanding financial and travel sanctions on members of the Mugabe regime, nor the ministerial ban on contact with Mr Mugabe's Ministers.
QUESTION: Mr Smith, can you explain the purpose of the envoy that Australia sent to Sri Lanka?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, let me deal with a number of things. In recent times, we have sent officials to Sri Lanka to speak to the Sri Lankan authorities about people smuggling and people movement issues. And that was a delegation led by the national security adviser, Mr Lewis.
We, of course, currently have officials in Sri Lanka, and we currently have officials in the north of Sri Lanka who are working with the Sri Lankan authorities to seek to locate the whereabouts of three Sri Lanka - three Australian citizens who we believe are in one of the displaced people's camps. This is a matter that I have raised personally with Foreign Minister Bogollagama. I did that late last month. We're also giving consular assistance to the three families.
We don't have any information which would cause us to believe that the three aren't safe; it's just we have not been able to locate them, either through the UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and his officers who are working in the displaced camps, nor have we been able to locate them through Sri Lankan authorities, but we're working very hard to do that.
I might just also take the opportunity of restating a couple of points about Sri Lanka generally. We welcome the fact that the Sri Lankan Government has said they want to clear 80 per cent of the displaced people's camps over the next period.
But we continue to very strongly believe that the relevant international agencies, particularly the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, particularly the International Committee for the Red Cross, should have complete access to those camps.
QUESTION: Mr Smith, you've been trying to locate these three Australians for a number of weeks now. Why is it taking you so long? And can you put any more pressure on the Sri Lankan government?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, it's not so much pressure. When we became aware that we had three citizens in Sri Lanka and we wanted to help their families locate them, I raised it with Foreign Minister Bogollagama. My memory is that conversation was in May, late May.
Since then, our officials in Sri Lanka have been working very hard with the Sri Lankan authorities and the international organisations trying to locate them. The problem is essentially you have literally hundreds of thousands of peoples in the displaced people's camps in northern Sri Lanka as a result of the conflict and the crisis. And it has been very difficult, firstly to get access and secondly, to locate individuals when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced in a very quick period of time in terrible circumstances.
Our officials believed, at one point late in May or early this month, that they had been located in the camps, but we cannot confirm their continued presence in one of the camps.
Having said that, I underline this point, we have no information or evidence from any of our sources - the international agencies, our own officers, or the Sri Lankan authorities - which would cause us to believe they are unsafe or have come into harm.
Our problem is, and the difficulty for the families at the moment is we can't confirm their whereabouts, but we're doing everything we can in conjunction with the international agencies and the Sri Lankan authorities to locate them. And when I raised it with Foreign Minister Bogollagama, he made it crystal clear that he would ensure that our officials had complete access to the Sri Lankan officials to seek to locate them.
QUESTION: Does Australia have any more general sort of human rights concerns about what's going on in the north in Sri Lanka, and - I mean, given that the Sri Lankan Government throughout this period, over the last month, they've made repeated promises that they weren't always willing to keep. Are you worried about that?
STEPHEN SMITH: I've made the point to Foreign Minister Bogollagama, and I've made the point publicly, and I've made it formally in the Parliament when in the last couple of weeks I made a ministerial statement, and let me restate those.
Firstly, we think that the Sri Lankan Government and the Sri Lankan authorities will now be judged on two things: on how they manage and deal with the vast numbers of people in the displaced camps; and secondly, how they now move to a reform program which enables all of the Sri Lankan people and all of the Sri Lankan community to feel that they have a share in a democracy in Sri Lanka. On the first point, on the displaced peoples, I have made the point very clear to Foreign Minister Bogollagama and publicly that we very strongly believe that the international agencies, particularly the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees, should have complete and unfettered access to the camps. And that point has been made, as I say, to Foreign Minister Bogollagama. The point was also made by our officials in Geneva when Sri Lanka appeared before the Human Rights Council and its most recent hearing, or meetings, which from memory was early this month.
QUESTION: Minister, on another issue, journalists are being kicked out of Iran and there are fears of a crackdown. Have your concerns about the situation increased?
STEPHEN SMITH: We continue to be very concerned. On the one hand we welcome the fact that in the last twelve hours or so the demonstrations and the protests appear almost exclusively to have been peaceful and to have been met with restraint by the Iranian authorities.
We continue to express our very grave concerns about the repression of protest that we saw a day or so ago. And so we welcome the fact that the most recent large protests are being reported and appear to have been peaceful and not met with restraint.
We are concerned, of course, that foreign journalists are now being excluded and we worry that this is a further sign of Iran's isolation.
We also welcome the fact that the Supreme Leader's undertaking to effect a recount has been effected, if only in part, but nonetheless, a recount is being effected.
We want the Iranian election to reflect the genuine will of the Iranian people. We're not in the position to make a judgement about that, but like our other colleagues in the international community, from the UN Secretary-General to President Obama, to our European Union and United Kingdom colleagues, we have expressed our concern that we want the election result to reflect the will of the people.
We welcome very much the fact that that election saw robust debate in a manner in which we would a couple of months ago have thought of as being unheard of in Iran. But there's more, and we've expressed together with the international community our concern about those reactions to the protests and human rights issues.
I continue to make what I regard as being a fundamental point: irrespective of the outcome of the election, Iran has to change its policy. And what we need to see is a genuine response to the overtures of dialogue by the United States Administration, and a change of policy approach, so far as Iran is concerned, on its nuclear program which continues to be the single most significant area of concern so far as Iran's isolation is concerned.
QUESTION: Can I just ask you, has Australia received any representations from its trading partners about the buy Australia policy in the New South Wales Budget?
STEPHEN SMITH: I haven't received any. I know that at officials' level, a number of queries have been raised. I haven't had the chance to speak to my colleague, Simon Crean, so I can't advise whether he has received any personally. But we continue to make the points that Mr Crean and I have made from the beginning of the week. There are a number of issues here. Firstly, any such program of course needs to be consistent with our international obligations. But secondly, any such program has to be consistent with Australia's very strong view that a retreat to protectionism at a time of economic difficulty is precisely the wrong thing to do. That how we emerge through times of economic difficulty is by opening and expanding our markets; by liberalising, not by contracting.
And just as Mr Crean and other members of the Government were strongly and highly critical of a proposed US procurement program, so Mr Crean and I have been strongly critical of what we've seen emerge from New South Wales in recent days.
QUESTION: Can you say which countries have made a representation?
STEPHEN SMITH: I haven't checked this morning. I'm happy to check and provide it to you in detail, but my understanding is representatives of the United States and the European Union. But I'm happy to take that on notice and provide that in the course of the day.
I think we're struggling for time, so Minister thank you very much.
PHANDU SKELEMANI: Thank you, sir.
STEPHEN SMITH: Good to see you.
So thanks everyone, and we'll see you again soon.
[Ends]
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