DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19970321
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Juan Carlos Brandt, Associate Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's briefing by reading a statement attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General, as follows:
"The Secretary-General strongly condemns the bombing in Tel Aviv today causing death and injuries to numerous civilians. He expresses condolences to bereaved families and to the Government and people of Israel. At the same time, the Secretary-General wishes to reiterate his appeal to the parties not to allow odious acts of this nature to derail the peace process. He sincerely hopes that both parties will intensify their efforts to overcome existing obstacles to a speedy return to the peace process."
The statement would be available in the office of the Spokesman after the briefing, he added.
Mr. Brandt then reminded correspondents of an announcement that had been made over the public address system, that the Acting Permanent Representative of Israel, Ambassador David Peleg, would address the press outside the Security Council Chamber at 3 p.m. today.
On the Security Council, he said that it was today having consultations on Angola. In addition to discussing the report of the Secretary-General on the mandate of the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM III) that was scheduled to expire at the end of March, the Council was also discussing the possibility of a presidential statement also on Angola, the draft of which was already circulating. [The Council later met to read the presidential statement on Angola.] Under other matters, the Associate Spokesman said that the Council would probably discuss the situation in the occupied Arab territories, but he did not know what action, if any, they would take.
Mr. Brandt said that the Secretary-General's Personal Representative to East Timor, Jamsheed K.A. Marker, planned to visit East Timor this weekend. He had met with President Soeharto of Indonesia and the Foreign Minister Ali Alatas in Jakarta yesterday. He would be arriving in Dili late tomorrow morning and was expected to stay there until Monday morning. Ambassador Marker planned to meet with Cabinet officials, representatives of civic groups and Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenez Belo, who was a co-winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize.
He then made another announcement, attributable to the Spokesman, to the effect that the management reform measures announced by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly's Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) on
17 March were reflected in a letter he addressed to the President of the General Assembly that day. The text of the letter was available as document A/51/829. The executive summary of the measures outlined in that letter was available as document A/INF/51/6, as well as corrigendum 1.
He added that in line with the decision to establish a single Secretariat department at Headquarters in the economic and social fields, the Secretary-General was announcing today the appointment of Nitin Desai, current Under-Secretary-General for Policy Coordination and Sustainable Development, as head of the new department, the title of which would be announced later.
The Secretary-General was also announcing today, the Associate Spokesman said, the appointment of Jin Yongjian, formerly Under-Secretary-General for Development Support and Management Services, as head of the new Department of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services.
Mr. Brandt said that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) had welcomed the first joint statement by officials from the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the return of refugees. They had made a statement expressing their commitment to the safe return of refugees and displaced people to Bosnia. Delivered after more than a year since the signing of the Dayton Agreement, the joint declaration by the governments of their commitment to facilitate the safe return of refugees and displaced persons, including returns to minority areas, was a breakthrough in the efforts to reconstruct peace and stability in the war-torn region. More details were available in the Spokesman's office, he said, pointing out that the statement had been issued in Geneva at a regional meeting of refugee ministers and commissioners of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It had been organized by UNHCR.
Turning to the Great Lakes region, Mr. Brandt said that in Ubundu, UNHCR had indicated an alarming situation in the area, which now had probably up to 150,000 refugees. Another 60,000 were reported to have crossed the river and gathered on the west side near a town called Obilo. The refugees, most of them men, were reported to be tired, weak and hungry. The UNHCR was sending an emergency team to Kisangani this weekend to resume the emergency assistance programme there and elsewhere in eastern Zaire. Seventy-one unaccompanied minors had arrived in Goma from Kindu today; they would spend the night there and were scheduled to cross the border to Rwanda tomorrow.
The Associate Spokesman also told correspondents that Pierce Gerety, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Great Lakes Region, was travelling today to Goma, from where he would proceed to Kisangani. There, he was also planning to meet with Laurent Kabila, the leader of the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo-Zaire on behalf of the humanitarian organizations in the region to seek access through Kisangani to the environs.
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 21 March 1997
He recalled that the humanitarian community had been impeded in its efforts to deliver relief assistance to refugees and other affected persons in eastern Zaire. Mr. Gerety would also discuss issues related to access to Ubundu.
