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 announcing that the Director-General of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Ambassador Jose Mauricio Bustani, had this morning met with the Secretary-General. He would be joining the briefing to talk to correspondents. (Notes on Ambassador Bustani's briefing are being issued separately.)

Mr. Eckhard said the Security Council had this morning taken up Iraq, Croatia and Western Sahara. On Iraq and Croatia, they had decided to postpone further discussion until next week, and then discussed a draft resolution on Western Sahara. Further consultations on Iraq would be held later today among interested delegations, while on Croatia several amendments had been introduced to the draft presidential statement. The Council was not, therefore, expected to act on Croatia and Western Sahara until Monday. However, the mandate of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was expected to be extended for a further period of six months, as the Secretary-General had recommended in September.

The Council had also this morning heard a briefing by the Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Ibrahima Fall, on the latest from Congo-Brazzaville. Recalling a correspondent's question yesterday on the involvement of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in the efforts to resolve the crisis in that country, he said that Mr. Fall had been in touch with the OAU throughout the week. Today, the Secretary-General of that body had called on all parties to end the killings and the untold sufferings that had been unleashed on innocent people, as well as the senseless destruction of infrastructure. He had also called for the withdrawal of all foreign forces.

Mr. Eckhard announced that the Secretary-General would be leaving early tomorrow morning for Aspen, Colorado, to participate in the Aspen Institute's Communications Conference. He would make a dinner speech tomorrow night and participate in a session on Sunday that would wrap up the Conference. His speech was not expected to be available before he had delivered it, he added.

He noted that today was the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty and that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) briefing on that event had just concluded in room 226. (Notes on the briefing are being issued separately.) He observed that the Day had been designated by the General Assembly to focus global attention on the scourge of poverty and social deprivation. At event tonight, being hosted by UNDP in the Economic and Social Council Chamber, the Secretary-General and the Administrator of UNDP, James Gustave Speth, would make statements. Press releases in connection with those events were available in room 378.

Mr. Eckhard also announced another press release, from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, which said that the Tribunal had indicted the former Prime Minister of Rwanda, Jean Kambanda, and the former Prefect of Butare, Sylvain Nsabimana. Those two had been arrested in Kenya last July, during Operation Naki (Nairobi-Kingali), and were currently in detention in Arusha. Mr. Kambanda was facing six counts, including genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity. For his part, Mr. Nsabimana was facing five counts, including genocide, complicity in genocide, crimes against humanity and serious violations of Article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions, and of an Additional Protocol. (See Press Releases L/2840 and L/2841.)

Since the Secretary-General assumed his position, Mr. Eckhard said, he had made a point of reaching beyond the traditional partners of the United Nations for help in meeting the many challenges the Organization currently faced. In that spirit, he had recently addressed letters to all living Nobel laureates, who collectively represent one of the world's great intellectual resources, asking whether he could look to them from time to time for advice and ideas. The request had gone to laureates in all disciplines who had won the prize in their personal capacities. He would soon be sending the same letter to this year's recipients, whose names had been announced in the past few days, and he intended to do so for future winners. A copy of the Secretary-General's letter was available to correspondents.

Out of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs in Geneva was an announcement that the ninth session of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction had concluded its meeting there today, with an announcement by the Government of Japan of a contribution of $900,000 to the Decade's Secretariat for 1998.

There was also a press release from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Spokesman said. Its Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, had today welcomed the news that the Russian Federation and Japan were moving towards backing a global treaty that would make landmines an outlawed weapon around the world. Governments already fully committed to signing the treaty included major anti-personnel landmine producers such as Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy and the United Kingdom, as well as users such as Angola, Cambodia and Mozambique. Ms. Bellamy had committed UNICEF to work "tirelessly" with the international campaign to ban landmines to bring about the treaty's universal endorsement.

Mr. Eckhard further announced a statement, in French, by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, who had today inaugurated an exhibition by poor Swiss families, in connection with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

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Also available in room 378 was a Department of Humanitarian Affairs Situation Report No. 1, on the earthquake in Chile. A briefing note from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was also available, correcting press reports that thousands of Tajik refugees had left the Sakhi camp in northern Afghanistan and headed across the border to Turkmenistan. According to the press release, UNHCR staff visited the camp today and found a population of about 7,000 still there.

Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General and Mrs. Annan were last night the guests at a reception given in their honour by the African Group of nations at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel. It was attended by a large group of United Nations representatives and members of the New York diplomatic community. Speakers had referred to the pride they felt as Africans in seeing one of their own elevated to the most important diplomatic post in the world, and expressed support for his initiatives.

The Spokesman then told correspondents that the annual "Making Strides against Cancer" Walk would take place this weekend. The Secretary-General was sponsoring United Nations staff that would participate in the five-mile walk being organized by the American Cancer Society. It would take place in Central Park, New York, on 19 October, and the United Nations team was being organized by the United Nations Medical Service and the Staff Union, to highlight the importance of education and early prevention in combating that deadly disease. Mrs. Annan and her daughter Nina would lead the United Nations team. The programme would begin at 10:30 a.m., and the Walk itself at 11 a.m. The Walk would circle through the Upper West Side, starting and ending in Central Park's North Meadow. Staff interested in participating in the Walk were to call the Medical Service on Extension 7090. Last year's Walk had raised over $800,000; this year, the organizers were hoping, with 11,000 participants, to raise $1 million.

On Monday at 10 a.m. there would be a press conference, to be given by the President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano. The subject would be the 1997 Hunger Project, the Award of which he would be receiving in a ceremony on Saturday.

Asked to comment on "reports" that former Haitian President Jean- Bertrand Aristide had refused to meet with the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, Bernard Miyet, who visited that country this week, Mr. Eckhard said he was not aware of that. He confirmed that Mr. Miyet had met with President Rene Preval, had returned to New York on Wednesday and was now preparing his report to the Secretary-General.

Concerning the Secretary-General's letter to the Nobel laureates, the Spokesman was asked to elaborate on the objectives. He said the Secretary- General intended to consult them on an ad hoc basis, as individuals or in small groups, depending on the subject he felt he needed some assistance with. Correspondents could pick up copies of the only correspondence he had sent out

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 17 October 1997

to them so far, to see exactly what he had told the Nobel Prize winners. The list of addresses was also available.

Asked whether the letter might have gone to Jody Williams of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, since they were said to have gone only to people who won in their personal capacities, Mr. Eckhard said he would have to find out. He reiterated that where winners were organizations, the letters had not gone to the heads of those organizations. The Spokesman could not say how this might have affected the case of Jody Williams.

Alex Taukatch, spokesman for the President of the General Assembly, Hennadiy Udovenko (Ukraine), said the Assembly was this morning meeting on agenda item 22: "Cooperation between the United Nations and the Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation". The Assembly had before it a report on the subject from the Secretary-General, and also a draft resolution which was expected to be adopted today without a vote. There had been about 20 names inscribed on the speakers' list. Upon the conclusion of that item, the General Assembly would continue the debate on agenda item 46 which had begun yesterday. There had been five speakers left over on the speakers' list who would now speak today.

This afternoon, the Assembly would go into another round of open-ended informal consultations of the plenary on agenda item 157: United Nations reform: measures and proposals.

Mr. Taukatch said that the President of the General Assembly had this morning had a number of meetings, including one with representatives of the Commission of the World Council of Churches and a number of non-governmental organizations, regarding a petition from Women of the World to the Governments of the World. That petition had 99,000 signatures from 100 countries, and that presentation would be made on United Nations Day, 24 October. There would also be a press conference at Headquarters. He said Mr. Udovenko had commended the Women of the World for taking that important initiative, telling them that if there was anything that he could do to help, he would.

Concerning the work of the plenary, the spokesman said there were a few additions to the key document A/INF/52/3. On 22 October, the President of the Republic of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, would address the Assembly, as the first item. Some other additions and changes that had been announced by the Assembly President today would be available in the press release when it came out.

Mr. Taukatch announced that the President of the General Assembly would leave at the weekend for a brief visit to Kiev, where he would preside over the tenth meeting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of the States Participants of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation. He would be back in New York in time for United Nations Day.

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