DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19961115
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by saying, "The Secretary-General is thrilled to death by the news of refugees going home to Rwanda". It was believed that some 300,000 to 400,000 Rwandan refugees were now "on the road", moving back into Rwanda from eastern Zaire. "I have never seen so many staid bureaucrats giving each other the high-five before", Ms. Foa said. "Hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees are voting with their feet, and they are voting for what we all knew they wanted for the last two years. They are voting to go home."
Ms. Foa said, "As about 15 minutes ago, 50,000 refugees from the north Goma area -- from the Mugunga and Lac Vert area -- have crossed into Rwanda. Another 300,000 or 400,000 people are on the road, heading back to Rwanda from eastern Zaire into the Gisenyi area. We are ready for them." The World Food Programme (WFP) and the non-governmental organizations had food stocks for 450,000 people in Rwanda.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had household goods, plastic sheeting, jerrycans, kitchen sets, and everything ready for 70,000 people in Gisenyi, she continued. They also had 300 buses and trucks waiting at the border to take people directly back to their communes in Rwanda. The rate of return was 10,000 per hour, or about 170 per minute. People at the border said refugees were being very perfunctorily screened for weapons, and were then being registered and passed through as quickly as possible. A huge welcome awaited them, she added.
Ms. Foa said that Ray Wilkinson, a UNHCR officer in Goma, had reported that a "mass of moving humanity was on the 18-mile-long road that runs west from Sake to Goma". In size, the movement was equal to that of 1994, when refugees had come in from the other direction. In 1994, one million refugees had crossed the Rwandan border into eastern Zaire in four days. Mr. Wilkinson estimated that 400,000 refugees were heading into Goma.
Ms. Foa said the refugees included men, but were predominantly women and children. "They look healthy. They are all carrying bundles on their heads, but the places they have left behind are all stripped clean." Mr. Wilkinson had reported that one could see "skeleton towns" along the road. All the camps are deserted and the small villages the refugees had passed through had been picked clean, "as if locusts had descended on them". Mr. Wilkinson had also seen a few dead bodies on the road, apparently the victims of the fighting. However, he had not seen large numbers of people who looked in bad shape.
Ms. Foa said, "Remember, most of these people are coming from the Mugunga and Lac Vert camps, where we still had water from a pumping station from the lake." Mr. Wilkinson had said that the movement was very orderly. UNHCR buses had already begun to head back into the western part of the country, looking for people too weak to make the trek, who needed help to come back.
Ms. Foa said that 300 trucks and buses were now ferrying the returnees directly to their home communes. That was because there was only one transit centre in Gisenyi, with a capacity for only 30,000 people. As the returnees crossed the border, "we are trying to get them back to their home villages as soon as possible".
The refugees said they had come from all of the five camps north of Goma, where there had been about 715,000 people, Ms. Foa said. When fighting broke out they had been forced to head west, away from Goma, by the interahamwe, the extremists in the camps, but the refugees had managed to break away and move back east towards the Rwandan border. "It is good news, very, very good news", Ms Foa added. "We still have lots more supplies in the region. But, obviously, more will be needed as these people get resettled in their homes." That was also an expensive operation.
On Monday, the Secretary-General would launch a United Nations consolidated Inter-Agency Flash Appeal for the Great Lakes region, Ms. Foa continued. That appeal would cover the period from November through January 1997, and would include the requirements of the principle humanitarian organizations responding to the crisis: mainly, of course, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
"Do we still need the Multi-National Force?" Ms. Foa then asked. "Yes, we do." The situation in the region was still very, very volatile, and "we need logistics help". It would be recalled that in 1994, when these people came out of Rwanda, there was an enormous need for clean water and medical assistance. "When you have hundreds of thousands of people on the move, you need the logistics capacity that only a military operation can provide. So, yes, we still need this Multi-National Force."
The mandate of the Force was to save lives, she continued. There were still "lots of people out there in the banana plantations, in the forests, and up in the mountains. They are cold, they are hungry, and we still need to reach them", Ms Foa said. There were also "lots of bad guys" still out there, and "we need the security that a Multi-National Force can provide".
