DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19960905
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by informing correspondents that the Secretary-General was at present meeting with the Efficiency Board. The Board was presenting him with its first report entitled "UN 21: Better Service, Better Value, Better Management". The report detailed some of the efforts under way in the Secretariat to improve cost-effectiveness in the way services and programmes were delivered to Member States.
The Efficiency Board had been set up last year, she said, adding that it had brought together in-house and external expertise to take a look at "how we run things around here". Experts and resources had been provided by 25 Member States. The Board was looking at a comprehensive management plan that had been set up by the Secretary-General on how things could be done in a better manner. Its report was expected on 16 September and "we will be on the look out for it for you guys. It evidently has some very, very interesting ideas", she said.
Ms. Foa added that hundreds of proposals had been made by United Nations staff members for ways to improve the efficiency of the Organization, and several hundreds of those had been adopted and were now being implemented.
In the afternoon, the Secretary-General was scheduled to receive a farewell call from the Permanent Representative of Algeria, she said. Thereafter, at 5 p.m., he would meet the Chairmen of the Regional Groups, which would include the Permanent Representatives of Burkina Faso, Kuwait, Latvia, Honduras and Andorra. Later, in a separate meeting, he would meet with the Permanent Representative of Kuwait.
The Secretary-General had met with the Chargé d'affaires of Iraq, Saeed Hasan, yesterday at 5 p.m., Ms. Foa said. The meeting had been held at Mr. Hasan's request. He had stated that he had been instructed by his Government to seek an urgent meeting with the Secretary-General to inform him that attacks were continuing over the Iraqi capital and, in particular, over Baghdad's suburbs. He also stated that he had conveyed a similar message to some members of the Security Council.
In Eastern Slavonia, there was a new mass grave excavation, she said. The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia had sent a team, led by Clint Williamson, to investigate an alleged massacre of civilians at Ovcara, near Vukovar. The digging of the mass grave was being coordinated by Dr. William Haglund, a forensic anthropologist for the Tribunal, and the actual digging was being done by Physicians for Human Rights.
The digging in Ovcara was based on reports that the Tribunal had received from witnesses, Ms. Foa said. Those witnesses had stated that on 20 November 1991, the Yugoslav National Army had emptied Vukovar Hospital and moved 260 patients to their barracks. They had further stated that the patients had then been moved to Ovcara, where they had been beaten. Following that, some had been released, while others had been killed.
Ms. Foa said three former Yugoslav National Army officials had been indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal in connection with the case. The Ovcara mass graves had been discovered in October 1992 and, since then, the graves had been protected by the United Nations peace-keeping forces. The excavation was expected to take four to six weeks.
"We have a new stand-by arrangement for peace-keeping", she said, as she announced that tomorrow, at 3 p.m., Malaysia and the United Nations would sign a Memorandum of Understanding on stand-by arrangements for United Nations peace-keeping operations. Malaysia was the fourth Member State to sign such a memorandum. Jordan, Denmark and Ghana were the other Member States who had signed similar agreements. Such stand-by arrangements were designed to accelerate deployment of troops during the start-up phases of peace-keeping operations.
As correspondents were aware, sometimes peace-keeping operations were given the go-ahead by the Security Council and then it took four, five or sometimes six months to get troops on the ground, Ms. Foa said. "So ever since we have had some bad experiences with that, we have been pushing these stand-by arrangements." The first steps towards making stand-by arrangements had been taken in 1994. As of now, 59 Member States had expressed willingness to participate in such arrangements.
Malaysia, in its Memorandum of Understanding, would pledge to provide a significant number of troops, including specialized units within a short time- frame, if called upon by the United Nations to help launch a new peace-keeping operation, she said. The Memorandum would be signed by the Permanent Representative of Malaysia, Razali Ismail, and the Under-Secretary-General for Peace-keeping Operations, Kofi Annan.
The Security Council still had a draft resolution and a draft Presidential statement on Iraq in front of it, Ms. Foa said, adding that "there was a lot of work going on all night long and still going on this morning". The Council was scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. for consultations of the whole.