Mr. Brandt said that the Secretary-General, on his third and final day in South Africa, had paid a visit to Robben Island, for a guided tour of the facility and some of the former notorious prison cells in which the opponents of apartheid were held. The visit today was particularly symbolic and significant, the Associate Spokesman continued, as South Africa commemorated the Sharpeville massacre of 21 March 1961 as Human Rights Day.
After his visit to Robben Island, the Secretary-General was asked by correspondents for a message to South Africa on the occasion. "The message is tolerance", the Secretary-General had told them. "We see what intolerance does and the tendency for us to turn against each other. When we become intolerant and it is carried to the extreme, we can see how inhumane men can be to each other. We are all born, brought to this world, with the possibility of fulfilling our lives and living our lives to the fullest. And I think that what the Government and others should do is to create an enabling environment that will release the energies of all the people and get them to live their lives in harmony and in community with each other. The word today should be a determination by all of us to respect the human rights of all of our neighbours and all of our citizens", he concluded.
The Secretary-General had then flown to Johannesburg where he had held meetings with the Foreign Minister at the airport, and again at his hotel, Mr. Brandt said. Primarily, they had discussed Zaire, as well as the preparations for the summit in Lome, Togo. The Secretary-General had then visited the United Nations offices in Pretoria. When the Secretary-General made his statement on the issue of reform last Monday, Mr. Brandt recalled, one of the matters raised was that of common premises and common services of the United Nations at the country level. In that connection, the Secretary-General was glad to see that what the United Nations had in place in Pretoria was, or should be, a model for the rest of the United Nations system. All of the offices there were housed in one building, which had incidentally been provided by the South African Government; they worked in great harmony, and the Secretary-General had been quite impressed that what he had been advocating was already a reality there.
The Secretary-General's last activity in the country had been an address on "The United Nations and South Africa", given to the South African Institute of International Affairs, Mr. Brandt said. The text of the statement was available in the Spokesman's office, he added.
He then spoke about two messages from the Secretary-General. The first was a statement to be delivered on his behalf by the Under-Secretary-General for Development Support and Management Services, Jin Yongjian, in Marrakesh, Morocco, tomorrow, to the First World Water Forum. The second being on the
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 21 March 1997
occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the independence of Pakistan. It would be made on his behalf by the Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, Hazem Abdel Aziz El Beblawi, and was due to be delivered on 23 March. Both statements were also available in the Spokesman's office.
March 24 was World Tuberculosis Day, the Associate Spokesman said, and a press release on the subject from UNAIDS was available in the office of the Spokesman. In it, the Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, Peter Piot, called for action to combat the dual epidemic of tuberculosis and AIDS. Over 2 billion people carried the tuberculosis germ, and about 3 million die annually as a result of that. As HIV suppressed the immune system, people carrying the tuberculosis germ who became infected with HIV were 30 to 50 times more likely to develop active tuberculosis than tuberculosis carriers who were free of HIV. Mr. Piot said real progress in controlling tuberculosis and HIV could only be made through a dual strategy that targeted both epidemics. One arm of that strategy was to control tuberculosis by detecting cases and ensuring that the person then followed the required antibiotic treatment course. He further stated that dissemination of accurate information on how to prevent HIV transmission through sex and injecting drugs must be enhanced, Mr. Brandt added.
He also told correspondents that the Department of Public Information (DPI) had come up with a very useful paper, a revision 1 of a reference paper entitled "The United Nations and the Situation in Liberia". It had been prepared as a background for journalists and was in advance of the Security Council consideration of a renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in Liberia (UNOMIL), which expired at the end of April. Copies were available at the documents counter on the third floor.
A correspondent drew his attention to the agreement today between the Russian Federation and Iraq relating to oil production. She added that the Russian Foreign Minister had said that they would proceed with it despite the United Nations sanctions against Iraq. What was his reaction to the contract? Mr. Brandt was asked.
He told the correspondent that he had indeed seen the reports, but had no reaction at this time.
Responding to a question on eastern Zaire, he confirmed that most of the 60,000 refugees that had crossed the river at Ubundu were mostly men. He said he would try to obtain the total number of unaccompanied minors that had been moved out. Further asked about the source of the information, he answered that it was a combination of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs and UNHCR.
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