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, began today's press briefing by stating that the Office of the Spokesman had been getting questions between yesterday afternoon and this morning in connection with an earlier story in the Financial Times on the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and allegations about the mismanagement of funds within that agency. In answer to those questions, Mr. Brandt said he would make a statement on behalf of the Secretary-General.

He said the Secretary-General, who himself had personal experience in managing UNHCR's operations, was aware of the vastly complex context in which the Office must operate. He also understood that given the scope of operations, lapses could occur involving at times, persons who did not deserve the trust of the High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata. He had received the explanations provided by the UNHCR concerning the recent allegations of mismanagement which appeared in the Financial Times and was fully satisfied with them. The Secretary-General wished once again to reiterate his full confidence in the management of Mrs. Ogata. He was also aware that Governments shared his confidence in her.

Mr. Brandt informed correspondents that the Security Council was not holding any meetings today. On Monday, it was expected to address the issues raised in two letters sent earlier this week to its President, the Permanent Representative of Slovenia, Danilo Turk, by the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission on the disposal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (UNSCOM), Richard Butler, and the Chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei.

Mr. Brandt then gave correspondents the latest update in the situation of United Nations colleagues in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. He did not think that there would be another update anytime soon. Five staff members suffered injuries during the blast last week. Most of those injuries were described as non-life threatening, minor bruises and cuts. The staff members had now apparently fully recovered. The Spokesman's Office was very sad to inform correspondents, however, that the wife of a medical doctor, who was a World Health Organization (WHO) staff member, died during one of the blasts.

Continuing, Mr. Brandt said that one of the United Nations facilities, located at downtown Nairobi suffered minor damages with mostly windows being shattered. However, in Dar es Salaam, another United Nations office appeared to have suffered significant structural damages. The extent of those damages was being assessed.

Regarding questions in the morning about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mr. Brandt said the Spokesman's Office had seen some conflicting

stories about whether United Nations staff was being evacuated or not, and what phase had been implemented. The latest information available was that the Organization had six staff members in Kinshasa, was still on Phase 4 and that no evacuation had been planned for the time being. Things were being looked into so as to be able to move quickly into another phase if required.

Mr. Brandt said that UNHCR briefing notes available in the Spokesman's Office had information on Guinea-Bissau and northern Albania. Regarding the latter, a large group of refugees crossed into that region from Kosovo yesterday. UNHCR had so far registered 320 people and provided them with food and shelter. Today the agency continued to identify the new arrivals. Up to 500 people had managed to cross yesterday. The refugees said that thousands of people were still hiding in the mountains.

The Spokesman's Office also had a press release from the International Criminal Tribunals, Mr. Brandt said. In Arusha, in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the following cases were scheduled for next Monday, 17 August. Before Trial Chamber 1 there would be the initial appearance of Alphonse Nteziryayo, a former Commanding Officer of the military police and later prefect of Butare, in Rwanda. Trial Chamber 2 would resume the joint trial of Clement Kayishema former Bourgmestre (mayor) of Kibuye and Obed Ruzindana, a former businessman in the same Rwandan prefecture.

Continuing, Mr. Brandt said that in The Hague, in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the trial of Zoran Kupreskic, Mirjan Kupreskic, Drago Josipvic, Dragan Papic, and Vladimir Santic would start on Monday morning. The six accused pleaded not guilty to the charges related to their illegal involvements as members of the armed forces of the Croatian community of Herceg-Bosna (HVO) into the attacks in 1993 on towns and villages of the Vitez-Ahmici area in central Bosnia. More was available in a press release in Room S-378.

"Thank you very much Barbados", said Mr. Brandt. Today that country made a payment of $82,131 to the United Nations regular budget becoming the eighty-sixth Member States to pay its contributions in full. The overall outstanding contributions was over $2.7 billion, out of which over $0.8 billion was outstanding for the regular budget, over $1.8 billion outstanding for peacekeeping operations and under $0.1 billion outstanding for international tribunals.

Mr. Brandt said that the Media Officer for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jose-Luis Diaz, said today in Geneva that Jacob Selebi (South Africa), the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights, had sent the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, a list of the newly appointed special rapporteurs and independent experts he had appointed following the meeting this week of the Commission's bureau. The list would be available in the Spokesman's Office later on.

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On the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mr. Diaz said that the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Kinshasa had received many reports of harassment and physical abuse of citizens, apparently based on their ethnic origin or their physical appearance, Mr. Brandt went on to say. The office also continued to receive reports from people looking for their relatives or others who had been arbitrarily detained since the beginning of the conflict. The office in Kinshasa was trying to follow up on those reports as much as possible given the circumstances.

Mr. Brandt said that Bolivia this morning ratified the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction. The Convention was opened for signature in Paris on January 1993 and entered into force on April 1997. The number of ratifications was now 114 with 165 countries having signed the Convention to date.

The annual flood season in China proved to be particularly devastating this year, Mr. Brandt told correspondents. Continuous rains since March had caused flooding in vast areas of the central and southeast parts of the country. The four hardest hit provinces were Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan and Fujian. Starting with its first situation report on 9 June, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had been regularly providing updated information to the international community. Most recently, situation report no. 6 was issued on 7 August, which reported the astonishing figures of 240 million people affected, 13.8 million people evacuated, 5.6 million housing units collapsed, 12.1 million housing units damaged, and 21.5 million hectares of crops adversely affected. More than 2,000 people had reportedly been killed. The overall damage so far had been estimated at $4.8 billion.

