DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19970609
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's press briefing with a reference to the deployment of a human rights investigative team to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He said that, during their tete-a-tete meeting in Africa, the President of that country, Laurent Kabila, had informed Secretary-General Kofi Annan that he would grant access for investigations into allegations of gross violations of human rights. While the Congolese President had already made the commitment to the Secretary- General, the United Nations had not made that information public until Saturday, 7 June, when a note to correspondents was issued. (See Note No. 5414* of 9 June.)
The United States Permanent Representative, Bill Richardson, had since seen Mr. Kabila as a follow-up on the commitments to the Secretary-General and reached agreement on the dates of the arrival of the mission, he said. A press release written in Geneva on the matter and available from the Spokesman's Office stated that the Centre for Human Rights had begun preparations to send an advance team to the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 20 June. The team would be made up of human rights officers, investigators and forensic experts.
Turning to developments in Brazzaville, Mr. Eckhard said the situation there was disturbing, with fighting continuing unabated and possibly expanding. Since the World Health Organization (WHO) had its regional office in Sierra Leone, there were 130 international staff and some 400 dependants in the WHO compound, who at present were safe.
Meanwhile, he said, the joint United Nations/Organization of African Unity (OAU) Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, Mohamed Sahnoun, had established contact with the President of Congo, Pascal Lissouba, and his predecessor, former President Denis Sassou Nguesso. Mr. Sahnoun is well-known by both parties and remembered for his mediation as the OAU representative during comparable troubles there in 1993.
Regarding Sierra Leone, the Spokesman said that Freetown was quiet but extremely tense. While there was no shooting in the daytime, sounds of gunfire could be heard at night. Some United Nations local staff had received threats over the weekend. The Organization's security force and communications staff remained on duty at United Nations House, which continued to be safe. Internationally recruited staff had been evacuated.
Relaying some information from the Department of Humanitarian Affairs, he said that the inter-agency mission that went to Ikela, south of Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, had found only 43 refugees, including
nine unaccompanied children who were brought back to Kisangani. The local Red Cross had set up search teams to find other groups of refugees in the area. The inter-agency team had continued westwards to Boende, but found no refugees there. But reports from local inhabitants indicating that there were some 5,000 refugees in the area were being examined.
Meanwhile, he added, in Angola the World Food Programme (WFP) was delivering food to about 2,000 internally displaced people found on Friday by an inter-agency mission in Luna Norte province, bordering on the Congo.
As for the former Yugoslavia, Mr. Eckhard said that the United Nations Transitional Administrator for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium, Jacques Klein, had welcomed Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to Vukovar yesterday and discussed the need for the Croatian Government to address issues such as the return of refugees and displaced persons to their previous homes.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, it was announced in Sarajevo today that an agreement had been reached last Friday on the establishment of the integrated cantonal police of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton in Mostar, he continued.
Meanwhile, he said, the General Peace Agreement on Tajikiskan will be signed in Moscow on 27 June by that country's President, Emomali Rakhmonov, and the leader of the United Tajik Opposition, Sayed Abdullo Nuri. Preparations were being made for the summit and for establishing the Commission on National Reconciliation, which would start working immediately after the signing ceremony.
Turning to Iraq, the Spokesman said that the second 180-day period for implementing the "oil-for-food" plan had begun at midnight yesterday. The Security Council Committee monitoring sanctions against Iraq would meet at 3:30 p.m., on Wednesday, 11 June, after which its Chairman, Antonio Victor Martins Monteiro (Portugal), would brief delegations and, later, the media.
On the recent elections in Algeria, Mr. Eckhard reminded the media that, contrary to reports by some news agencies, the United Nations did not have a role in assessing the validity of the voting in that country. Since the international monitors who had gone there had not done so under United Nations authority, the media should stop reporting that the Organization had criticized the elections' outcome.
