DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19961126
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
"We have show-and-tell today", said Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, at the outset of today's noon briefing. She informed correspondents that, this morning, a ceremony had been held in Studio "H" in the basement of the Headquarters' building. During housecleaning a few months ago, the United Nations broadcast engineers, "who make everything possible for us", had found what they had determined was the first audio transcription ever recorded at the United Nations. That audio had been recorded on 22 June 1945 and was a radio broadcast by General Leclerc bidding farewell to his troops.
Keeping in mind its great historical significance, the broadcast engineers had dug into their pockets to have the disk restored, the audio cleaned up and copies made of it, she said. Now, a public space had to be found for the resulting presentation which had been given to the Secretary- General as a belated fiftieth anniversary gift.
Turning to the Secretary-General's appointments, she said, this morning, he had met with Alexander Arzoumanian, who was the newly appointed Foreign Minister of Armenia. The Secretary-General had both congratulated him and bid him farewell. Prior to his appointment as Foreign Minister, Mr. Arzoumanian had been the Permanent Representative of Armenia to the United Nations. "As you can see, there is upward mobility for people who work at the United Nations", Ms. Foa said, adding, "This is a very good place to go on to higher things."
Later, the Secretary-General was scheduled to meet the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation, Vasiliy Sidorov, who had also been the Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations until very recently, she said. "So, don't despair -- those of you who think you are stuck in a groove in your jobs."
Ms. Foa announced that today the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had managed to get some trucks between Bukavu and Cyangugu, which it was using to transport handicapped refugees -- people who had lost limbs to mines. It had already transported 48 of those refugees. Yesterday, a total of 774 Rwandan refugees from the Bukavu camps had returned to Rwanda via Cyangugu. She reminded correspondents that most of the 500,000 refugees who had left for home earlier had been from Goma camps. The area that she was now referring to was much further south. "This is very good news for us because these are among what we are now calling 'the lost refugees'." Since the fighting began, it was estimated that a total of 5,000 had crossed into Cyangugu.
The UNHCR had managed to get field staff very close to Sake as a result of which there were 4,000 people on the Sake-Goma road heading for Goma and then to Gisenyi, she said. Trucks had been sent to help the refugees as some of them were very weak. The UNHCR's intention was to try to take the road from Goma to Bukavu tomorrow. "They are going to go and stick their toes in the very cold water on that road and see what they find. They are still trying to find refugees who are unable to walk, refugees who have just collapsed, refugees who are immediately in need of assistance."
Since the weekend, practically all of the estimated 500,000 returnees in Rwanda had gone back to their home villages, she said. There were some pockets in Kigali with refugees who had nowhere to go and who were in need of assistance. Such assistance was being provided. "Hopefully, we will get a report from those people who made it at least close to Sake, actually some of them got into Sake, and also reports on the situation on the Bukavu-Goma road", she said.
Speaking on Liberia, she said "we are pushing very hard the disarmament and demobilization exercise there". In the first four days of the exercise, 1,050 combatants had been disarmed and demobilized at six sites. Out of the 1,050, 229 were child soldiers or kids under fifteen. Today, day five, about 220 soldiers had been disarmed and demobilized and about 60 of those were child soldiers. Commenting on what happened to those children, she said they either went home, if they had a home to go to, or they were turned over to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the non-governmental organization "Save the Children", which had opened shelters for them.
Responding to a question raised at yesterday's briefing about who brought the children to the demobilization sites, Ms. Foa said the factions were responsible for bringing the soldiers. They made commitments to bring their soldiers, including the children, to the demobilization sites.
The Security Council this morning had been briefed by the Secretary- General's Special Envoy for Georgia, Edouard Brunner, on the status of the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG), she said. The Mission had been established by the Council in August 1993 to verify compliance with the 1993 cease-fire agreement between the Government of Georgia and the Abkhaz authorities, with special attention to the situation in the city of Sukhumi. Evidently, the situation remained tense but stable, she added.
