DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19961104
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, told correspondents at today's noon briefing that the tragedy in eastern Zaire had dominated the weekend. The Secretary-General had spoken on the telephone with the Secretary-General of the Organization of African Union, the Presidents of Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Zaire, with Pierre Buyoya of Burundi, and with the President of the European Union. This afternoon he would meet with members of the Arusha Group -- the Permanent Representatives of Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia -- to discuss the situation in eastern Zaire.
Tomorrow there would be a summit meeting in Nairobi to discuss the situation. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Burundi, Marc Faguy, would attend on behalf of the Secretary-General. In a related development, Ms. Foa said that the Secretary-General's Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region, Raymond Chretien (Canada), would be leaving tomorrow on his mission. His first stop would probably be Nice, France, to confer with President Mobutu of Zaire.
Reports from eastern Zaire were sketchy, Ms. Foa said. Goma was relatively quiet, as was Uvira. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was planning a mission for the Uvira region to see whether the situation was stable enough for that agency to get back into the area.
Of the 715,000 refugees in north of Goma, there had been movement towards the west, particularly toward Zairean town of Sake, on the north-west tip of Lake Kivu. Unfortunately, roads to that town were in bad condition and there was no airport, which would make the provision of humanitarian assistance difficult. The Katale and Kahindo camps were empty. There had also been reports of movement to the west by some of the 400,000 refugees crammed into the Lac Vert and Mugunga camps. Some 11,000 Burundian refugees had returned home at the strong urging of the Tutsi rebels; 1,700 refugees had returned to Rwanda; and some 12,000 Zaireans and Rwandans had sought refuge in Uganda.
On Saturday, Ms. Foa said, 124 international staff had been evacuated from Goma to Gisenyi. Included in that number were 33 United Nations staff, as follows: 26 from UNHCR, five from the World Food Programme (WFP), one from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and one from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The United Nations was closely monitoring the cease-fire unilaterally declared by Tutsi rebels. "If all remains quiet we'll stick our noses back in and see what we can do", she said.
The Secretary-General this morning had given an address to the 1996 Pledging Conference for Development Activities and UN/Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations Pledging Conference for the World Food Programme. He had stated that United Nations operational activities for national development -- programmes aimed at building self-reliance, fighting poverty and other development -- were in very high demand. But resources were not keeping up. While the United Nations was attempting to carry out an expanding roster of tasks and mandates, the amount of money being pledged was going down. In 1995 voluntary contributions the UNDP, UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the WFP had amounted to $4.5 billion, which was $108 million less than in 1994 and $268 million less than 1992. Development was the most important task facing humanity, the Secretary- General said. He urged donors to do the maximum possible in their areas of interest, concern and expertise. Voluntary contributions would have an immediate significant impact on the lives of millions of people in need throughout the world (text of Secretary-General's statement issued today as Press Release SG/SM/6103). Regarding Afghanistan, Ms. Foa said that the Head of the Special Mission of the United Nations to Afghanistan, Norbert Holl, was continuing his mediation efforts. He met yesterday with the Foreign Minister of Pakistan in Islamabad, discussing the prospects for a cease-fire and for the demilitarization of Kabul.
Ms. Foa then said that at 1 p.m. today in room 226 there would be a press conference with Enrique Iglesias, President of the Inter-American Development Bank, and Fernando Zumbado, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the UNDP. They would be presenting Dawn in the Andes, a report stressing the need to take regional steps to preserve the ecosystem of the Andean mountain range. Regarding the situation in eastern Zaire, a correspondent asked whether the Mugunga and Lac Vert refugee camps on the western outskirts of Goma were on the verge of being abandoned. She responded that "there have been a couple thousand that have moved west". The Katale and Kahindo camps were empty. A correspondent then noted that an aide to President Mobutu of Zaire had said that Zaire would not respect the cease-fire declared unilaterally by the Tutsi rebels. In response, Ms. Foa said that, as far as she knew, it was so far a unilateral cease-fire. Regarding the creation of a humanitarian corridor in the region, she noted that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata had been calling for a "corridor of return" from the Goma area straight back to the communes of origin of the 1.1 million Rwandan refugees now in eastern Zaire. Security could be supplied by Zairean and Rwandan troops along the corridor. A cease-fire would be necessary before anything like that could be mounted.
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 4 November 1996
To a question on the chemical weapons Convention, Ms. Foa said that a concern had been raised over a Convention provision by which only citizens of States party to the Convention should serve as Director-General, as inspectors or as members of the professional or clerical staff of the Convention secretariat. The question that had been raised was what would happen to nationals from the Russian Federation or the United States who were currently working there. She expected a list of those employees by tomorrow, she said.
