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, said at the beginning of today's press briefing that Richard Butler, Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) monitoring the disposal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, would be leaving New York for Paris this evening. During a stopover in Paris he would confer with the French Foreign Minister, Hubert Vedrine, and other French officials concerning his forthcoming visit to Iraq.

Mr. Butler was scheduled to arrive in Bahrain on Saturday, 17 January, and would then travel to Baghdad on the morning of 19 January, Mr. Eckhard said. He would meet with Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on 19 and 20 January to discuss policy questions, in particular the question of access. Mr. Butler was expected to leave Baghdad on the morning of 21 January and would be back in New York on 22 January.

Mr. Eckhard said that the United Nations inspection team headed by Scott Ritter had not attempted to go out on a mission today. Mr. Ritter was waiting for further instructions from Mr. Butler. Other teams covering chemical, nuclear and biological weapons, as well as missiles, had conducted inspections without any hitches.

Yesterday, Mr. Butler had given the Security Council the detailed composition of the UNSCOM inspection team that had gone out under Scott Ritter on Monday, Mr. Eckhard said. That team had consisted of 44 persons, 28 of whom were classified as inspectors. Of the 28, there were 10 Americans, five Britons, three French and two Austrians. The remaining eight came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland.

United Nations oil overseers had now approved 16 out of 29 contracts received as of this morning, Mr. Eckhard said. The total volume of those contracts amounted to 81.34 million barrels. The latest addition had been the contract awarded to a Spanish company for 1.8 million barrels.

As had been mentioned the last couple of days, Mr. Eckhard said, the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) had ended today after two years. Control of Eastern Slavonia had been handed over to the Croatian Government today at a ceremony held in the village of Borovo Naselje on the outskirts of Vukovar.

Mr. Eckhard said that the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Bernard Miyet, had represented the Secretary-General and read out a statement marking the successful conclusion of the mission. UNTAES had demilitarized the region, set up a temporary police force, facilitated the return of refugees, successfully organized elections, assisted in the

development and reconstruction of the region and undertaken tasks related to civil administration and the functioning of public services. The success of the mission, Mr. Miyet had said, represented a significant milestone in the United Nations peacekeeping efforts in Croatia, creating a positive precedent for peace throughout the former Yugoslavia. Copies of Mr. Miyet's speech were available in the Spokesman's office.

The Director-General of the United Nations Office at Vienna and Executive Director of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention was visiting Kazakhstan, Mr. Eckhard said. He had met with the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan A. Nazarbaev. Mr. Arlacchi had been informed by the President that Kazakhstan was launching a major programme to fight drugs and crime. The President had expressed particular concern over the problem of corruption and had asked Mr. Arlacchi for international experts to assist him on those issues.

Correspondents could see on the Secretary-General's appointments that the United States Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Henry H. Shelton was visiting today, Mr. Eckhard said. That visit had prompted a number of questions from the curious, but was in fact a long-standing courtesy call. The Chairman would be seeing Major General Franklin van Kappen, the Secretary-General's Military Adviser, to discuss peacekeeping. He would then have a courtesy visit with the Secretary-General at 3:30 p.m., accompanied by the Permanent Representative of the United States, Bill Richardson.

The Spokesman's office had received a handout from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) concerning their operations in Western Sahara that Mr. Eckhard thought might be of interest to correspondents. The handout stated that up to 120,000 refugees were expected to return to Western Sahara for the referendum, which was scheduled for December this year. Voters would choose between independence and integration with Morocco. The role of UNHCR would be to arrange for those refugees who had been identified as eligible to participate in the referendum and who wished to go back to return safely, together with their immediate family. The operation would be divided into three phases: the preparatory and registration phase from January to June 1998; a repatriation phase from July to December 1998; and a final phase of rehabilitation and reintegration after the referendum. That handout was available in the Spokesman's office.

