DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19960723
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by stating that she had just received a late notice from the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) announcing that relatives of pilots of the organization "Brothers to the Rescue" would be available at the UNCA Club today at 3 p.m. to talk about the shooting down of two civilian planes by the Cuban military last month.
She said the Secretary-General had a very tight schedule today. At 10:30 a.m. he had met with members of the United Nations International Commission of Inquiry for Burundi who had presented him with an extremely long report. It would take some time for the Secretary-General to study it. She reminded correspondents that the Commission was established to look into the assassination of the President of Burundi, Juvenal Habyarimana, in October 1993 and the events that followed it. As correspondents were aware, there had been a massive killing of an estimated 100,000 people at that time. In addition, 800,000 had become refugees. "It was quite a horrifying event in 1993". The President of the Commission, Edilbert Razafindralambo, handed over the report.
The Spokesman reminded correspondents that the Secretary-General yesterday sent a letter to the President of the Security Council on the recent events in Burundi and his preoccupation with them. He had urged the Council to take immediate action in response to the deteriorating situation there. In his letter, the Secretary-General said the international community must take concrete and immediate action to halt the cycle of violence and to prevent another catastrophe in the Great Lakes region of central Africa. He reiterated the need to press forward with the contingency planning for a multinational force for Burundi. The Spokesman informed correspondents that the Secretariat was actively consulting with Member States on the contingency planning. The Under-Secretary-General for Peace-keeping Operations, Kofi Annan, would this afternoon meet with representatives of eight of what was described as donor countries to discuss the matter. As correspondents knew, she said, notes had been sent to many countries asking what they were prepared to provide in case of a humanitarian emergency. Responses were being received regularly.
She said the Secretary-General had later met with Sir David Hannay, "our old friend", now the Special Representative of the United Kingdom for Cyprus. She was not present at that meeting but imagined Cyprus was the topic being discussed. The Secretary-General had then met with Emma Bonino, of Italy, a Member of the European Commission. The situation in the Great Lakes region had been discussed. Ms. Bonino had just returned from Rwanda and Burundi and
wanted to express her concerns. At the time of the briefing, the Secretary- General was meeting with the President-elect of the Dominican Republic, Leonel Fernandez. That meeting would be followed by the presentation of credentials by another new set of Permanent Representatives. He would receive the credentials of the new Permanent Representatives of Mauritius, Sudan, Mauritania and the Federated States of Micronesia. "More new faces to learn", she observed.
In the afternoon, the Secretary-General would meet with the Speaker of the Parliament of Finland, Riita Maria Uosukainen, and later receive separately, the Permanent Representatives of Senegal and China, Ibra Deguene Ka and Qin Huasun, respectively.
The Spokesman announced that tomorrow, there would be "a special guest", Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management Joseph Connor, who would brief Member States on the Organization's financial situation and where it stood at present. Mr. Connor had promised to come straight to the noon briefing afterwards to similarly brief correspondents.
She said the Security Council was considering the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and would then go on to the report of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Evidently, she said, a draft resolution on the subject was being considered informally by Council members but had not been officially circulated. She expected Under-Secretary-General Chinmaya Gharekhan to brief the Security Council today on the talks that took place in Moscow from 16 to 19 July between the Georgian and Abkhaz parties. "We expect to have more on that, soon", she said.
She informed correspondents that the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to the Economic and Social Council (document E/1996/87) had been issued. It reviewed the most important activities undertaken by High Commissioner Jose Ayala Lasso since his last report in April. In particular, the report reviewed activities in Bosnia, Croatia, Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Georgia, Burundi, Rwanda, Zaire and South Africa.
The Spokesman said the Special Committee on decolonization, called the Committee of 24 despite only having 23 members, was currently in session at Headquarters, and yesterday considered the Falklands/Malvinas question, with a statement by the Foreign Minister of Argentina. Today the Committee would consider the situation in Gibraltar, during which it would be addressed by the Chief Minister of Gibraltar. It was also expected to take up the question of East Timor today. She hoped she would have "more news" from the Committee tomorrow.
The Head of the United Nations Special Mission for Afghanistan, Norbert Heinrich Holl, was due in Islamabad today for consultations with senior Pakistani government officials, the Spokesman further said.
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On another subject, she quoted the Spokesman for the United Nations Special Commission monitoring the disarmament of Iraq (UNSCOM) as saying that an UNSCOM team which was denied entry to a site in Baghdad was now back in Bahrain and preparing its report. That particular mission had therefore been concluded. Following an exchange of letters between the Executive Director of the Special Commission, Rolf Ekeus, and Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, it was now up to the Security Council to decide what course of action UNSCOM should take next.
Talking about late news, Ms. Foa said on 9 May Portugal paid its 1996 regular budget assessment in full -- $2,991,182. She took responsibility for not announcing the payment earlier. "My apologies to Portugal. Many thanks to Portugal". She disclosed that 80 Member States had now paid their assessment in full; 105 others were still to do so. "As of today, the United Nations is owed only $2.9 billion: $0.8 billion for the regular budget and $2.1 billion for peace-keeping."
