DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Juan Carlos Brandt, Senior Associate Spokesman for the Secretary- General, opened today's noon briefing by welcoming Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), who would later introduce the report of the United Nations Task Force on Environment and Human Settlements, which he also chaired.

On Security Council activities, Mr. Brandt said the Russian Federation had assumed the presidency of the Council for the month of July. Ambassador Sergey V. Lavrov was engaged in bilateral consultations with the members of the Council to prepare a programme of work for the month.

Mr. Brandt said that at 11:30 a.m., Mr. Lavrov had announced that the additional sanctions on the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) had entered into force as of one minute after midnight. The Council President had called on all Member States to implement fully Security Council resolution 1176.

The Ad Hoc Working Group of the Security Council established pursuant to resolution 1170 would hold a second meeting this afternoon in Conference Room 7 to continue discussions on their reaction to the Secretary-General's report on Africa, said Mr. Brandt.

Concerning Angola, Bernard Miyet, Under-Secretary-General for PeaceKeeping Operations, was back in Luanda today after attending the funeral of Alioune Blondin Beye yesterday in Mali, said Mr. Brandt. A memorial service for Mr. Beye would be held on 6 July at Headquarters in the Trusteeship Council Chamber, at 3:30 p.m. The memorial would be attended by the Secretary-General.

Mr. Beye had died on 26 June, in a plane crash that had also claimed seven other lives, said Mr. Brandt. The crash was being investigated, and any further information on the matter would be communicated to correspondents as soon as it was available. Mr. Miyet would remain in Angola until later this week. Tomorrow, Berhanu Dinka, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region, would arrive in Luanda, where he would assist the United Nations Observer Mission for the next few weeks.

Mr. Brandt said that Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Alvaro de Soto was visiting Sri Lanka in connection with the nuclear tests conducted recently by India and pakistan. He landed in Colombo yesterday, carrying a letter from the Secretary-General addressed to the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. He was scheduled to stay there for two days.

A statement had been put out yesterday on East Timor, said Mr. Brandt. The statement had generated a number of questions about whether the United Nations had proposed a solution for the question of East Timor within the framework of the tripartite talks under the Secretary-General's auspices. No proposal had been submitted by the United Nations for the resolution of that dispute, and any reports of such a proposal were unfounded. The United Nations and the Secretary-General remained completely committed to the continuous facilitation of the dialogue and were looking for a solution. There was no particular proposal at the moment.

Mr. Brandt said that he had received reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) this morning concerning ICRC workers missing in Somalia. A convoy transporting one international and five local staff members, travelling from Gode to Degah-Bur, south-east of Ethiopia, had been out of contact with ICRC radio since last week. There was no confirmation of foul play, but the six workers were still unaccounted for.

Tomorrow, the Executive Director of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), Under-Secretary-General Pino Arlacchi, would travel to Iran to attend a ceremony featuring the burning of illicit drugs, said Mr. Brandt. The ceremony would take place in Tehran at 5 p.m. local time. Fifty tonnes of opium, heroin and morphine -- with a street value of some $700 million -- would be destroyed. Iran's President, Mohammed Khatami, would be present at the ceremony together with Mr. Arlacchi, who was invited by the President to attend. Before the ceremony, Mr. Arlacchi would meet privately with President Khatami. He would also meet with the country's Foreign Minister and the Secretary of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters.

This morning, the Senior Management Group had held its regular Wednesday meeting, known as the Cabinet meeting, said Mr. Brandt. The senior officials of the United Nations system and programmes had been present either personally or through teleconferencing. The main issue of the meeting was the presentation of a note that had been prepared by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on the regional meeting on refugee issues in the Great Lakes held in Kampala. Because several of the senior United Nations officials were absent from Headquarters, the meeting was chaired by the Chef de Cabinet, Iqbal Riza. Mr. Riza took the opportunity to relay to the meeting the circumstances of the tragic accident that had taken the lives of the eight staff members, including Mr. Beye. The group paid tribute to the memory of Mr. Beye: there was a minute of silence, and everyone remembered him -- not only as a man committed to peace, devoted to the cause of peace in Angola -- but also as a friend and colleague. Mr. Riza had also given those present at the meeting a mini-briefing on the activities of the Secretary-General in Nigeria.

Mr. Brandt said the Secretary-General had met today with heads of United Nations agencies in Nigeria, and encouraged them to continue coordinating and cooperating with each other and to make the United Nations presence there as

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strong and effective as possible. He then met with the traditional rulers' consultative council, made up of eight senior-most traditional leaders of Nigeria. A list of those leaders was available upstairs. They had met to consider the current situation in the country.

Mr. Brandt said their recommendations, which they presented to the Secretary-General, included one saying that the Government should release Mashood Abiola, who was widely thought to have won the 1993 elections, and who was under house arrest. They felt that the five political parties approved by the Government of the late General Sani Abacha should not be disbanded, but the field should be disbanded for full democratic participation. The current military Government could not reasonably conduct a transition to civilian rule by 1 October, as was now planned. They felt that 1 January would be a more realistic date for the elections. Chief Abiola could then run in presidential elections, and the 1995 draft constitution should be promulgated.