The Chinese Government, although it had not launched an appeal for international assistance, indicated that it would welcome voluntary contributions to support flood victims, Mr. Brandt continued. The Office had released OCHA and Norwegian grants, totalling $100,000. Furthermore, OCHA offered to field a United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team to assist in relief coordination and resource mobilization. Through the United Nations resident coordinator in Beijing, OCHA would continue to closely monitor the developments and try to provide as much assistance as possible.

Mr. Brandt told correspondents the report of the Secretary-General on the proposed programme budget outline for the biennium 2000-2001 was now available on the racks. The preliminary indicative estimates for the biennium 2000-2001 amount to a total of $2.468 billion.

Referring to the statement read out earlier about the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), a correspondent said it seemed that one or more people had violated a trust and asked Mr. Brandt if he had any more details. He said that as he had stated on behalf of the Secretary- General earlier, it seemed that as a result of some people's actions regarding that particular situation, they did not deserve Mrs. Ogata's trust. That had been made clear in the earlier statement on the issue. He had no other information on the matter.

A correspondent asked if he had any comments on The Washington Post

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story about Mr. Butler receiving instructions from Washington regarding the actions of the UNSCOM inspectors. He replied by saying that correspondents, by now, must have seen the statement that UNSCOM had issued and which was put out on the counter in the Spokesman's Office and basically denied any such allegations. Mr. Brandt said that he had nothing else to add to the matter.

Regarding the UNHCR charges which were very specific, a correspondent wanted to know whether the Secretary-General could give a "blanket blessing" on the issue without ordering an investigation. Mr. Brandt said that it was not for the Secretary-General of the United Nations to give any "blanket blessing". Whatever investigations had been initiated would continue and would be concluded. Whatever correctives were required would be introduced and made. The UNHCR had its own systems and procedures and its administration would take care of those issues. What needed to be stressed in the present context was that Mrs. Ogata enjoyed the full trust and confidence of the Secretary-General who was uniquely positioned to look into the matter and to talk from his own personal experience in managing issues concerned with UNHCR. He was aware of just how difficult the operations of that agency were and wanted to stress his support for Mrs. Ogata.

Asked if the results of the investigation would be made public, Mr. Brandt said that would depend on UNHCR. He believed that at the beginning of last week, the agency had come out with a set of answers that were given to Financial Times and other media outlets. That investigation, if there was a need for one, would be continued and whatever measures that were necessary would be taken. Mr. Brandt then handed the briefing over to the spokesman for the President of the General Assembly, Alex Taukatch. Referring to a request made at the noon briefing earlier this week to have the Assembly spokesman attend the briefing, Mr. Taukatch said that he was gratified to know that there was such keen interest in the work of the Assembly and its President, Hennadiy Udovenko (Ukraine). Mr. Taukatch said that he had not been hiding but had accompanied the President on an official trip to Lebanon. He noted that the media in Lebanon was extremely active and very interested in the President's trip to which they gave extensive coverage. After the return from that visit, Mr. Udovenko became involved in important preparatory work for the final stage of the fifty-second session of the Assembly. Mr. Taukatch said that this afternoon the President was hosting a working luncheon in honour of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Uruguay, Didier Opertti. He recalled that the Group of Latin American and Caribbean

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States had decided to nominate Mr. Opertti as its candidate for the Presidency of the fifty-third session of the Assembly. Mr. Udovenko met with Mr. Opertti earlier this week. Today they would continue their discussions on issues related to the work of the Assembly. The Office of the President was working closely with the Uruguayan Mission to ensure that there would be a smooth transition of the presidency and in helping out in any way that it could. Mr. Taukatch said that in connection with Uruguay, the Assembly President was also invited to go to that country to participate in what was called the Distinguished Lecture Series and to present a lecture on the future of the United Nations. Unfortunately, due to medical reasons, Mr. Udovenko would not be able to make that trip. He was, however, contributing his statement on that matter to the seminar, which would be held in Uruguay next week. Under other matters, Mr. Taukatch said the Assembly President was now reviewing the report of the working group on Security Council reform. That group was scheduled to hold its final meeting on 24 August. Mr. Taukatch said it was possible, although he could not vouch for it, that on the same day the General Assembly could meet in plenary to adopt that group's report. The report itself would probably be available towards the end of next week. In conclusion, Mr. Taukatch said the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) on Monday would begin the third part of its resumed fifty-second session. He drew correspondents' attention to document A/C.5/52/L.57 that contained the Committee's programme of work on items such as human resources management, review of the efficiency of the administrative and financial functioning of the United Nations, the Joint Inspection Unit, and the report of the Secretary-General on the activities of the Office of Internal Oversight Services. The Committee was expected to conclude its work on Friday, 21 August. A correspondent then paid tribute to Mr. Brandt's many years of very close work with the press and wished him a lot of luck in his new appointment in Australia, Director of the United Nations Information Centre there. On behalf of the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA), its President, Ted Morello, then made a farewell presentation to the Senior Associate Spokesman. He told all present that "this is the last time you will have to kick Juan Carlos around", as this briefing was his last before he left for Australia. Mr. Brandt said if he had learned anything about the job that he had held for the last 10 years it was that "a spokesman should not call attention to oneself". They were there to speak on behalf of their boss. It was not the spokesman who was important -- it was the story and what the boss wanted him or her to say. He had been privileged to have served under three Secretaries-General and to have worked with such a "great bunch of people at Headquarters". "I will miss them all", he added. * *** *