The "on the record" situation was that, technically, staff members from nationalities other than States party must be gone by 29 April, the date of the Convention's entry into force. But responsibility for that was with the States parties, not with the United Nations. They would decide what happens. "They evidently didn't anticipate this problem when they put that provision in", she added.
Was the Secretary-General going to attend the World Food Conference in Rome? a correspondent asked. How much would that conference cost and how much of its cost would be borne by the Organization? Ms. Foa said that the Secretary-General had not yet confirmed his participation, but that she would get more information. As to the cost of the meeting, she said that normally host countries provided for a substantial proportion of Conference expenses.
In Haiti and Bosnia reconciliation was taking place, a correspondent said, yet there were a lot of political people in jail in Haiti. Ms. Foa said she had asked for information. "We're having trouble finding your 3,000 people", she added.
Would the Secretary-General be watching the United States election returns? a correspondent asked. Did he have a view on "how crucial it would be to his fate"? "He doesn't watch very much television", Ms. Foa said. "I'll ask him if he's going to stay up late tomorrow night."
Samsiah Abdul-Majid, spokeswoman for General Assembly President Razali Ismail (Malaysia), said at the time of the briefing the Assembly President was meeting with a group of Palestinian journalists undergoing training with the Department of Public Information.
The Assembly plenary this morning had adopted a series of resolutions, most of which had been approved by its Fifth Committee, she said. They included a resolution on human resources management, imposing an income ceiling of $22,000 per calendar year for retirees working for the United Nations. By another text, the Assembly authorized the Secretary-General to enter into commitments of $12.5 million for the period 1 November to 31 December 1996 for the liquidation of the combined forces in the former Yugoslavia. Also adopted were two resolutions on Haiti -- one to reduce appropriation for the liquidation of the United Nations Mission in Haiti
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 4 November 1996
(UNMIH) to $1.2 million, and the other to appropriate $28.7 million for the United Nations Support Mission in Haiti (UNSMIH), including $13.5 million not used by the UNMIH.
The First Committee this week was considering more than 40 draft resolutions, including one on an international agreement to ban anti-personnel land-mines (document A/C.1/51/L.46). That draft would welcome the various bans declared by States and would call on States that had not yet done so to implement such bans. It would urge States to pursue a legally binding international agreement banning the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel land-mines and would request the Secretary-General to prepare a report on steps taken to complete such an agreement. The draft would also welcome the adoption of the declaration entitled "towards a global ban on anti-personnel mines" adopted at Ottawa, Canada in October of this year.
By another First Committee draft resolution (document A/C.1/51/L.39), she continued, the Assembly would urge nuclear-weapon States to stop immediately the qualitative improvement, development, production and stockpiling of nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. It would also call upon nuclear-weapon States to undertake step-by-step reductions of their nuclear threat and a phased programme of progressive and balanced reduction of nuclear weapons. The Conference on Disarmament would be called upon to establish an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament to start negotiations in 1997 on a phased programme of nuclear disarmament.
Regarding the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons (document A/C.1/51/L.37), the Assembly would underline the unanimous conclusion of the Court that "there exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and to bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control". It would also call upon all States to fulfil their obligations immediately by starting multilateral negotiations in 1997 for the conclusion of a convention to prohibit production, testing, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons and providing their elimination.
By the terms of draft resolution A/C.1/51/L.30, the Assembly would reaffirm the urgent need to reach an early, effective international arrangements to assure non nuclear-weapons States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons. Draft A/C.1/51/L.19/Rev.1 would have the Assembly call on the Conference on Disarmament to start negotiations to reach agreement on an international convention prohibiting the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances. A draft convention was attached to the draft resolution, she said.
Daily Press Briefing - 5 - 4 November 1996
The Assembly would decide to convene its fourth special session on disarmament in 1999, under another draft resolution. The Assembly would also decide to convene a meeting of the Preparatory Committee before the end of current session to set an exact date for the special session.
A correspondent asked whether the Secretary-General had any comment on the Friday statement of the President of the General Assembly on the situation in eastern Zaire, in which he had said that the United Nations should be embarrassed and should be in mourning over the situation there.
"It was a wonderful statement", Ms Foa said. "It made us all feel very, very good. It certainly expressed the frustration that all of us at the United Nations feel. We really are impotent, as he said. It's very difficult to do anything in a situation like that when there's no political will out there. And there obviously has not been enough."
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