Also available was a fact sheet from the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia concerning the Slavko Dokmanovic trial, which was scheduled to begin on Monday, 19 January. Mr. Dokmanovic was charged with grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, violation of the law or customs or war, and crimes against humanity.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 15 January 1998

A press release from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) concerning a lethal screwworm epidemic affecting livestock in Iraq and neighbouring countries was also available in the Spokesman's office, Mr. Eckhard said.

In other business, Mr. Eckhard said that yesterday the new Permanent Observer for the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Mokhtar Lamani, had presented his credentials to the Secretary-General. Biographical information on Mr. Lamani was available in the Spokesman's office. An updated version of a handout prepared by the Spokesman's office on the "new faces brought into the United Nations by the Secretary-General" was also available. The updated version included the appointments that had been made this week.

The United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) wished to remind correspondents that its general membership meeting would be held today at 2 p.m. in the UNCA Club, Mr. Eckhard said. All members were asked to attend.

A correspondent asked Mr. Eckhard if Mr. Ritter was awaiting instructions from Mr. Butler when he arrived or if there would be communication between the two before that. Mr. Eckhard said that, as he understood it, Mr. Ritter received his instructions from the Executive Chairman on a daily basis, no matter where he was.

Another correspondent asked if there were any plans at this point to withdraw the inspection team led by Mr. Ritter. The only plans were for Mr. Butler to discuss composition and, primarily, access issues with the Deputy Prime-Minister, Mr. Eckhard said.

Asked for an update on the activities of the United Nations investigative team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mr. Eckhard said there were two problems with their work going forward. "The first is the flooding that has taken place in the eastern part of the Congo as well as in the north at Mbandaka. The second is that as a result of President [Laurent] Kabila reorganizing his Government, they have not yet identified the minister who will be the primary contact for the team to make arrangements for them to go about their work."

A correspondent asked for a precision from Mr. Eckhard on alleged experimentation by Iraqis on prisoners. Mr. Eckhard said that the photograph that had been referred to by one American television network, was not, in the view of UNSCOM, evidence of experimentation on humans. It had not been made public. As a matter of policy, UNSCOM did not go public with any materials that they got from Iraq. There was also a newspaper report this morning of experiments on dogs. There had been, in fact, videotapes of such experiments, but again, those had not been made public. There did seem to have been experimentation on dogs.

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 15 January 1998

A correspondent asked what message had been sent by the end of the UNTAES mission. That mission had lasted two years, but there had been six years of peacekeeping in Croatia altogether. During those years half a million Serbs had been ethnically cleansed. An ethnically purist country in the region, Croatia, had been created, with just 3 per cent of non-Croats. What message did that send to the countries in the Balkans that were still multi-ethnic -- that ethnic cleansing was fine as long as it was done under the auspices of the United Nations?

Responding to the question, Mr. Eckhard said, "The United Nations clearly does not approve of ethnic cleansing. In Eastern Slavonia the arrangements are in place to try to resettle all those who have been driven from their homes, and the same assurances are contained in the Dayton agreement for Bosnia. Europe is full of refugees from the former Yugoslavia, and the hope is that over time the wounds of war can heal, those who want to return home can, and that the region will be multi-ethnic, as it once was."

Another correspondent asked if UNSCOM had other evidence -- besides the photograph mentioned above -- that had made them suspect Iraq of experimentation on humans. Was that an ongoing part of UNSCOM's investigations into Iraq? Mr. Eckhard said, "I don't speak for UNSCOM, so what I tell you I pass on second hand from them. So I have no guidance from them on this point. All I was given by them today was what I have already told you."

Asked for more details on why Mr. Ritter did not go out, and whether he had not gone because he had been told in advance that there would be no monitors, Mr. Eckhard said the daily activities of UNSCOM were determined by the Executive Chairman. Whoever went out or did not go out today, had done so on the instructions of Mr. Butler.

Asked whether the Secretary-General had commented on the issue of human cloning, Mr. Eckhard said, "To my knowledge the Secretary-General has not." The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) had taken a position. The Spokesman's office would try to make available a press release that UNESCO had issued on the subject.

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