Ms. Foa said the Council had before it a draft resolution drafted by Canada. "As you know, they worked on this resolution into the wee hours last night." It seemed that the Council was committed to passing the resolution today. It talked about the establishment for humanitarian purposes of a
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temporary, multi-national force to facilitate the immediate return of humanitarian organizations, and the effective delivery by civilian relief organizations of humanitarian aid to alleviate the immediate suffering of displaced persons, refugees and civilians at risk in eastern Zaire, and to facilitate the voluntary, orderly repatriation of refugees by the UNHCR. "So, nothing has really changed, there. We still need all that help."
According to the draft resolution, the operation would terminate on 31 March 1997, and the cost of implementing the resolution would be borne by participating Member States and other voluntary contributions. The resolution would welcome the establishment by the Secretary-General of a voluntary trust fund, with the purpose of supporting, as necessary, African participation in the Multi-National Force. "That trust fund has been set up", Ms. Foa said. "It is ready. As of this morning, it was empty, but it is there, in case anyone is looking to send a check."
Returning to the Security Council, Ms. Foa said the Secretary-General's report on the Sudan would go to the Council today, and would soon be available for the press. The report was in response to Security Council resolution 1070 of 16 August, which had asked the Secretary-General to determine how far the Sudan had gone in complying with the Council's previous requests to extradite three individuals, suspected of involvement in the attempt to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. The Council said it would impose certain sanctions, mainly having to do with commercial air traffic, if Sudan did not comply. The Council had also said it would decide on 16 November when those sanctions would come into effect.
The Secretary-General had sent his Special Envoy, Lakdahr Brahimi, to the Sudan from 26 to 30 October, where he consulted with the Government, Ms. Foa said. He had gathered information and, subsequently, had visited Cairo on 30 and 31 October. The Secretary-General said in his report that the situation had not changed significantly since his last report to the Council. The Sudanese Government maintained that it could not extradite suspects who were not in the country, that it firmly condemned all forms of terrorism, and that it is working to improve its relations with all its neighbours. The Secretary-General, therefore, was placing before the Council the results of his contacts with Member States and the results of the mission of his Special Envoy. The matter was now in the hands of the Council. Ms. Foa added that 63 States had now informed the Secretary-General that they had complied with the requests of previous resolutions, which mainly had to do with the downsizing of diplomatic missions.
"We also have a report on the United Nations Support Mission in Haiti (UNSMIH)", Ms. Foa said. The mandate of the UNSMIH was up on 30 November 1996. The Secretary-General's report, submitted today, said there had been some improvement in the security situation in Haiti, and in the capacity of the Haitian National Police to confront existing challenges. Despite those encouraging signs, major gaps remained. The Haitian National Police was not,
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at this point, in a position to ensure its own continued development, while at the same time maintaining security and stability in Haiti. "It sounds like he is asking for an extension, to me", Ms. Foa said.
Ms. Foa said that crime was still a major problem in Haiti, according to the report. The potential for major incidents may increase as the police stepped up their efforts to deal with it. While they had been inactive in recent weeks, and apparently devoid of popular support, small groups associated with the previous regime continued to have access to funding and weapons. They were believed to be planning future challenges to the Government of President Rene Preval, seeking to undermine its efforts to ensure stability and promote economic development. Therefore, the presence of the UNSMIH continued to be required to give the international programme of support the firm foundation required to ensure its success, and to allow for an orderly transfer to the Haitian authorities of the functions now being carried out by the mission. Therefore, the Secretary-General recommended that the Security Council extend the UNSMIH mandate at its present strength for seven months, until 30 June 1997.
"The Secretary-General also said that he remains convinced that further reduction in the size of the mission in the present circumstances would diminish its operational and training capabilities, and place the discharge of its mandate at risk", Ms. Foa said.
Ms. Foa said the Secretary-General would open the one-day Conference on Afghanistan, to be held on Monday (18 November). That Conference was designed to discuss the framework to facilitate the peace process in Afghanistan. Nineteen countries and the Organization of the Islamic Conference would attend. No declaration was expected. Making statements at the Conference would be Norbert Holl, the head of the Special Mission for Afghanistan, Yasushi Akashi, Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and, possibly, James Gustave Speth, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Returning to the Security Council, Ms. Foa said the Council had taken up a draft resolution on eastern Zaire this morning. "They had a few 't's' to cross and 'i's' to dot -- nothing very serious -- and moved on to the review of sanctions on the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", Ms. Foa said.
