Clinton to Lead Post-Tsunami Reconstruction

[papau]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55738-2005Feb1.html

washingtonpost.com
Clinton to Lead Post-Tsunami Reconstruction
Former President Will Represent U.N. and Try to Keep Relief Money Flowing
By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 2, 2005; Page A15


UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 1 -- Former president Bill Clinton has been appointed to head the U.N. post-tsunami reconstruction effort, a task that will involve prodding wealthy governments to continuing funding relief projects in stricken Indian Ocean nations after international attention wanes.

Clinton will also offer to mediate long-standing armed conflicts in tsunami-hit areas in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, senior U.N. officials said. The appointment makes Clinton the most senior former U.S. official to serve as a U.N. envoy; previously the most senior was Republican former secretary of state James A. Baker III, who led U.N. efforts between 1997 to 2004 to end a protracted conflict in Western Sahara.

The announcement comes almost one month after President Bush recruited Clinton and former president George H.W. Bush to lead a "massive private relief effort" in the United States to help nations devastated by the tsunami. Clinton said in a prepared statement that he would travel with Bush to the region later this month before taking up his assignment for the United Nations in March.

"I look forward to serving as the special envoy" of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, Clinton said. "In the meantime, I continue to focus on my work with former president Bush to urge people to contribute to this cause."<snip>