DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19961220
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
"We have a very distressing situation today in Tajikistan", Sylvana Foa, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, told correspondents at the noon briefing. "At sometime after 1 p.m. local time, the headquarters of the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) team was told that a five-vehicle convoy travelling between the town of Garm and Dushanbe, had been taken hostage by an armed group. In the convoy were members of the joint commission comprising the Government and opposition to maintain the 'so-called' cease- fire." The commander of the armed group had identified himself as Commander Kiroahsho.
According to latest reports, the 23 people taken hostage included seven United Nations military observers, continued Ms. Foa. One was from Austria, two were from Bulgaria, one was from Denmark, one from Jordan, one from Ukraine and one from Uruguay. Two local UNMOT staff members, four joint commission members, and four Tajikistan Government officials and five servicemen, were also among those taken hostage.
Commander Kiroahsho's ultimatum to the United Nations demanded the release by the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) of the brother of one Commander Rizuon, as well as three others being held by the UTO, Ms. Foa said. The Commander was also demanding the formation of a protected corridor from the Afghan-Tajik border to his present location, to ensure that members of his group of rebels currently in Afghanistan, could join him.
The UNMOT had been in urgent contact with both the Government of Tajikistan and the UTO leadership, to try to resolve that problem, said Ms. Foa. The Secretary-General had asked to be kept up-to-date on the situation. The Department of Peace-keeping Operations (DPKO) would hold a meeting with troop-contributing nations to discuss the problem this afternoon. Sadly, this had occurred at a time when Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmonov and the opposition leader, Mr. Nuri, were in Moscow for talks on ending that four-year civil war. They had met briefly yesterday and were holding working-level meetings today with their aides.
On Security Council resolution 986, regarding the sale of Iraqi oil, Ms. Foa said that 13 contracts for sale of oil had now been signed. Additional information might be forthcoming.
Ms. Foa said the Secretary-General's appointments today included the following:
-- at 11:30 a.m., Ambassador Pedro Catarino of Portugal, who was on his way to Beijing, had paid a farewell call on the Secretary-General. They had
discussed the need for additional preparatory meetings before the next round of East Timor talks, which were originally scheduled to begin tomorrow.
-- at noon, Ambassador Mahmoud Aboul Nasr of the League of Arab States had also paid a farewell call;
-- 12:30 p.m., a "coup de champagne" was to be held in honour of the President of the General Assembly, Razali Ismail of Malaysia. Ms. Foa said, "I saw the gift. It is a beautiful gavel with a plaque, so that, even when he is no longer President, he can go around pounding his gavel."
On Bangladesh and India, Ms. Foa said, "as you know, India and Bangladesh have concluded a treaty on their long-standing dispute regarding the sharing of the water of the Ganges". The Secretary-General had warmly welcomed the bilateral treaty on the sharing of the waters at Farakka, signed in New Delhi on 12 December. "The Secretary-General pays tribute to the Prime Ministers of Bangladesh and India on their statesmanship and the spirit of friendship and good neighbourliness that they have displayed in signing this treaty. The Secretary-General expresses his sincere hope that the treaty would be implemented in the spirit in which it was concluded, to the benefit of the peoples of the two countries."
Turning to Somalia, Ms. Foa said, "Things ain't good in Somalia". The Secretary-General had followed with deep concern the renewed fighting in Mogadishu which, since last week, had claimed the lives of well over 100 people. "The Secretary-General considers the renewed fighting particularly worrying as it could deal a fatal blow to the recent deal signed in Nairobi by the three Somali leaders based in Mogadishu, under the mediation of Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, and to hopes for a reinvigoration of the peace process in Somalia." They had been "far hopes, but they were still hopes", she added.
"The Secretary-General calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities", Ms. Foa went on to say. "He urges the Somali leaders to demonstrate political wisdom and patriotism, and to desist from all actions which serve to undermine the positive contributions to peacemaking coming from within the region." There had been 100 deaths in one week, she added.