Mr. Brandt said that representatives of various Nigerian citizens' groups had then shared with the Secretary-General their views on the transition process, starting with the Group of 34, made up of prominent individuals from all parts of the country. Groups on women's rights, on the private sector and on organized labour had also participated. The Secretary-General had also contacted people recently released from prison. Yesterday, he had telephoned Olusegun Obasanjo, the former Head of State, and he met with Christina Anyanwu, the editor who had been imprisoned for three years and who had received United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) World Press Freedom Prize on 30 April.

The Nigerian Head of State, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, had invited President Charles Taylor of Liberia and President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone to Abuja for a mini-summit on subregional security issues, said Mr. Brandt. The Secretary-General had met separately with each of the Presidents, before joining the mini-summit at 4 p.m. local time today. In the evening, he was due to attend a dinner for the participants in the mini-summit, hosted by the Nigerian Head of State.

The World Food Programme (WFP), which was part of a United Nations inter-agency humanitarian mission currently assessing humanitarian needs and issues of access of aid in Guinea-Bissau, had reported that food needs in that west African country were increasing, said Mr. Brandt. The WFP had painted a grim picture of the food situation in two towns that the team had visited so far. After visiting two towns north-west of Bissau, the capital, the teams had reported that the towns had doubled in size with the influx of people fleeing the fighting. The population of Bafata, 150 kilometres north-west of Bissau, had gone from 160,000 to 300,000. In Gabu, 35 kilometres north-west of Bissau, the team found people eating rice seeds, which were meant for planting.

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The three-day mission, which began its work Monday, was comprised of representatives from the Emergency Relief Coordinator's Office, the WFP, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), added Mr. Brandt.

An information note on the WHO and the UNEP's partnership on training activities for the refrigeration of vaccines was available in room S-378, said Mr. Brandt. Also available in room S-378 was information on the proceedings of the case concerning the land and maritime boundary between Cameroon and Nigeria. This coming Saturday would be the International Day of Cooperatives. A message was available on that mandated commemoration by the General Assembly, which had, in 1992, proclaimed the first Saturday of July to be the International Day of Cooperatives (resolution 47/90 of 16 December).

A correspondent asked what was happening in Angola today, and whether there had been any progress in the discussions as to how UNITA would comply with the Security Council resolution. Mr. Brandt replied that one of the results of the tragic accident that had taken the life of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General had been that everyone was in shock. The Secretary-General planned to put in place as soon as possible the necessary elements to continue the peace process. Leaders of Angola had said that the best tribute that could be paid to Mr. Beye would be to move forward with that political process. At the moment, there was nothing new to report.

What was the progress on the investigation into the plane crash? a correspondent asked. An aeronautics expert had gone there from Geneva, replied Mr. Brandt. The authorities of the countries concerned were conducting an investigation, but there was so far nothing new to report. Everything seemed to indicate that it had been a tragic accident, but the conclusions of the investigations were not yet reached.

When was a result expected from the inquiry? asked a correspondent. He did not have a particular date, replied Mr. Brandt. The site of the crash was a swampy area, and there were a lot of tests and searches that had to be conducted before any conclusions could be reached.

Was there anything new on the death of the detained Slavko Dokmanovic in his cell in The Hague? a correspondent asked. No, replied Mr. Brandt. It was unfortunate that was how that chapter had been closed. There was certainty that the death had been a suicide. The correspondent said there were also reports that he had been killed. Mr. Brandt replied that he had no information to that effect.

What was the major obstacle to the Secretary-General's report on Kosovo being issued today? asked a correspondent. The main obstacle was the need for the report to be finalized, said Mr. Brandt. That was always difficult for the Secretary-General when he was travelling. He was also trying to do several things at once, which made it more difficult to meet deadlines such as this

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one. They were working on it, and it would most likely be issued if not late today, then perhaps tomorrow. That was the only reason.

A correspondent asked whether it had been confirmed that the Secretary- General would meet with Mr. Abiola. That was something that could not be ruled out, said Mr. Brandt. But there was no information to that effect. When there was more information, he would pass it along.

When Mr. Arlacchi presided over the destruction of narcotic drugs in Iran, would the United Nations make any effort to ensure that it was indeed drugs that were being destroyed? asked a correspondent. There was no reason whatsoever to doubt the Government of Iran's intentions in this respect, replied Mr. Brandt. It was obviously very important for Iran, which had invited Mr. Arlacchi to participate in the ceremony. There was no reason not to believe what the Government was saying. He was sure that all the necessary verification was in place. The destruction of the drugs should be seen as a measure of the dedication and commitment of the Government of Iran to the fight against illicit narcotic drugs.

A correspondent posed a related question to Mr. Töpfer. Did he have any environmental thoughts about the effects of such a huge bonfire, and what would be the effect on people down wind of the fire? Mr. Töpfer replied that he had no serious information concerning that topic. The change of land use, however, was an environmental issue.

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