DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

(Incorporates briefing by Spokesman for General Assembly President.)

Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's briefing by informing correspondents that in view of the threat of the conflict in Congo-Brazzaville widening with the involvement of other countries in the region, the Secretary-General might brief the Security Council in the course of the afternoon. The reason for the uncertainty at that point was that the Council was not previously expected to meet today. The Secretary- General's request was, therefore, going to them at that time.

The Secretary-General had received reports on the latest situation in Congo-Brazzaville from the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations/Organization of African Unity (OAU) to the Great Lakes Region, Ambassador Mohamed Sahnoun, who arrived in Libreville, Gabon, earlier today. As soon as the plans for the proposed meeting of the Security Council this afternoon were firmed up, the Spokesman said correspondents would be informed.

Meanwhile, Mr. Eckhard continued, the Republic of the Congo had late yesterday sent a letter to the Security Council requesting an urgent meeting of the Council to discuss the involvement of Angolan troops in the fighting in that country. The letter charged that "a convoy of heavily-armed men had entered Congolese territory through the village of Pangui in Kimongo District, coming from Cabinda Province in the Republic of Angola. The convoy was deployed in the town of Kimongo, where it took district administrative and police officials hostage and seized all weapons at the police stations and military posts". Also late yesterday, said the Spokesman, the Democratic Republic of the Congo sent a letter to the Security Council requesting an urgent meeting of the Council to consider intensifying mortar attacks on Kinshasa from Brazzaville.

The Spokesman reminded correspondents of yesterday's announcement that United Nations peacekeeping officials were meeting with the military advisers of the permanent members and the African members of the Security Council this morning to discuss contingency plans for the peacekeeping operation in Congo- Brazzaville, should that be approved. That meeting would be followed with another similar meeting with potential troop-contributors this afternoon. Both meetings would be in closed session.

Turning to the subject of the human rights investigative team to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, he said that a senior Secretariat official would give a background briefing to correspondents at 12:45 p.m. today on the efforts of the United Nations to get the human rights investigators into the field in that country.

Mr. Eckhard said that yesterday in Bosnia, the International Supervisor for Brcko, Ambassador William Farrand, had announced he would form a multi- ethnic police force in Brcko. The United Nations International Police Task Force (IPTF) had agreed to guide that restructuring process which was scheduled to begin on 23-24 October, and be completed by the end of December. The new police force would reflect the result of the recent election and would be composed of approximately 50 per cent Serbs, 30 per cent Bosniacs, and 10 per cent Croats. A briefing summary from Sarajevo on the issue was available in the Spokesman's Office.

He then drew attention to the appointments of the Secretary-General for the day, noting that he would be meeting with the Permanent Representatives of Liechtenstein, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Australia, Guinea and Kyrgyzstan. He pointed out that the representatives of those countries were women, who made up the Group of Eight. They were meeting with the Secretary-General to discuss gender balance in the Secretariat, as well as more female representation among special envoys and special representatives. In that connection, the Group of Eight was expected to submit the names of women qualified for such appointments.

Mr. Eckhard said that a look at the statistics of women in the Secretariat revealed that the percentage of women was up slightly, from 35.5 per cent at the end of December to 36.3 per cent today. At the Under-Secretary-General and Assistant Secretary-General level, the percentage had increased from 5.9 on 31 December 1996 to 9.4 today, while at the level of D-1 and above, it had gone from 18.5 per cent to 19.8. At the level of P-5 and above, the percentage of women was now 27.3 per cent, up from 25.3 at the end of last year.

The Secretary-General would brief the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) this afternoon, on the revised estimates of the proposed programme budget for 1998/1999. That closed meeting would take place in Conference Room 10 between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. The revised estimates (document A/52/303) were made public in mid-September, the Spokesman recalled, and it described the changes that would be required to the programme budget for 1998/1999 which had already been submitted to the General Assembly in order to implement the proposed reforms. The proposed programme budget revised total was $2,570,300,000, which was $12.7 million down from the proposed programme budget. That difference would go to the development dividend that the Secretary-General was proposing if the General Assembly approved that reform proposal.

Mr. Eckhard also informed correspondents that the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, had today in Geneva spoken before the Executive Committee of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In her statement, she expressed concern over the problem of refugees, underlining that "there are strong links between the work of the offices of the UNHCR and Human Rights, because human rights violations often represent the root causes of refugee flows, and secondly,

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because the problem of refugees can be properly managed and effectively solved only through an improvement in the standards of protection of human rights". The full text of Ms. Robinson's statement was available in room S-378.

Another document available to correspondents in room S-378, he continued, was the Secretary-General's bulletin on the organizational structure of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (document ST/SGB/1997/10).

Also available was a handout prepared by the Spokesman's Office with the names of the permanent representatives and the Security Council presidency schedule for 1998, based on the alphabetical order of the composition of the Council for 1998.

Mr. Eckhard announced a meeting, tomorrow, of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country in Conference Room 6 at 10 a.m. The last meeting of the Committee had taken place in July.

He also announced a press release from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) on child labour. The Government of Norway would convene an international conference in Oslo from 27 to 30 October to consider the role of development and international cooperation in combating child labour. According to new estimates, more than 250 million children between five and 14 worked today around the world, in countries rich and poor. Participants in the technical session would discuss ways of preventing and eliminating child labour, as well as reintegrating child labourers into the mainstream of society.