On the Security Council, Ms. Foa said it had taken up Somalia this morning and was considering a draft presidential statement. It was tackling the issue of Cyprus. "We also understand there is the question on the Israeli settlements."
"There is good news from Angola", Ms. Foa said. "A new timetable has been set up, and the pace of the peace process has picked up." Yesterday, the Joint Commission composed of the Government and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and chaired by Alioune Blondin Beye, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Angola, had agreed to a new timetable to complete the remaining military and political tasks.
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 20 December 1996
Under that timetable, she said, the Angolan Government of Unity and National Reconciliation -- "the real thing, the final thing", Ms. Foa added -- would be formed on 23 January. It would assume its functions on 25 January. After that, "you won't have to hear about it any longer".
Today, nine UNITA generals were scheduled to be inducted into the Angolan Armed Forces, Ms. Foa said. On 23 December, 333 senior officers of UNITA would be incorporated into the Army. The registration of the remaining 280 UNITA police should be completed by 25 December, and the incorporation of the remaining UNITA soldiers would begin on 8 January. The UNITA Deputies would return to Luanda on 10 January and assume their duties in the National Assembly on 17 January 1997. Then UNITA would begin to function as a political party as of 18 January -- "this is a real timetable", Ms. Foa commented.
Responding to a previous question, Ms. Foa said that the Government of Angola had submitted a new proposal on the status of Jonas Savimbi, President of UNITA. Special Representative Beye was holding consultations with those concerned about that proposal. This represented a new chapter in the Angolan peace process.
On Zaire, she said some of the "500,000 lost refugees of eastern Zaire" had been found. An interagency mission had managed to get food into the Lubutu-Kisangani region of eastern Zaire. "They think they have found about 300,000 of them between the Shabunda, Walikale, Tingi Tingi and Lubutu. It was estimated that there were about 70,000 refugees in Tingi Tingi, eight kilometres east of Lubutu. It was reported that seven out of every 10 refugees were suffering from malaria, dysentery was rampant, and a large number of the refugees were suffering from worms. Many were without any shelter, and it had been raining heavily. Another 120,000 were believed to be in Walikale and about 100,000 near Shabunda.
Ms. Foa said that clean water was a desperate problem and the team was trying to get as much aid into the region as possible. Refugees reported that many had died in the trek to the region.
On the contributions of Member States, Ms. Foa said a new chart on the status of contributions as of 15 December showed that $2.3 billion in assessed contributions was still owed to the Organization. It did not take into consideration a payment by the Russian Federation on its peace-keeping debt of $57 million yesterday which lowered the total debt to $2.2 billion.
Ms. Foa said, in response to queries whether the United Nations was involved in negotiations on the hostage-taking in Lima, Peru, that the United Nations was indeed providing food through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), for the hostages being held in the Japanese residence. It was being delivered by the Red Cross in Lima, which lacked the funds to
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 20 December 1996
purchase that much food itself. "It is a pretty hefty bill to feed all those people", she added.
To a correspondent's question on the demands being made in connection with the people taken hostage in Tajikistan, Ms. Foa said the United Nations was always in a sensitive position in such situations. It is looking at the demands and talking to both the government and the UTO. She doubted an answer would be available today.
Asked to describe the "ultimatum" posed in that incident, Ms. Foa said the hostage takers had demanded that their conditions be met by 2 p.m. local time, Sunday, 22 December. It was unclear from reports whether the United Nations was in touch directly with the hostage takers. It was in touch with the Government and the opposition UTO, but the group's relationship to both sides was also unclear. The Spokesman's office would be following that situation closely over the weekend.
With President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire back in his country, had there been follow-up on the proposal of Special Envoy to the Great Lakes region, Raymond Chretien, to name a permanent envoy, a correspondent asked. The Secretary-General was working on a report on the Special Envoy's report today, Ms. Foa said. A proposal would be sent to the Security Council very soon. It would contain several options for a representative to the region, as had been suggested in the report of the Special Envoy.
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