He then announced the availability in his Office of the statement delivered this morning by the Secretary-General at the special meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. (See Press Release SG/SM/6251-GA/PAL/759.)
Syria had become the sixty-fourth Member State to pay up its 1997 dues by handing in a cheque of $532,540, he said.
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 9 June 1997
The Spokesman then said that the Secretary-General's report on the Military Observer Group attached to the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala (MINUGUA) had been released this morning. Of the Group's 155 authorized personnel, 132 observers and 13 medical workers had served in the mission. They had been repatriated by 27 May and about 2,928 personnel of the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) had been demobilized. In the report, the Secretary-General states that "the exemplary manner in which the Agreement on the Definitive Cease-Fire was implemented is above all a testimony to the determination of both the Government of Guatemala and URNG to put an end to the bitter armed conflict between them".
The Spokesman said that a report was being drafted by the former Director of the Electoral Assistance Division, Horacio Boneo, who had examined allegations that the head of MINUGUA had covered up the disappearance of a former member of the URNG.
He said the report on the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) was due tomorrow.
He announced that a revised list of speakers was available in connection with the nineteenth special session of the General Assembly that would review and appraise the implementation of Agenda 21.
Also available was a monthly summary of troop contributors to peace- keeping operations, he added.
Before turning over the briefing to the spokeswoman for the President of the General Assembly, Mr. Eckhard called for questions.
He was asked about what had happened at the Friday meeting in Washington, D.C., between the Secretary-General and the United States Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. In response, he said that the meetings with staffs in the evening had discussed the payment of United States dues and the problem of arrears. The subsequent one-on-one dinner between the Secretary-General and Mrs. Albright had been a tour d'horizon on many international issues.
Asked whether the Secretary-General had expressed the Secretariat's concern about the non-payment of United States dues, the Spokesman said that the Secretary-General had recalled what he was told earlier this year by President William Clinton at the White House. Mr. Clinton had told the Secretary-General that for the United States to lead the Organization it had to pay its dues. The Secretary-General's position was that the process of paying the United States dues was an internal matter for the branches of the that country's Government to resolve.
Asked about the current role of the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Sierra Leone, Berhanu Dinka, and of his whereabouts, Mr. Eckhard said that
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 9 June 1997
since the Envoy's evacuation, he had gone to the Harare Summit of the OAU for consultations. He was currently advising the Secretary-General whenever the need arose.
In response to a question as to whether the letter the Sierra Leonean President had sent to the Secretary-General was available, he said he was not sure whether he could release it, but he would check.
Asked whether an agreement had been reached between President Kabila and the Secretary-General even before Mr. Richardson's trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he answered affirmatively.
Replying to a question as to whether a representative to the Middle East had been determined, he said that even though one had been chosen, his name would not yet be announced. But he guessed it could be Under-Secretary- General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast.
In her part of the briefing, the spokeswoman for the President of the Assembly, Samsiah Abdul-Majid, informed correspondents that the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) had approved about 24 draft texts in the early hours of Saturday. Among the dozen or so drafts approved on peace- keeping operations, one on the financing of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) had been approved by a vote of 107 in favour to 2 against (Israel, United States), with 3 abstentions (Japan, Russian Federation, Ukraine).
She said that before that draft text in its entirety was approved, the Committee changed its operative paragraph 6 and then approved operative paragraph 7 by a vote of 58 in favour to 2 against (Israel, United States), with 52 abstentions.
Mrs. Abdul-Majid said that the new operative paragraph 6 stated that the General Assembly "authorizes the Secretary-General to enter into commitments for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in the amount of $1,773,618 to cover the costs resulting from the incident at United Nations Headquarters in Qana on 18 April 1996". By operative paragraph 7, the Assembly would decide that the amount of $1,724,618 dollars shall be borne by Israel.
The Committee recommended budgets of more than $800 million for 12 active peace-keeping operations, she added. The Assembly was expected to consider the draft texts on Friday, 13 June.
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