Going back to Burundi, she said her office had a press release from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). (See Press Release REF/1149 issued today.) The High Commissioner had demanded that Burundi halt immediately the forced return of thousands of Rwandan refugees, and described what was happening to them as a flagrant violation of basic human rights and international refugee instruments. The High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata, had written a letter to Burundi President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, expressing her indignation and serious concern over the treatment inflicted on refugees and her own staff. As of this morning, 13,500 Rwandan refugees out of about 85,000 who had sought sanctuary in Burundi had been forced back in extremely poor circumstances. They had been packed into container trucks like sardines. At least, three people, including an 18-month old baby, had died in the exercise. "It is a disgrace", she remarked.
Her office also had received a "pretty sad note" announcing that investigators from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia had begun exhumation in Nova Kasaba in what they suspected might be the largest grave site of Muslims from Srebrenica. They expected to find the remains of more than 200 bodies.
In a subsequent question-and-answer session, she told a correspondent that she would have known if the Italian member of the European Commission would brief the Security Council. As she had earlier stated, Ms. Bonino had asked to see the Secretary-General to talk about the situation in the Great Lakes region of central Africa and to express her concerns as well as those of the European Commission.
A correspondent asked what her reaction was to the reported United States "investigation" into the use of United Nations resources to bolster Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's chances for re-election. The
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Spokesman replied, "You know, all of us, including the Secretary-General, have been extremely preoccupied over the last few days, especially yesterday and today, with a multitude of crises, not the least of which is the deteriorating situation in Burundi. We have no time for these kinds of unsubstantiated allegations. Although it is pretty sickening to all of us that these kinds of allegations are being made against staff who are working under extremely stressful circumstances to make this Organization work."
"We doubt very much that these ridiculous charges or the disgraceful campaign of disinformation that is being waged against the United Nations and against the staff of the United Nations could possibly have been approved in advance by the government concerned", she continued. "Such bully tactics, these threats and blatant attempts at intimidating United Nations staff, really smack of the McCarthy era. There's an odor there of something I remember when I was a kid in the 1950s.
"The Secretary-General has made it clear to all of us that we should get on with our work and leave the question of the re-election to the Member States. This a job for the Member States to deal with. It's not our job. And he has told us 'keep working; just keep doing what you should be doing'. However, I reminded the Secretary-General that it is the job of every single United Nations staff member to counter disinformation, no matter what the source of that disinformation. We're here to defend this institution, called the United Nations, from unwarranted, unjustified and unsubstantiated attacks", she said.
Reverting to Burundi, a correspondent asked to be reminded on the nature of the Organization' involvement there. The Spokesman said letters had gone out to African countries asking them what they would be able to provide in case of an emergency in Burundi. Letters had also been sent to "donor" countries -- those States which had expressed an interest in providing either logistics or finances for any operation either under Chapter VI, in the best case scenario where the parties would be helped to achieve reconciliation, or a Chapter VII operation in case of a humanitarian disaster. She further said that 85 letters had gone out under the Chapter VI scenario and 47 under Chapter VII. A number of very important replies had been received from Member States. Some of them had been put aside while the Technical Committee on Burundi was doing its work after the Arusha Agreement. The Technical Committee was supposed to report to the Organization of African Unity (OAU) on the feasibility of creating a regional force for Burundi, but the Committee had failed to come up with the report yesterday. "We do not know exactly where it stands."
She said the proposed regional force was meeting "quite a bit of resistance" from different factions inside Burundi. They were having difficulties with it. Meanwhile, she said the United Nations supported the efforts of the former President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Julius
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Nyerere. As she had stated earlier, the donor group was also being convened and would meet with Mr. Annan this afternoon to discuss what exactly -- money, logistics or transport -- they were willing to provide.
The correspondent asked for clarification as to whether the OAU was "in the driver's seat" with the United Nations providing back-up. "Not really", she replied. She said there were parallel efforts that hopefully would complement each other. The Secretary-General had gone to the Security Council a dozen times on the issue of Burundi, suggesting the formation of a multinational contingency force should there be a humanitarian disaster. Then President Nyerere had begun his consultations and "we put all of our support behind President Nyerere. At the same time we feel that there should be parallel contingency plans going on". She said Member States had not decided "how they want to run this". "Will the United Nations pay for it? Who'll pay for it? How will it be done? Will it be done through the United Nations or, the OAU? All this still has to be decided." Meanwhile efforts were being made, she said, to determine what Member States were willing to provide. "Until we know what countries are going to provide troops, or money, or logistics, there's very little progress that we can make on the contingency planning."
A correspondent asked whether the meeting with Mr. Annan would centre only on the Chapter VII scenario. She said it would also cover Chapter VI. It was hoped that the parties in Burundi would achieve reconciliation and that there would be no more killings. The country could then ask for a Chapter VI operation. However, the Secretariat would also want to be prepared for a humanitarian disaster, in which case there might have to be a Chapter VII operation. She observed, "We still do not have a clear idea who is willing to give what. Lots of countries have offered to help with the planning, but there have not been so many offers of troops, logistics and transport which would be needed under either Chapter VI or VII".
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