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, told correspondent's at today's press briefing that Under-Secretary-General Iqbal Riza had briefed the Security Council this morning on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Spokesman said that on Saturday the Secretary-General had received a letter from the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Laurent Kabila, assuring him once again -- this time in writing -- that there would be no further conditions imposed on the mission of the investigative team on human rights in the Congo. The Secretary-General was assured that fresh conditions, spelled out in a letter he had previously received from two of President Kabila's Ministers, had in fact been dropped -- as the Foreign Minister had previously related to the Secretary-General by telephone. "So, we assume that the mission is today free to begin its work in earnest", Mr. Eckhard said. Under other matters, the Council would consider the situation in Sierra Leone.

The Spokesman said that the Secretary-General was in Bern today for his first official visit to Switzerland. He met at 8:45 a.m. with the Federal Minister for the Interior, Ruth Dreifuss, to discuss environmental matters and sustainable development, as well as the emerging global issues of drug trafficking, international crime and terrorism. Following a 20-minute private meeting between the Secretary-General and Foreign Minister Flavio Cotti, the two men and their delegations discussed the prospects for Switzerland joining the United Nations, United Nations reform and its consequences for Geneva, development cooperation and a series of regional conflicts. After a press conference with the Foreign Minister, the Secretary-General attended a luncheon hosted by the Federal Council.

Mr. Eckhard said that following the luncheon, the Secretary-General met with the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Switzerland, or Parliament, and handed over a message in which he said: "Reform is also far more than the sum of its cuts. Rather, we are strengthening the United Nations, positioning ourselves to tackle the new and mounting challenges of the new age. We are seeing our way steadily towards an end to the crisis of confidence that has plagued the Organization in recent years." The text of the Secretary-General's message was available in the Spokesman's Office, he added.

The Secretary-General went to the town of Spiez at 3 p.m. to visit a chemical and biological weapons verification laboratory there, the Spokesman said. The laboratory was one which cooperated with the United Nations Special Commission set up under Security Council resolution 687 (1991) in connection with the disposal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (UNSCOM). At 5 p.m.,

the Secretary-General had paid an unscheduled visit to the Universal Postal Unit (UPU) in Bern -- which the Spokesman understood to be the only United Nations agency based in that city -- and met with its Director General, Thomas Leavey.

Today was International Literacy Day, Mr. Eckhard said. In observance, there would be a programme of international authors reading from their own work scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Trusteeship Council Chamber. Participating authors included: Anita Desai of India, Edouard Glissant of Martinique, Jessica Hagedorn of the Philippines, Robert Stone of the United States, Shashi Tharoor "of the United Nations, of course", and of India, and Luisa Valenzuela of Argentina. The programme was organized by the Department of Public Information (DPI) in cooperation with the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y. It was co-sponsored by DPI and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Invitations were available in the Spokesman's Office.

The First Lady of Brazil, Ruth Cardoso, had been invited in her capacity as President of the Council of Communidade Solidaria -- an entity involved with social projects in Brazil -- to be the keynote speaker of the Fiftieth Annual DPI/Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) Conference, Mr. Eckhard said. Ms. Cardoso, who would be in New York from 9 to 11 September, would deliver her speech on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m.

According to press releases by the World Health Organization (WHO) announcing a forthcoming meeting in the Dominican Republic on the subject of childhood illness, more than 11 million children died each year before reaching the age of five -- most of them from pneumonia, diarrhoea, measles, malaria and malnutrition, Mr. Eckhard said. The WHO said that many of those deaths could be prevented through the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI), an approach developed by the WHO in collaboration with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The IMCI strategy would be highlighted at an international meeting in Santo Domingo from 9 to 12 September. The current challenge was to apply the lessons from disease- specific control programmes towards greater integration of efforts to prevent and treat childhood illness. The WHO and UNICEF were inviting other agencies to join their efforts to reduce the toll of childhood illness.

Mr. Eckhard said that a situation report from the Department of Humanitarian Affairs on the floods in the Seychelles noted that heavy rains in the middle of the dry season last month had affected 247 homes, power lines, roads and agriculture lands. Although many of the emergency relief requirements had been met by the Government, an estimated additional $100,000 in international assistance would be needed for emergency relief. The Department was prepared to serve as a channel for contributions.

The General Assembly's Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) had resumed its session today and would continue to meet all week, Mr. Eckhard said. The Committee was expected to approve the report of the Assembly's

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 8 September 1997

high-level open-ended working group on the financial situation of the United Nations (document A/51/43).

