DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by informing correspondents that he would provide them with notes from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the question of the killings in Rwanda. They contained answers by UNHCR's spokeswoman, Pam O'Toole, to questions on Amnesty International's claim that the international community was ignoring those killings.

Also available from the Spokesman's Office was a status report from Geneva, dated 7 August, in which the Rwanda field operation of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights states that at least 2,022 persons were killed during operations of the Rwandan Patriotic Army in the Ruhengeri prefecture. While some of those killed, allegedly, were members of the former Rwandan Armed Forces, others were reported to be unarmed civilians.

Turning to implementation of the "oil-for-food" formula, Mr. Eckhard said that no objections had been raised regarding Iraq's proposals on the pricing of its oil in the Security Council Committee set up to monitor the sanctions against that State. Iraq could now start signing oil contracts, which must be approved by United Nations overseers.

The Spokesman said the Security Council had been briefed on the situation in the Republic of the Congo by the Under-Secretary-General for Peace-keeping Operations, Bernard Miyet, on the basis of information gathered from the recently returned assessment team that examined the possibility of sending a peace-keeping mission there. Mr. Miyet informed the Council, among other things, that owing to the volatility of the situation observed by the team, neither the dispatch of a relatively small advance party nor the deployment of unarmed military observers seemed viable. He therefore recommended that, should the United Nations decide to intervene, it should do so at a strength of 2,500 to 3,000 persons. Under-Secretary-General Miyet and the President of the Council, Sir John Weston (United Kingdom), would brief correspondents on the subject outside the Council chamber following the consultations.

Regarding the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), Mr. Eckhard said a team of experts had arrived in Lebanon from Italy to examine the helicopter crash site, which had been secured. All five bodies recovered from the location had been sent for autopsy. The UNIFIL had resumed helicopter operations, and the Department of Peace-keeping Operations was concerned about the recent escalation of hostilities in southern Lebanon, where seven civilians were killed in the past week by shelling, road-side bombs, and air raids.

Turning to the Secretary-General's upcoming visit to Sweden and Finland, Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General would leave for Stockholm tomorrow, Saturday, 9 August. On Sunday, 10 August, he would meet with the Swedish Prime Minister, Goran Persson. On Monday, 11 August, he would meet with former Prime Minister of Sweden and former High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Carl Bildt, as well as with Foreign Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen and the Minister for International Development and Cooperation, Migration and Asylum Policy, Pierre Schori.

The Secretary-General would hold a press conference before leaving for the city of Uppsala, where he would, among other things, lay a wreath at the tomb of former United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold. He would also attend a seminar on "New Challenges for the United Nations" at the University of Uppsala, chaired by the Dag Hammarskjold Professor of Peace and Conflict Research, Peter Wallensteen.

The Secretary-General would begin on Tuesday with a breakfast meeting with the Speaker of Parliament, Birgitta Dahl, the Spokesman said. He would then visit the Swedish Armed Forces International Command with Sweden's Minister of Defence, Bjorn von Sydow, and have lunch with King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia before leaving for Helsinki, Finland.

In Finland, the Secretary-General would meet, on Wednesday, 13 August, with President Martti Ahtisaari, Foreign Minister Tarja Halonen, the Minister of Defence Anneli Taina, and the Chief of the Finish Defence Forces, General Gustav Hagglund, as well as with the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights, Elisabeth Rehn. He would then deliver a lecture at the Paasikivi Society.

On Thursday, 14 August, the Secretary-General would round up his visit with meetings with Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, and with the Minister for Development Cooperation, Pekka Haavisto, the Spokesman said. He would then go to the World Institute for Development Economic Research and the House of Parliament, where he would meet the members of its Foreign Affairs Committee.

Since Mr. Eckhard would be travelling with the Secretary-General, the press briefings for the next few weeks would be conducted in his absence by Acting Deputy-Spokesman Juan-Carlos Brandt, who will also be in charge of the Office of the Spokesman in Mr. Eckhard's absence.

Mr. Eckhard then informed the correspondents that the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General to Somalia, Ismat Kittani, would be leaving Geneva for Rome on Wednesday, 13 August. He would then go to the following cities: Cairo, Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Sana'a and Djibouti. In Somalia, he would go to Hargeisa, Bossaso and Mogadishu. Further details would be made available as the trip progressed.

Turning to the situation in Cambodia, the Spokesman called the media's attention to a published reply by Second Prime Minister Hun Sen to an unpublished letter he had received from the Secretary-General. While the United Nations had not revealed the contents of the Secretary-General's letter, a senior official of the Secretariat would brief correspondents on a background basis at 1:30 p.m. in room 226.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Stabilization Force (SFOR) of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had agreed with the International Police Task Force (IPTF) to switch the status of the Serb Police Anti-Terrorist Brigade from that of a police unit to a military unit, the Spokesman said. That development meant that the IPTF would no longer attempt to monitor the work of those heavily armed paramilitary police, a chore that would be transferred to the SFOR. A press release on the subject was available from SFOR, along with one from the spokesman of the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH), Alexander Ivanko.

The Secretary-General had appointed Brigadier-General J.J. Robin Gagnon (Canada) as Commander of the military component of the United Nations Transition Mission in Haiti (UNTMIH), Mr. Eckhard said. Biographical information on the General was available in the Spokesman's office.

The Spokesman also announced that the World Food Programme (WFP) had today issued an urgent appeal to international donors for emergency food aid for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, as current supplies there were dangerously low. A press release on the appeal was available in room 378.

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