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 the spokesman for the Executive Director of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention.)

Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by announcing that Sandro Tucci, spokesman for United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention Executive Director Pino Arlacchi, would be joining the briefing to give wrap-up observations about the special session of the General Assembly on illicit drugs and to answer any final questions correspondents might have about that session which ended last night.

Turning to Security Council matters, Mr. Eckhard said that the Council's consultations began at 10 a.m., earlier than normal because it had a full agenda. Council members heard first from Olara Otunnu, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, who briefed them on his recent activities. The Council was then briefed by Kieran Prendergast, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, on Papua New Guinea. That briefing related to the peace process in Bougainville and the proposed establishment of a United Nations political office in support of the peace process there.

Mr. Eckhard added that the Council was scheduled to be briefed by Youssef Mahmoud, Director of the Africa II Division of the Department of Political Affairs, on the situation in Liberia. Under other matters, the Council was expected to take up Guinea-Bissau and the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Tomorrow, the Council was expected to take up Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Iraq, he continued. On Sierra Leone, the Council had before it the report of the Secretary-General, in which he had recommended the establishment of a United Nations observer mission there. Bosnia and Herzegovina concerned the renewal of the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH), which would expire on 21 June. The item on Iraq related to the question of spare parts for Iraqi oil facilities and the implementation of the "oil-for-food" programme. The Council had before it two 180-day reports, one submitted by the Secretary-General and the other by the Iraq Sanctions Committee.

Still on Iraq, Richard Butler, Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), arrived in Baghdad today, the Spokesman continued. He gave a press conference at 5 p.m., local time (about 9 a.m. New York time), repeating essentially what he had told the press at Headquarters last week. Mr. Butler would spend tomorrow in internal discussions and would meet with Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on

Saturday and Sunday. He intended to give a press conference at 11 a.m., Baghdad time, on Monday before departing for Kuwait.

Mr. Eckhard said that the Secretary-General's report on UNMIBH was on the racks. In it, he noted with regret that the last three months had seen an increase in violent incidents against returning refugees and displaced persons, especially those belonging to minority groups. There had also been resistance to integrating minority officers in the police force, especially in Croat-controlled areas of the Federation and in the Republika Srpska. The realization of multi-ethnic police forces had slowed, the Secretary-General noted, and a decisive effort would be needed over the next few months to begin reversing that situation. He recommended that the mandate be extended until 21 June 1999, on the assumption that there would be no significant changes in the security arrangements currently being provided by the Stabilization Force (SFOR) of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

A second report by the Secretary-General related to the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP), the Spokesman said. The repeated appeals of the Security Council for a reduction in defence spending and in the number of foreign military troops had gone unheeded by both sides, said the Secretary-General, noting that both sides continued to upgrade their military capability. The presence of UNFICYP on the island remained an indispensable element to maintaining the ceasefire and was a prerequisite for achieving the settlement of the Cyprus question, the Secretary-General concluded. He therefore recommended a six-month extension of the mandate of that force.

Mr. Eckhard said that the Secretary-General welcomed the announcement by Pakistan today of a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. That announcement was an important step in joining the international norm on nuclear testing and nuclear proliferation. The Secretary-General noted with satisfaction that, together with the statement by India to refrain from conducting nuclear testing, a de facto moratorium on nuclear testing was established in South Asia. He hoped that both India and Pakistan would now also take the necessary steps to join the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

On another matter, the Spokesman said that this morning, at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, the Ambassador of Sweden read out a joint declaration on behalf of the Foreign Ministers of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden entitled "Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: The Need for a New Agenda".

The declaration called for the nuclear-weapon States and the three nuclear-weapon-capable States to undertake a clear commitment to the speedy, final and total elimination of their nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons capability, he continued. The eight Foreign Ministers said that measures leading to the total elimination of nuclear weapons would begin with those

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States that had the largest arsenals. They also stressed the importance of those with lesser arsenals joining the process at an appropriate juncture.

He went on to say that the declaration outlined a number of practical steps to be taken immediately, pending the actual elimination of nuclear arsenals. Those included the deactivation of nuclear weapons and the removal of non-strategic weapons from deployed sites. The declaration would be issued shortly as a General Assembly document. The full text was available in the Spokesman's Office.

On Afghanistan, Mr. Eckhard said that the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) issued a second urgent appeal in Islamabad today for helicopters to aid the victims of the earthquake in that country, saying that the response to an earlier appeal was totally insufficient. An update from Islamabad was available in room S-378.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said in Nairobi today that it was urgently seeking to expand its operation in southern Sudan in order to provide larger food rations to 300,000 more people there, the Spokesman stated. That press release could be obtained in room S-378.

Mr. Eckhard said that the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Sergio Vieira de Mello, arrived in Freetown, Sierra Leone, yesterday. He had met with officials there, as well as with Francis Okelo, Special Envoy of the Secretary-General. It was expected that he would visit the Connaught Hospital, where many war wounded were being treated, as well as the Waterloo Refugee Camp. More updates on Mr. de Mello's visit would be available tomorrow.

He then said that the Secretary-General would be leaving for Rome, probably late tomorrow. On Monday, he would open the Conference on the international criminal court there. He would also have a number of official meetings, including an audience with the Pope and lunch with the Mayor of Rome, both on Tuesday. On Monday afternoon, he would attend a NATO conference on crisis management.

He said that this morning the Secretary-General addressed the launching of a comic book on mine awareness. He said, "We are here to celebrate the publication of a comic book. But our subject is no laughing matter." The Secretary-General then took the occasion to urge all Member States that had not yet done so to sign and ratify the landmine Convention. He recalled that comic books previously launched for children in the former Yugoslavia were a precursor for the ones announced today.