During elections on 23 November, there had been several bomb and mine explosions in Abkhazia, she said. The Georgian Government had also held a plebiscite among refugees and internally displaced persons about the Abkhaz side parliamentary elections on the same day. The plebiscite disapproved of those elections. She added that, as of 31 October, the strength of UNOMIG was 125, with all the observers being military observers. Its current mandate would expire on 31 January 1997.
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 26 November 1996
Also, the Council would be briefed by the Secretariat on the situation in Burundi, she said. "As you know, Burundi has been kind of backburnered by the situation in eastern Zaire. I have not heard the briefing, but I would imagine that they are saying that Burundi still has very deep political problems that remain unresolved and require our urgent attention", she said.
In addition, the Council would be taking up the Secretary-General's reports on the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) and on Liberia, she said. The Secretary-General had recommended a six-month extension of UNDOF and a four-month extension of the mission in Liberia. Ms. Foa said she did not know what the Council would take up under other matters. Announcing that she had no more news, she said, "Can you imagine -- today is Tuesday -- what is going to happen by Thanksgiving on Thursday?"
Samsiah Abdul-Majid, spokeswoman for General Assembly President Razali Ismail (Malaysia), said the plenary was currently considering the annual report of the Security Council. The First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) had completed its work yesterday, and the Fourth (Special Political and Decolonization) and Sixth (Legal) Committees were scheduled to finish their work tomorrow.
The Fourth Committee had a series of draft resolutions scheduled for consideration tomorrow, she said. One of those was on assistance to Palestine refugees which urged all Member States to extend assistance for economic and social development of the Palestinian people. A second draft resolution was on persons displaced as a result of the June 1967 and subsequent hostilities. In addition, the Committee had before it a couple of drafts on the occupied Syrian Golan and Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory.
The Sixth Committee would, this afternoon, consider a number of draft resolutions which would spill over to tomorrow, she said. The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) was scheduled to act on 14 draft resolutions, including those on the situation of human rights in Iraq, in Afghanistan and in Haiti.
Responding to a correspondent's question on the interim report by the Secretary-General on oil exports from Iraq, Ms. Foa said she had spoken very sternly to the 38th floor, telling them that "we don't want the report on Friday". "Several of you have come to my office saying, 'If that thing comes out on Friday and I have to come back from Grandma's house just to write the interim report, I will never forgive the United Nations'. They claim to be going over it and dotting the Ts and crossing the Is and making sure that the word 'modalities' is in there 4,000 times", she said. Hopefully, it would be out tomorrow.
Was the ballpark figure for the number of "food distribution" experts still 151? a correspondent asked. Ms. Foa replied that the last time she had heard any ballpark figures was in August. At that time, a rounded figure of
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 26 November 1996
about 150 was being talked about. She had not heard of any new figure. A lot of it depended on the situation, for instance, right now the situation in the north had changed a lot. Did that mean that more observers would be needed? It might. A lot would depend on what the actual situation on the ground would be when food distribution began.
Asked about what UNICEF would do with the child soldiers in Liberia, Hiro Ueki, of the Spokesman's Office, said that as the children were under fifteen years of age, they were sent back to school or to their families. If they had nowhere to go, UNICEF tried to help them as much as possible. He added that he would try to get more information on the actual programme.
How did the sound engineers stand with their contract? a correspondent asked. Ms. Foa said the contract went until the end of January 1997, and negotiations were ongoing.
What was the Secretary-General's position on the question of his re-election, why was he staying in the race? a correspondent wanted to know. She said the Secretary-General was staying in the race because the United Nations, he had said, was a ship in danger of sinking, "and when the ship is in danger of sinking, that is not the time for the captain to bail out". Therefore, he would not withdraw his name. He intended to stay there as long as he remained Africa's candidate or until the Security Council made a final decision.
A correspondent inquired about why the Secretary-General believed the "ship to be sinking". Ms. Foa responded that there were a lot of problems, including financial and budgetary problems. "Actually, the budgetary problems seem to be hitting us harder these days as the full impact of zero growth budget is making itself felt upon those of us who are missing some of the services normally provided", she added.
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