"Yes, this is the United Nations", Ms. Foa said, adding that "if there wasn't an occasional mistake, we could not say this is the United Nations. That is what makes us special." She then apprised the correspondents of a mistake in the Journal. Today's Journal had announced that the 123rd plenary meeting of the General Assembly to be held on Monday, 9 September, to consider
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 5 September 1996
the request for the resumption of consideration of agenda item 65, "which we all know is the comprehensive test-ban treaty", was submitted by Argentina. However, it was Australia and not Argentina that had submitted the request, she said, adding "close but no cigar".
Commenting that "Monday is going to be a banner day for everybody, too much work", Ms. Foa said one of the nicer events of the day would be the opening of the International Peace Academy's seminar on peacemaking and peace- keeping in the Trusteeship Council from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. The Secretary- General would make welcoming remarks; the Prime Minister of Norway, Gro Harlem Brundtland, would give an inaugural address, and the keynote address would be delivered by Dan Rather of CBS.
The seminars trained people from all over the world in peace-keeping and peacemaking, she said. Hundreds of alumni of those seminars had gone on to hold leading positions in international diplomacy, peacemaking and peace- keeping missions around the world.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Henryk Sokalski, along with the Force Commander of the United Nations Preventive Deployment Force (UNPREDEP), Brigadier-General Bo Lennart Wranker, would address correspondents on Friday, at 3:30 p.m. in room 226, Ms. Foa said. Prior to that, Mr. Sokalski would brief the Council.
A correspondent stated that it appeared that the International Tribunal was skipping examination of graves in which Serbs were buried. She wanted to know the criteria for picking a mass grave for excavation.
Ms. Foa replied that there were numerous mass graves which had been identified and were being protected at the moment. Those graves were scheduled for excavation. "They are picking them on the basis of the number of suspected victims and accessibility of the site", she said. As the Secretary-General's report had stated last week, there were problems in access and security arrangements at the sites.
Hiro Ueki of the Spokesman's Office added that the United Nations peace- keeping forces were protecting the Ovcara mass graves. And there had been no evidence of tampering. Ms. Foa stated that she would try to get a time schedule for the excavation of the identified graves which were unfortunately too numerous to list.
Did the excavation in Srebrenica produce any results? the reporter asked. Ms. Foa responded that the excavation had been begun and about 50 bodies had been found. However, it had been halted for security reasons because "they were not getting the security assurances that they were seeking".
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 5 September 1996
Stating that the President of the United States, as a rule, addressed the special session of the General Assembly on Monday, a correspondent inquired why the President was scheduled to address the special Assembly session on Tuesday.
Ms. Foa said the change had been made at the request of the United States Government. She added that she would check on the reason given. As usual, Brazil would be the first speaker on the first day.
Had a speakers list for the comprehensive nuclear-test-ban treaty on Monday been issued? a correspondent asked. Ms. Foa said she had not seen one.
Another correspondent said apparently a group in the "Republic of Texas" had sent the United Nations and the Joint Chiefs of Staff a letter regarding their flag and declaring independence, as well as notifying the United Nations of it. Was Ms. Foa aware of that?
She said she was not aware of the letter, but would love to read it. "I am sorry you got it and I didn't because I would have had fun with it", she added.
A correspondent wanted to know if Ms. Foa had any information on the renewed fighting in Burundi. Ms. Foa replied that she had very little, and she had asked for a report this morning. However, it was very difficult to get through to Bujumbura. On 30 August, Bujumbura had remained a city under siege. There were still power and fuel shortages. Violent clashes in the provinces between the army and the Hutu rebels had continued. Observers, however, felt that that fighting might only be the tip of the iceberg as it was extremely difficult to know what was happening in the hills outside the capital.
She added that much of Bujumbura had been without electricity for more than a week, and fuel was being drastically rationed. Exports of tea and coffee, in particular, were at a halt. Burundi's doctors' association had warned of imminent health problems because of threatened shortages of food, medicine and vaccines.
A correspondent asked if Ms. Foa could investigate whether newspaper reports about socialite Patricia Duff's attempts to get a high-profile job at the United Nations were correct. Ms. Foa responded that she would come up with a good answer. "I love being on Page Six of the New York Post", she said, adding "if she wants my job, she has to get in line".
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