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, announced at the beginning of today's press briefing that the Secretary-General had arrived in London. Shortly after his arrival, he had held a telephone conversation with the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Yevgeny M. Primakov, who was in Paris on an official visit. The topic of their conversation had been Iraq. No further information could be provided at this time. As had been previously announced, the Secretary-General would have a working luncheon tomorrow in London with British Foreign Minister Robin Cook. Available in the Spokesman's Office, in French only, was a verbatim transcript of the Secretary- General's comments to the press in Paris yesterday afternoon.

The Security Council would not resume its consultations until Friday, 30 January, the Spokesman said. Today was the Chinese New Year, and as tomorrow was an official United Nations holiday, the Building would be closed. On Friday morning, the Council was expected to take up the Secretary-General's report on the Central African Republic. They would also get a briefing from the Secretariat on Somalia. On Friday afternoon, they would adopt a resolution on the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). They were expected to extend that Mission by six months, until 31 July. The Council was also expected to adopt a resolution on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), also extending its mandate until 31 July. A presidential statement on this issue would also be adopted.

Yesterday, it had been mentioned that the Secretary-General had called to Headquarters his Special Representatives and Envoys from the Great Lakes region of Africa, and a correspondent had asked who those people would be, Mr. Eckhard said. The Spokesman's Office now had confirmation that the meeting -- which would take place on 4 February -- would include: the Secretary-General's Representative and Humanitarian Adviser for the Great Lakes Region, Berhanu Dinka; the Officer-in-Charge of the former office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Burundi, Cheikh Tidiane Sy; the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative for Rwanda, Omar Bakhet; and the Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations office in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cheikh Tidiane Gaye.

Regarding the report of the International Commission of Inquiry for Rwanda, the Spokesman said that report from October 1996 had been belatedly made public at the request of the Security Council. However, because the original report had been based on submissions by Member States and a number of submissions had come in after the report had been completed, there was now an addendum to the report which included all of the additional submissions by governments. That document (S/1998/63) was on the racks today.

A press release from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the 62,000 Cambodian refugees in Thailand was available in room S-378, Mr. Eckhard said. Also available -- in French and English -- from the Department of Public Information (DPI) was a paper based on the statement of the Secretary-General on the fiftieth anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the Secretary-General had delivered in Tehran on 10 December 1997.

Mr. Eckhard said that he had been asked by the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) to announce that the annual meeting of the Corporation of the Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial Scholarship Fund -- which was made up of the Board of Directors of the Fund and the UNCA Executive Committee -- set for tomorrow, Thursday, had been postponed due to the United Nations holiday. It would now be held on Tuesday, 3 February. Details were available on the UNCA bulletin board.

The Minister of Defence of Burundi, Colonel Sinhzoyiheba, had been killed in a helicopter crash mid-morning today in Burundi, Mr. Eckhard said. The personal secretary to President Paul Buyoya, the President's bodyguard and the helicopter pilot had also been killed in that accident. The Secretary- General's condolences went out to the Government and people of Burundi. A report from the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Burundi for the week of 17 to 26 January was available in the Spokesman's Office, Mr. Eckhard added.

Also available in the Spokesman's Office was an OCHA report on the humanitarian situation in Tibet as the result of severe snowstorms, Mr. Eckhard said.

A correspondent asked if the appearance of the addendum to the report on Rwanda meant that the Commission continued to exist. The Spokesman said that the Commission's work had been ended. There had been some talk of reviving it, but at this point was no longer active.

Asked whether there was a Security Council document that terminated the Commission, Mr. Eckhard said, "We'll have to look into that, I'm not aware that there is."

How was it possible, then, to say that it had ended? the correspondent asked. The Spokesman said that it had been his information that after it had completed its work and submitted its report, the Commission had gone out of existence.

How was it possible to say that the Commission had finished its work when its last report listed an enormous amount of unfinished business? "The unfinished business, I think, is taken care of by the annex that appears today", the Spokesman said.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 28 January 1998

A correspondent asked if the Spokesman had any comment on the criticism of the 29 January holiday -- celebrating the end of the fasting month of Ramadan -- by some Jewish organizations which had said that there was no comparable arrangement made for Jewish employees at the United Nations. "It's a decision by the General Assembly, not anything that the Secretariat has any control over", Mr. Eckhard said. "The standard number of holidays in the United Nations system is nine, and we work within that basket."

Had the new holiday replaced another? a correspondent asked. The Spokesman said that it had replaced Good Friday which had then become one of the three optional holidays. Eight holidays were fixed and the ninth could be chosen by staff members from those three.

After the briefing, the following announcement was made:

"The end of mission report on the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES) is out as a Security Council document today.

"In it, the Secretary-General calls on the Government of Croatia to address several key issues which are still unresolved. These include obligations in the areas of property-related issues, tenancy rights, funding for the Joint Council of Municipalities and full implementation of the Amnesty Law.

"Concerning the evictions of Serbs from their homes, several such incidents were reported since the handover of the region to Croatia. The original home owners claim their homes where Serb displaced persons have been living for some time. In some cases, this leads to harassment, tension, and evictions. The United Nations Civilian Police Support Group has established a hot line to receive complaints from the residents in an effort to defuse the problems."

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