Correcting information provided yesterday, Ms. Foa said that Hirofumi Ando, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), would hold a briefing at 1:15 p.m. in room 226. He would announce a new Programme of Emergency Reproductive Health Care, including contraceptives, for refugees in camps in Zaire. ("Maybe we won't need them any more", Ms. Foa joked.) That Programme was being undertaken with the UNHCR and the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies.
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Asked whether it was not premature to speak of the Multi-National Force for eastern Zaire, since the Ambassador of Rwanda had indicated that the force was perhaps no longer relevant, Ms. Foa said, "This force has a mandate to save lives." That mandate would still hold no matter what the current situation was. If about one third of the refugees were now heading back home, that would make the mandate easier to carry out. However, "we still have about 700,000 people out there who are in desperate need of help".
The refugees returning to Rwanda were actually the privileged refugees, who had been in a relatively stable situation with access to some water, Ms. Foa continued. It remained unclear what shape the remaining refugees would be in. "It is still a very, very volatile situation." The lives of many people were still in danger, and "we can use all the help we can get". She pointed out that to mount an operation to save this number of lives, major logistics capabilities were required. In their Goma operation alone, United Nations agencies and the non-governmental organizations had lost 405 vehicles to looters. "If the Multi-National Force is approved, and if it gets off the ground, we are hoping it will bring a few trucks, because we can use those too."
Asked for an update on the health of Franjo Tudjman of Croatia, Ms. Foa said she understood that he had been admitted to hospital in Washington.
Asked to comment on a statement at the Rwandan press conference regarding participation in the proposed Multi-National Force, Ms. Foa said that Senegal had provided a firm commitment of 700-800 personnel. Seven African countries had indicated they were ready to participate. South Africa had stated its commitment. The Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) had informed the Secretary-General that Mali, Cameroon, Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Senegal were also ready to participate.
Now that several hundred thousand refugees were returning to Rwanda, what kind of "re-jigging" of the multi-national operation would the Secretary- General like to see? a correspondent asked. Ms. Foa said that she did not think the draft resolution before the Security Council needed changing. It spoke of a temporary humanitarian effort, which was broad. However, some of the relief supplies and logistics help that it had been planned should move from Goma airport to the northern Goma area, might now be turned the other way. More of it might be landed at staging areas inside Rwanda. That matter would have to be looked at. The humanitarian agencies had, for example, reported food stocks in Kampala. Therefore, "we will probably need an airlift capacity from Entebbe Airport in Kampala, into the Gisenyi area", she said.
Ms. Foa said we must remember that those returning to Rwanda, the people being seen on television, had not been in the forests and mountains, but in Mugunga camp. The other refugees in the north Goma area, and all of the refugees in the southern Uvira region, had received absolutely no assistance. "We did not have a heads-up that these people were going to be fleeing. They
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did not receive two weeks of rations a couple of days before they were cut off. These are the people we are really scared about. We want to reach them the most."
To a question about the number of refugees in the camps, Ms. Foa said that there had been 400,000 people in the Mugunga and Lac Vert camps. Those camps had remained fairly stable throughout the entire crisis, although there had been "lots of mortars lobbing back and forth". Those 400,000 were now moving east. There were still another 800,000 people who were "basically, unaccounted for". "We know where some of those 800,000 are", Ms. Foa added. There had been movements into Tanzania, Uganda, 27,000 into Burundi, and small numbers before this into Rwanda. "But, for the most part, we are still missing hundreds of thousands." It was also known there were "clumps of them" south of Uvira, and it was not possible to reach them because of the fighting in the region.
Asked for the non-African countries that had committed to the Multi- National Force, Ms. Foa said that, in addition to the seven African countries mentioned earlier, the following eight had provided troop commitments: Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, Ireland and the Netherlands. She added that the offers "just keep coming in". This morning she had heard that others -- Brazil, Argentina and Sweden -- had also expressed their willingness to participate in one way or another.
Would the Security Council's sanctions on the Sudan become effective tomorrow? a correspondent asked. The report on the Sudan was going to the Security Council today, Ms. Foa said, but it was unclear whether it would be taken up today.