Sadako Ogata, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, would be honoured tomorrow night by the Business Council for the United Nations, the Spokesman said. Mrs. Ogata would receive the Council's 1997 medal, awarded annually to an individual or organization for commitment to the ideals of the United Nations Charter and its vision of a peaceful, prosperous world. The Secretary-General would attend the presentation.

The Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hedi Annabi, had opened the New York portion of the second Nordic-United Nations Peacekeeping Senior Management Seminar this morning, Mr. Eckhard said. The Secretary-General had opened the first part of the seminar in Copenhagen last week. The New York portion would continue through Friday, 12 September. The seminar was designed to strengthen the leadership cadre available for peacekeeping by coordinating the training of potential Force Commanders and other senior military and civilian personnel. The seminar was being held under the joint auspices of the Governments of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark, as well as the United Nations, and was organized by the Training Unit of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Royal Danish Defence College. A similar seminar was held one year ago.

The Spokesman announced two press conferences, scheduled for tomorrow, 9 September in room 226. At 11 a.m., Ian McDonald, Chief Editor of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), would introduce the Fund's 1997 annual report, embargoed for release until 6 p.m. tomorrow. Copies of the report and press summaries would be available at the time of the briefing. Following separate meetings with the Secretary-General and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Yasushi Akashi, Yukio Hatoyama, Member of the Japanese House of Representatives and Co-Leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, would hold a press conference at 5 p.m. on an item entitled "An Agenda for Empowerment". He would be accompanied by four other Parliamentarians from his party.

To a question about whether further details were available from the Secretary-General's meeting with Switzerland's Foreign Minister, Flavio Cotti, Mr. Eckhard said he expected a more detailed read-out later today from Therese Gastaut, Director of the Information Service in the United Nations Office at Geneva, who was travelling with the Secretary-General.

A correspondent asked whether the Secretary-General was satisfied with the assurances he received from President Kabila that the investigation would go forward, and for confirmation and a response to a new condition imposed by Mr. Kabila that the investigation would not extend beyond 17 May. Mr. Eckhard said he was not aware that any specific dates were made. The letter did talk about restricting the scope of the mission in time and in place, which seemed to be backing off from the earlier insistence that it be very broad, going

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 8 September 1997

back to 1993. The Secretary-General took this letter as confirmation of the oral understandings that he had reached with President Kabila in a telephone conversation. That was now the official word from the head of the Government, and yes, he had confidence that the investigation could now begin in earnest.

In a follow-up question, the correspondent said it sounded like new barriers were erected and new conditions set at every stage, in an intentional effort to prevent the investigation from going forward. The correspondent sought clarification on the suggestion that the United Nations would "pull out" if it could not get full cooperation from the Government, but that if it received even a tiny bit of cooperation, the investigation would be pursued. The Spokesman said, "let's accept the letter at face value. Let's give the mission a chance to succeed. Let's not assume conspiracies to obstruct justice."

Asked for a comment about the death of Mobutu Sese Seko, the late President of the former Zaire, Mr. Eckhard said his passing marked an end to an era. The Secretary-General sends his condolences to the family. The attention of the international community must now focus on helping the new Government of the Congo deal with the "staggering challenges that it has inherited".

Asked what had happened over the fact that Mr. Kabila turned down a resident representative to coordinate aid and so forth, Mr. Eckhard said that he had not turned down the representative, but merely postponed the deployment of the representative and the deployment of a needs assessment team, saying that the time was not ripe for that kind of activity to go forward. In deference, "we held off", but for the international community, the needs assessment team and the personnel in Kinshasa to oversee it were necessary ingredients for getting an assistance programme going. So, "we are eager for this to go forward, but at the same time, it can't go forward until the Government is ready for it".

Another correspondent asked whether the investigative team was still in Kinshasa, to which Mr. Eckhard said, "yes". Noting the description of Mr. Kabila's letter as troubling and disappointing by Bill Richardson, the Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations, the correspondent asked for the text of the letter. The Spokesman said the text of the Secretary-General's letter to President Kabila had not been released, and it was, therefore, the decision of his office not to release the text of the President's reply. It was given to the President of the Security Council, Mr. Richardson, over the weekend, so it had been shared with the Council.

Asked for the latest news on the situation in Afghanistan, specifically whether Lakhdar Brahimi, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Afghanistan, was still in the country, Mr. Eckhard said he would check on the answer and reply to the correspondent after the briefing.

* *** *