DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19960718
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by saying that the Secretary-General had asked her to inform correspondents how deeply saddened he was to learn of the tragedy of TWA Flight 800 and he extended his heartfelt condolences to the families of those who had lost their lives.
As correspondents were aware, she said the briefing was beginning quite late because a few moments earlier, the Secretary-General and Under-Secretary- General Chinmaya Gharekhan had met with Ambassador Abdul-Amir Al-Anbari, the head of the Iraqi delegation to the "oil-for-food" talks with the United Nations Secretariat. Mr. Gharekhan had handed Ambassador Al-Anbari a letter basically approving the Iraqi food distribution plan under Security Council resolution 986 (1995). The Secretary-General had said, "We are quite happy that the distribution plan had been accepted and is in conformity with the memorandum of understanding of 20 May. I hope this will create a new momentum for the implementation as soon as possible of resolution 986."
She said the Secretary-General had thanked Mr. Gharekhan and Ambassador Al-Anbari for their efforts in putting the plan together. He hoped the Sanctions Committee -- established pursuant to Council resolution 661 (1990), which is monitoring the sanctions against Iraq -- would also finish its procedures soon so that "things could start moving". Asked about dates for the implementation of the plan, the Secretary-General had said he had no dates to give but the letter given to Ambassador Al-Anbari was proof that things had started moving. Asked whether it was an important step, the Secretary-General had replied that every step was important.
Continuing with the Secretary-General's activities, the Spokesman said he had this morning met with the executive secretaries of the United Nations regional commissions, together with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose Ayala-Lasso. They had discussed the need for the regional commissions to take a more comprehensive approach, not limiting themselves to the economic dimension, but also taking into account the social dimension of their work. Promotion of human rights and sustainable development were essential to peace and security. She said Mr. Lasso had told her before going into the meeting that the "right to development was a human right".
Ms. Foa said that at the time of the briefing the Secretary-General was meeting with his Special Representative for Liberia, Anthony Nyaki, who would be going to Abuja, Nigeria, next week to attend the annual summit of the Economic Community for West African States (ECOWAS). Also attending the summit would be Ambassador James L. Jonah, who would represent the Secretary- General. Ambassador Jonah had been asked by the Secretary-General to help with the Liberia question.
Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 18 July 1996
The Secretary-General was also seeing the former Permanent Representative of Uganda, and would meet the Speaker of the Cuban Parliament, Ricardo Alarcon, today, Ms. Foa said. The latter meeting followed the transmittal of the report of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) entitled "Report of the investigation regarding the shooting down of the two United States-registered private civil aircraft by Cuban military aircraft on 24 February 1996". It was still expected that the Security Council would take up the ICAO report on Monday, she added.
Later in the afternoon, the Secretary-General, together with the Under- Secretary-General for Peace-keeping Operations, Kofi Annan, and the Deputy Military Adviser, Brigadier-General M. Bhagat, would be meeting the Permanent Representatives of the Netherlands, Denmark and Canada, who would be accompanied by their military advisers. The Ambassadors were members of what was called "friends of rapid reaction". The group was formed at a ministerial level meeting during the fiftieth session of the General Assembly last fall. Co-chaired by Canada and the Netherlands, the group had been working on an initiative to enhance the capacity of the United Nations to deploy quickly in a crisis.
The Spokesman commented that all too often when faced with a crisis, it sometimes took the United Nations three or four months before personnel could be deployed on the ground to implement a Security Council resolution. The rapid reaction deployment could actually help "get things moving, at least in the planning stages..."
She said the group's discussions had resulted in specific proposals to develop, within the Department of Peace-keeping Operations, the nucleus of a rapidly deployable headquarters, or a small operational headquarters to help plan missions. The "friends of rapid reaction" were offering to either loan or second, to the United Nations Secretariat, staff to man that operational headquarters. That would give the United Nations another form of stand-by arrangement, and hopefully the capability to deploy much more quickly when the need arose.
The Spokesman informed correspondents that reports had been received today about further threats against the United Nations International Police Task Force (IPTF) and also against the Implementation Force (IFOR). The threats had been made, this time, by the mayor of a town called Oglejvik, in Republika Srpska. The mayor had said that the Serbs would respond with military action against both IPTF and IFOR if anyone from the international community tried to arrest Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
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The Spokesman said the IPTF was now introducing additional security measures and was in constant contact with IFOR. The IPTF Commissioner, Peter Fitzgerald, had met senior IFOR commanders and had been assured of assistance in case of an emergency, "although, of course, it would be quite difficult to devise any foolproof security plan", she said. She noted that there were 53 IPTF stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina with about half of them in the Republika Srpska territory. That meant, she added, that about half of the 1,621 IPTF monitors were deployed there.
Meanwhile, the Secretariat was getting reports of rising inter-ethnic tensions, she said. There had been many evictions of minority Bosnian residents from their property in the Banja Luka region. The Croats in the Stolic area continued to place obstacles in the implementation of the pilot project to rebuild houses for Bosnians and one of the 100 houses built as part of the project had recently been burned down. Tensions between Croat and Bosnian communities in central Bosnia had resulted in a number of incidents, including an anti-tank explosion in a store owned by a Croat in Travnik. There had also been reports of increased harassment of Bosnians remaining in the formerly Serb-held suburbs of Sarajevo. "What we have here are barns being burned, and shots being fired. People are frightened, quite honestly."
She said the Security Council was today taking up in consultations its resolution 1054 (1996) and then moving straight into the question of Bosnia and Herzegovina. [By resolution 1054 the Council demanded that the Sudan take immediate action to ensure extradition to Ethiopia of three suspects sheltered in the Sudan and wanted in connection with the June assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.]
She announced that available in the Spokesman's office was a press release from a press conference given in Geneva today by the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burundi, Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil. He had just returned from a mission in Burundi. He had drawn a "very, very dark picture" of what he called "an intolerable situation there". He had also said, "We can't wait for something to happen in Burundi. There's already a disaster going on right under our very eyes." The Spokesman said the press release was "quite strong" and suggested that correspondents get copies. She further quoted the Special Rapporteur as saying the international community could no longer tolerate the catastrophic evolution of the situation in Burundi, which had been marked by targeted assassinations, arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, pillage, banditry and the destruction of private property.
During the question-and-answer session, a correspondent asked whether account had been taken of the United States' objection to the distribution plan submitted by Iraq in connection with the "oil-for-food" resolution. The Spokesman said she did not believe that there had been any objections to the plan. She referred a correspondent to United States representatives when
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further asked whether the United States had signed on to the plan. Noting that there had been several questions on what would happen next with the food distribution issue, she said the draft procedures from the Sanctions Committee were awaited. The Secretary-General, under paragraph 13 of resolution 986, would then send a report to the Security Council on the implementation of the plan. The day after the submission of his report, "the clock would start ticking on the 90 days".
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