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, began today's noon briefing by welcoming the Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, Jayantha Dhanapala. He said the Under-Secretary-General had submitted his report on Albania, and on the question of small arms there, to the Secretary- General, who had reviewed and approved it. Copies had been made available to the Albanian Mission. Mr. Dhanapala would be talking about that and about the United Nations policy on coordinating action on small arms. Both the report and a document on the small arms policy were available in room 378.

The Secretary-General began his official visit to Brazil this morning, Mr. Eckhard said. Before the official start, he had a meeting with Mexico's Ambassador to Brazil, Jorge Eduardo Navarete, to discuss some confusion that arose over the Secretary-General's press conference here at Headquarters on Friday. In that connection, a statement was issued here this morning in English and in Spanish, stating that nothing the Secretary-General had said should be perceived as an offer to play a role in the resolution of the Chiapas issue. (See Press Release SG/SM/6636.)

The Secretary-General then met with President Fernando Cardoso of Brazil, being given a head of State reception, Mr. Eckhard said. They spent about an hour together. They discussed trouble spots such as Kosovo, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor and Angola, and the nuclear issue in South Asia. They discussed management of the global economy, the fight against drugs, Security Council reform and Brazil's relations with the United Nations. The President then signed instruments of ratification of both the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The Secretary-General witnessed that signature and accepted the instrument of ratification of the CTBT, for which the United Nations was the depository.

The Secretary-General then gave a speech at the Foreign Ministry on "The Culture of Peace". Copies of that were available in room 378, Mr. Eckhard said. (See Press Release SG/SM/6637.)

On Saturday, he continued, the Secretary-General had sent a letter to certain Member States, whose identities would remain confidential, who were participating in the Rome conference to establish an International Criminal Court. The letter urged them to work harder at reaching consensus during the five-week conference that would wrap on Friday. Copies of the letter were available.

The Security Council, Mr. Eckhard said, had several items on its agenda. It had before it the report of the Secretary-General recommending a two-month extension of the mandate of the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic (MINURCA). The current mandate would expire on Wednesday, 15 July.

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The Council had discussed the report of the Secretary-General's investigative team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Council was considering a draft presidential statement on the matter.

The Council then received two briefings from the Secretariat, Mr. Eckhard said. First, the Chief of the Policy Development and Advocacy Branch of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Barber, briefed the Council on Guinea-Bissau. He had just returned from a humanitarian mission to that region. Then, Francesc Vendrell, Director of the Asia and Pacific Division of the Political Affairs Department, briefed the Council on Cambodia.

Following the consultations, the Spokesman said, the Council was expected to convene a formal meeting to adopt a resolution establishing a United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone. That would be known as UNOMSIL. The objectives were described in the Secretary-General's 9 June report, and they included the monitoring of the military and security situations, as well as observation and assistance in disarmament and demobilization efforts.

UNOMSIL, if approved, would be the seventeenth peacekeeping mission now under way, Mr. Eckhard said. The last time there were 17 missions was from February to May 1997. That included the brief but successful demobilization mission in Guatemala. There had been 17 concurrent missions several times since late 1993. The peak deployment for the United Nations was 78,744 troops, in July 1993. The budget for peacekeeping at that time was over $3 billion. That compared with the current period of only 15,000 troops and a budget of less than $1 billion.

On Guinea-Bissau, Mr. Eckhard said, the Security Council humanitarian briefing by Mr. Barber came just two days after a humanitarian appeal was issued on Friday for $28.7 million to meet the needs of 350,000 people displaced by the conflict there.

On Western Sahara, the Secretary-General's report was out today, available in room 378, the Spokesman added. A high level of activity was reported in the identification process there. The total number of persons identified to vote in the referendum, which would enable the people of the Territory to choose between independence and integration with Morocco, was reported at 135,667.

The report stated that the substantial increase in the pace of identification in June and early July would, if sustained, enable MINURSO to complete during August the identification of applicants from all Saharan tribes, other than from those three that were still contested. The Secretary- General recommended that MINURSO's mandate be extended for a period of two months, until 21 September, the Spokesman said, adding that the Secretary- General intended to submit his next report by 15 September. If it then

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appeared the resettlement plan was no longer viable, the Secretary-General would include recommendations on the continued viability of MINURSO's mandate in the next report.

The Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances during its fifty-fourth session, occurring this week starting today, would review more than 189 cases brought to its attention since its November 1997 session, the Spokesman said. The Working Group, established in 1980 and meeting three times a year, twice in Geneva and once in New York, assisted relatives of disappeared persons in ascertaining their fate or whereabouts, and acted as a channel for communication between the families and the governments concerned. The Group also monitored States' compliance with obligations set up under the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, adopted by the General Assembly in 1992. (See Press Release HR/4375.)

A high-level delegation from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, led by Deputy High Commissioner Enrique Ter Horst, left Geneva on Saturday for Rwanda to open talks today with the Government of Rwanda on future cooperation in the field of human rights, Mr. Eckhard said. At the end of last month, the Government of Rwanda had decided to terminate the mandate of the human rights mission in Rwanda with a 30-day deadline for that mission to depart. The High Commissioner had then responded to the invitation of the Government to send a delegation to discuss the future human rights presence in Rwanda, stressing both the need for building national capacity in human rights as well as for continuous human rights monitoring.

Mr. Eckhard then said the humanitarian segment of the Economic and Social Council would include a round-table discussion taking place tomorrow, 14 July, in Conference Room 2, from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. That was open to the press and the public. The Secretary-General's representative on Internally Displaced Persons, Francis Deng, would open the discussion and present the newly published studies on the subject: "Masses in Flight, the Global Crisis of Internal Displacement"; and "The Forsaken People: Case Studies of the Internally Displaced". The presentation would be followed by remarks by several commentators and by an open discussion.

A press release was available in room 378 from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, dated Saturday 11 July, Mr. Eckhard said. It announced that four suspects and one accused were transferred to Arusha. It also contained a list of persons presently detained in Arusha, most of them reputed ringleaders of the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.

Finally, Mr. Eckhard said, there was a press release dated 13 July from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Nairobi and Khartoum, flagging the results of a series of nutritional surveys, which it conducted in 12 rebel-held locations in famine-hit Sudan. Despite the ongoing massive humanitarian assistance of Operation Lifeline Sudan, UNICEF said that more than 50 per cent of the children in the survey were found to be malnourished.

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In response to a correspondent's question, Mr. Eckhard then confirmed that the Secretary-General was returning to Headquarters (from Latin America) on 25 July. The correspondent noted that, in his public remarks, the Secretary-General had not tried to console the people of Brazil over their defeat to France yesterday in the World Cup Soccer Tournament. "He didn't cancel his trip", Mr. Eckhard observed. "He should have left the country", the correspondent commented.

Was there anything on the Jerusalem presidential statement in the Council, or plans regarding housing or anything like that? a correspondent asked. There was nothing from the Secretary-General, Mr. Eckhard replied.

To a correspondent who asked whether Rwanda had given any reason for the departure of the human rights mission from the country, Mr. Eckhard said he had not seen the text of the letter. Asked whether it was unusual to get a 30-day notice like that, Mr. Eckhard said the 30-day notice period was part of the contractual agreement. Once notified of the wish to terminate a mission, the United Nations had 30 days to shut down. As reflected in the statement, the High Commissioner was now interested in negotiating not only the building of national capacity for human rights monitoring, but also the ongoing monitoring of human rights in Rwanda by international observers.

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