DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19960711
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, began today's noon briefing by informing correspondents that as announced yesterday, Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP), was joining her at today's noon briefing.
Ms. Foa then announced that the Secretary-General was returning to Headquarters tomorrow. "Hopefully, he's been taking his vitamins and will bring some action back into the building so that all of you will stop complaining to me about the lack of news."
"Anyway, he's home tomorrow and now maybe I won't have to scrounge through trash cans looking for news and I will be able to get some real stuff for you", she said.
Ms. Foa said that the report of the Secretary-General pursuant to Security Council resolution 1054 (1996), on the question of the attempted assassination of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Addis Ababa, was out. That resolution had been adopted on 26 April. In it, the Council, acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, had decided that unless the Government of the Sudan complied with its demands, the provisions set out in the resolution would go into force as of 10 May and would remain in force until the Council determined that the Government had complied with the resolution.
"Now, the provisions we are talking about are that countries would reduce significantly the number and level of the staff at Sudanese diplomatic missions and consular posts and restrict or control the movement within their territories of all such staff who remain. The second provision was that the countries would take steps to restrict the entry into or transit through their territory of members of the Government of the Sudan, officials of that Government and members of the Sudanese armed forces. That went into effect on 10 May. We've had replies on how countries are implementing those provisions from 40 different countries. This is all spelled out in the report", Ms. Foa said.
"The Secretary-General says that the Security Council decided to consider, on the basis of the facts established by the Secretary-General, whether the Sudan had complied with the demands, and if not, whether to adopt further measures to ensure its compliance. Therefore, as things stand right now, the bottom line is that the Security Council has determined that the three suspects involved are sheltered in the Sudan and has called on the
Government of the Sudan to ensure their extradition. The Government of the Sudan claims that its investigation in respect of two of the suspects has produced no trace of their presence in the Sudan and that the identity of the third suspect is unknown", she continued.
Ms. Foa said that "on the second demand -- the Security Council demanded that the Government of the Sudan desist from engaging in activities of assisting, supporting and facilitating terrorist activities and from giving shelter and sanctuary to terrorist elements -- the Secretary-General says that the Government of the Sudan has asserted that it condemns terrorism and does not condone terrorist activities".
"So this is where we stand today. Back into the hands of the Security Council", she said.
Ms. Foa said that the Council was busy today. It had before it a draft resolution on the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). There seemed to be a fairly broad consensus in the Council that the Mission would be given a six-month extension. The Council was talking about it this morning and a formal meeting was expected on it tomorrow morning.
The Council also had before it a draft resolution on the renewal of the mandate of United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP), she said. That text was presented to the Council by the contact group yesterday. That text called for a six-month extension of the UNMOP mandate rather than the three months that was proposed in the Secretary-General's report. "The Council seems to favour six months because they will like to synchronize the length of the UNMOP mandate with those of other United Nations Missions in the area. Right now, for instance, the mandate of the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) in Eastern Slavonia ends on 16 January and the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) in Bosnia and Herzegovina expires on 21 December. So, if they gave UNMOP a six-month extension, their mandate would come to a close on 15 January 1997, about the same time as UNTAES. We probably will see a formal meeting on UNMOP tomorrow morning also."
The Council was also holding consultations on Angola, Ms. Foa said. "It looks like a three-month extension. We have a little bit of news from Angola. Our people there say that all prisoners of both the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) and the Government, who had been registered with the Red Cross, had been released so that is quite a big step forward."
The Spokesman said "UNITA has also, in the last few days, shown the United Nations several areas where some of their matériels, including armoured personnel carriers and ammunition, are being held and have let us know that they are prepared to hand this over to us. So that's another up."
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 11 July 1996
On payments by Member States, she announced that "a nice chunk of money came in today". Nepal became the seventy-eighth Member State to pay its 1996 regular budget dues in full in the amount of $108,770. "Thank you very much Nepal."
"We also have a very welcome payment toward peace-keeping dues from Russia which sent a cheque for $77.7 million. So hopefully, peace-keepers around the world would now get whatever equipment they need and maybe some countries will even get paid back the money that they are owed", she said.
Ms. Foa said that the General Assembly would meet in a plenary session on Tuesday, 16 July, to consider a proposal put forward by the United States for the proclamation of an Olympic truce during the period of the Olympic Games.
She then announced that today was "World Population Day". It was being celebrated all over the world and the theme of the Day this year was "Combating the spread of HIV/AIDS". The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) had planned special events and distributed information materials around the world to commemorate the Day. "We have here two representatives of UNFPA, Alex Marshall and Hugh O'Hare. If anybody has any questions about the World Population Day, they'll be very happy to answer it. We also have a press release on the Day on the racks."
Ms. Foa also said that a press release from WFP was available in her office.
A correspondent asked the Spokesman if she had any reaction to a statement made by President Pasteur Bizimungu of Rwanda at the Summit of the Heads of State of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Yaounde yesterday.
In response, Ms. Foa said, "I think we've debated the culpability of what went wrong in Rwanda very often here. We've tried to put together a chronology of what happened. I think the whole world shares culpability in that issue and I don't think anybody can wash their hands off it."
Leona Forman, Spokeswoman for the President of the General Assembly, said that at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, 16 July, the Assembly would hold a plenary meeting to reopen three agenda items of its fiftieth session.
The first item concerned the implementation of the United Nations New Agenda for the Development of Africa in the 1990s (UN-NADAF) (item 24), she said. The Assembly would be asked to agree to change the date, from 12 to 16 September, of the mid-term review of the New Agenda. It would also consider the report (document A/AC.251/3) of the organizational session, held at
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 11 July 1996
Headquarters on 20 June, of the Ad Hoc Committee of the Whole which is preparing the mid-term review as well as the possible extension of the Committee's mandate through the Assembly's next regular session.
She said the other agenda items to be reopened were item 8, which concerns the Assembly's agenda and organization of work, and item 40, entitled "Building a peaceful and better world through sport and the Olympic ideal". The Assembly President, Diogo Freitas do Amaral (Portugal), would make a solemn appeal to Member States to observe the Olympic Truce during the XXVI Olympics, the Centennial Games to be held in Atlanta, Georgia, from 19 July to 4 August. The truce would be held for seven days before the games, during the Olympics and for seven days after the games.
Ms. Forman also announced that the Assembly President was back at Headquarters and would hold a working luncheon with the Vice-Chairmen of the five high-level working groups of the General Assembly to be briefed on the current stage of each group's work.
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