There was also a news update, from the World Food Programme (WFP), which said the WFP had chartered a convoy of barges to Juba, in the south of the Sudan, where civil war continued to cause food shortages. The delivery was coming after months of delays due to insecurity in the region, particularly along the River Nile. The WFP team would cross frontlines to deliver over 2,664 metric tonnes of food targeted at 373,835 people living in areas under the control either of the Government or of rebel factions. This year, the WFP had provided emergency assistance to more than 2.6 million war-affected Sudanese. (See also Press Release WFP/1046.)

According to a press release from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Spokesman announced, 4,000 delegates from 140 countries were gathering at the Eleventh World Forestry Conference in Antalya, Turkey. The theme was "Forestry for sustainable development: Towards the 21st Century". In his address, the Director-General of FAO, Jacques Diouf, had said that in 1996 the field forestry programme consisted of 179 projects with an annual expenditure of $60 million. At the end of the congress, delegates were expected to adopt a declaration to reinforce international commitment to global forest issues.

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Asked about the strength of United Nations staff in Congo-Brazzaville, and the whereabouts today of Ambassador Sahnoun, the Spokesman said that the ambassador was in Libreville. He had arrived there at about 5 a.m. local time, and reported to the Secretary-General at about 10 a.m. New York time. He would try to confirm the size of the staff in Libreville.

Also asked for a situation report concerning Ted Turner's donation of $1 billion to United Nations causes, Mr. Eckhard said discussions were still being held with Mr. Turner's financial advisers over the formation of necessary structures to be used, and the procedures by which the money would be distributed. The Secretary-General was quite pleased with the thrust of the talks so far, he added, and Mr. Turner had been very unobtrusive as far as the United Nations control over the money was concerned. "The talks are going in the right direction, but from a legal point of view it is very complicated, and they are not finished yet."

Alex Taukatch, spokesman for the President of the General Assembly, Hennadiy Udovenko (Ukraine), referring to the election of five new non- permanent members of the Security Council this morning, said it had been a "big day" at the General Assembly. The incoming five would begin to serve their two-year terms on 1 January 1998. Three of them -- Bahrain, Gambia and Slovenia -- would sit on the Security Council for the first time. Mr. Taukatch noted that Slovenia became a member of the United Nations on 22 May 1992.

Concerning other States that had been elected today, the spokesman said that Gabon had served once before (1978/1979), while Brazil had served seven times, its last time on the Council having been in 1993/1994. The outgoing members of the Council were Chile, Egypt, Guinea-Bissau, Poland and the Republic of Korea, and Mr. Taukatch reminded correspondents that, according to the rules of the Assembly, outgoing members could not be immediately re-elected. Their names were not eligible, therefore, to appear on ballot papers.

On the subject of "who served when" on the Security Council, he drew attention to the annotated agenda of the session, a handy document "that the President of the General Assembly always has with him, and keeps referring to". The spokesman pointed out that annex 4 of the document had a table containing information about members of the Council. (For details of Assembly action today, see Press Release GA/9329.)

Before the voting began, said Mr. Taukatch, the President of the General Assembly had announced that Dominica had made the necessary payment to reduce its arrears below the level specified in Article 19 of the Charter, making it possible for that country to vote in the election.

Looking ahead, he said Mr. Udovenko had also today announced that tomorrow, in Conference Room 4, the General Assembly would meet to consider the report of the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) on the

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financing of United Nations peacekeeping operations. The subject of that report was the United Nations Logistics Base at Brindisi, Italy. The current financing of that important facility would end tomorrow, 15 October, and the Assembly would be acting on a recommendation of the Fifth Committee to authorize the Secretary-General to enter into commitments on a monthly basis in the amount of $812,000 for its maintenance from 16 October 1997 to 30 June 1998.

Immediately after the adjournment of that open meeting, the Assembly would go into open-ended informal consultations of the plenary on agenda item 157. On that subject, the spokesman drew the attention to today's Journal and the announcement that the Assembly would continue "an exchange of views" on the actions and recommendations contained in the report of the Secretary-General (document A/51/950). Member States would also have before them conference room papers (documents A/52/CRP.1 and 2), as well as the informal list of measures and proposals provided by the Secretariat on 7 October 1997.

Turning to the Main Committees, he said that the First and Second Committees continued their general debate today, while the Third and Sixth Committees focused on specific items on their agenda.

To a question as to whether a resolution in the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) on the decolonization unit had come up, or had been scheduled, Mr. Taukatch said the issue had been discussed in the Committee, and there was a draft resolution. Plenary action on that matter, however, would have to wait for the report of the Committee.

A correspondent asked if it had ever happened that the General Assembly failed to approve the choice of a regional group for a seat on the Security Council. Mr. Taukatch said that the endorsement of a regional group meant that those Member States were put on the ballot. It was possible for any Member State to add other candidates, as had been demonstrated by single votes for Argentina and Zambia in the election today, with one vote each, so there was a "theoretical possibility" of a regional group's choice being rejected. On whether it had actually really happened, he said he did not think so, but would double check.

For purposes of appointments in the General Assembly, was every Member State of the Organization a member of some regional group? Mr. Taukatch was also asked. He replied in the negative, and subsequently confirmed that Estonia, Israel and Palau did not belong to any regional group.

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