To a question on the human rights mission in Rwanda, Ms. Foa stated that it would be recalled that the Security Council had asked the Secretary-General to produce a report based on a "follow-on" mission for the period after the Multi-National Force's mandate ended. That report was due 20 November. It had been already written and would go to the Council over the weekend. In that report that human rights monitoring component was discussed. At present, there were 107 human rights monitors on the ground in Rwanda.
She said that a repatriation-facilitation team was being considered. The refugees, who were scared, wanted the United Nations to accompany them home. Their biggest fear was that "they would get to their home communes, and their neighbours would come in the middle of the night and slaughter them, or that they would be dragged off to a jail and be tortured into admitting that they took part in the genocide. Remember, most of these people are innocent." Therefore, the refugees wanted the United Nations to return home with them and the goal was to have facilitators who would return home with people to give them confidence.
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The numbers of repatriation-facilitation team members had not been finalized, Ms. Foa continued. Ayala Lasso, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, was in the building, and was working very hard on putting together the needed figures.
The Rwandan Ambassador had indicated that France already had troops in eastern Zaire, a correspondent stated. Was that in accord with the United Nations? Ms. Foa said she understood the only advance assessment or reconnaissance teams in the area were from the United States and Canada. It was a very complex process to reach people who were spread over hundreds of kilometres. That effort would not be a "piece of cake". Instead, it would be a logistical nightmare.
Asked by another correspondent about a story concerning a United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) language trainer in Geneva, Ms. Foa said she had no information on that matter.
Had United States Representative Newt Gingrich now declared that the United States could not be isolated, and that it therefore had to pay up its United Nations dues? another correspondent asked. Ahmad Fawzi, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, said that statement had indeed been made by Mr. Gingrich, during a speech on Monday night. It was quite a remarkable turnaround, Mr. Fawzi remarked.
Samsiah Abdul-Majid, spokeswoman for General Assembly President Razali Ismail (Malaysia), told correspondents that the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) was now considering draft resolutions in cluster 10, relating to international security. Yesterday, it had approved some 20 draft resolutions. Today, it had approved a draft resolution relating to the convening of the fourth special session of the General Assembly devoted to disarmament. [Later: Correspondents were informed that the draft, which in fact had not yet been approved, was being revised further.]
Draft resolutions on the review conference of the parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in the year 2000 and on the expansion of the membership of the Conference on Disarmament had been voted on in the Committee, she continued.
Ms. Abdul-Majid said that the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) had before it seven draft resolutions. The draft on the measures for the prevention of smuggling of aliens, sponsored by Cuba, would condemn the smuggling of aliens in violation of international and national law, and would request States to cooperate in the interest of the safety of life at sea. It would also call on States to enhance bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the fight against criminal organizations responsible for the smuggling of aliens.
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There were two drafts on women, she said. One was on violence against women migrant workers, by which the Assembly would invite Member States to consider adopting appropriate legal measures against intermediaries who deliberately encourage the clandestine movement of workers and who exploit women migrant workers. The second draft, on the traffic in women and girls, would invite governments to accord standard minimum humanitarian treatment to trafficked persons, consistent with human rights standards. It would further call upon all governments to criminalize trafficking in women and girls in all its forms, and to penalize all offenders involved, including intermediaries, whether the offence were committed in their own or in a foreign country.
By the draft on assistance to refugees, returnees and displaced persons in Africa, the Assembly would call on the UNHCR and others concerned to intensify protection activities, by supporting the efforts of African governments through appropriate capacity-building measures. It would appeal to governments, the United Nations, intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, and the international community to create conditions that can facilitate the voluntary return of these persons. It would also urge the international community to continue to fund the general refugee programmes of the UNHCR. The last resolution is on the use of mercenaries as a means to violate human rights. By that draft, the Assembly would urge all States to take the necessary steps, and to exercise the utmost vigilance, against the menace posed by the activities of mercenaries.
The spokeswoman referred to two reports prepared by the Special Rapporteur concerning the former Yugoslavia. One covered the situation of minorities and the other was a periodic report on the human rights situation there. Also available were a report of the Secretary-General on the rape and abuse of women in the areas of armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia, and a report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar.
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