The Spokesman added that the Secretary-General observed that "Comic books are powerful. Politicians have long feared the barbs of editorial cartoonists. But children as usual are wiser than we give them credit for. They know that comics can educate even as they entertain, and however

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fantastic the stories and creatures, the feelings and fears are all too real." The text of that statement was available in the Office of the Spokesman. (See Press Release SG/SM/6595.)

Mr. Eckhard said that four WFP convoys had completed delivery of long-awaited wheat flour through the front lines of warring parties to hungry villagers in central Afghanistan, following the announcement last month by Taliban authorities that 1,000 tons of food would be allowed into Hazarajat.

On contributions, Mr. Eckhard said that a cheque for over $73,000 today made Ghana the seventy-sixth country to have paid up in full for 1998.

Returning to the programme for Rome, he said that the draft programme of work for the Diplomatic Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court was out on the racks today. It contained a tentative list of speakers for the first week of meetings. Any correspondents attending the Rome conference who had not already obtained their ID cards could do so at the Pass and ID office in the UNITAR building across the street.

Mr. Eckhard concluded the briefing by saying that copies of the Peacekeeping Department's monthly summary of troop contributions to peacekeeping operations as of 31 May could be picked up from the Office of the Spokesman.

A correspondent asked if he could elaborate on the content of the telephone conversation between the Secretary-General and the Prime Minister. Mr. Eckhard replied that the Secretary-General had been in touch with senior representatives of both India and Pakistan and his objective was to spur those two parties to enter into a bilateral dialogue in order to resolve the many issues that divided them.

On the same subject, another correspondent asked whether there was any reaction from the Prime Minister of India or other officials. The Spokesman responded by saying that he was not aware of any. The announcement by Pakistan was released just this morning.

Referring to announced NATO aerial manoeuvres over Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and simulated air strikes on targets in Albania to warn Serbian forces in Kosovo, another correspondent asked how those moves fit under the United Nations Charter. Mr. Eckhard said he did not know about what she was referring to. She was talking about actions by NATO and not by the United Nations so he would have no comment on that.

Another correspondent asked when the Secretary-General would submit his report on his good offices in Cyprus. Did his Special Representative, Diego Cordovez, plan to visit the island in the near future? The Spokesman said the report would come out later this month. He did not know whether Mr. Cordovez planned to visit Cyprus. He had been at Headquarters for the first half of

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this week and had met with the Secretary-General and with Mr. Prendergast. They reviewed the work that Mr. Cordovez had been able to do so far, but there was no date for the next visit.

Mr. Tucci, spokesman for the Executive Director of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, said the twentieth special session of the General Assembly had been a great success for the United Nations and the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).

The UNDCP had worked hard for a year and a half to bring to the attention of the world the will of the Member States, as represented in the three documents that were adopted at the end of the final session last night: the Political Declaration, the Declaration on the Guiding Principles of Drug Demand Reduction, and the measures for international cooperation to counter illicit drug trafficking and production.

As the Executive Director, Pino Arlacchi, had said at the conclusion of the session, now was the time to go to work, the spokesman continued. It was time for the Member States, which had supported UNDCP initiatives and which had expressed their will to enter into a new phase of countering the drug problem, to decide how that ambitious programme should be implemented.

He said the UNDCP was determined to get to work immediately on the three major aspects which had emerged from the session: the need to reduce demand, with a precise target of reducing demand by 50 per cent in 10 years; the need to provide alternative development for those involved in growing illicit narcotic crops, and thereby to eradicate or considerably reduce the production of such crops within 10 years; and the need to elaborate better systems and better laws, more responsive to the needs of today, in the field of money-laundering, financial havens, and other means that allowed criminal organizations to process the profits of their trade.

There had been articles in the press saying that the special session had been simply rehashing old ideas, he said. But, instead of the United Nations proposing the old rhetoric of a war against drugs, there was something new on the table. There was a determination to do better; there was a determination to do more; and there was most of all the conviction that this could be done.

A correspondent asked Mr. Tucci to elaborate on the UNDCP's intentions regarding the call by French President Jacques Chirac for a more human approach to the situation. The spokesman replied that it was important to move away from the old impulses to spray fields and to send troops and police into a situation. The UNDCP was looking at the "dirty, down-to-earth, silent everyday work of drug control". One of the two most important aspects of that work was the need to address demand. It had to be understood that drug addicts were in many ways victims. Systems that were more caring about the needs of people who were basically suffering from a disease, and programmes to ensure that young people did not get into that situation in the first place

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should be established. There must be less of a dichotomy between rehabilitation and punishment for those who were victims of drug abuse.

Asked about the numbers of drug users around the world, Mr. Tucci said there were about 150 million to 170 million people who used drugs. Of that, there were about 8 million hard-core heroin addicts worldwide. There were about 130 million to 140 million people who were either regular or occasional users of cannabis. The number of people who used cocaine was rather less clear. The figures were imprecise, of course, because drug users were not inclined to report such use to the United Nations.

Did the conference address the needs of the people who were affected by the drugs trade? a correspondent asked. Of course, the spokesman replied. "We are not talking about punishment, we are talking about the need to work with them." For the first time, the issue of demand reduction had been elevated by the Member States to the same level of importance as supply reduction.

There had been scepticism going into the special session about the United Nations' ability to draw funding for crop substitution, a correspondent said. What was the feeling on that issue at the end of the session? Mr. Tucci replied that the Political Declaration, in its last three lines, said that the Member States committed to provide the financial resources necessary to implement its goals. An important political step had been taken, which would be followed up by discussions with the Member States on raising the necessary funds. "We do not think that we need $5 billion today. It will be a day-to-day, little by little work." The indications so far were very good.

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