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 informing correspondents that Richard Butler, the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission monitoring the disposal of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (UNSCOM), would address them after he had concluded his briefing.

The Security Council today had been briefed by the Assistant Secretary- General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hedi Annabi, on the interim report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Rwanda, Mr. Eckhard said. The purpose of that Commission was to investigate the illegal sale, supply and shipment of arms to the former Rwandan government forces and militias in the Great Lakes region. The Commission was reserving its conclusions and recommendations to the Security Council for its final report, which was due before the end of November this year.

Mr. Eckhard said the Council had been briefed on Somalia by the Department of Political Affairs. It had then taken up the Lockerbie Pan Am flight 103 bombing case. A draft resolution had been introduced on Tuesday by the United States and the United Kingdom for a Scottish trial of the bombing suspects, to be held in the Netherlands.

On the election of judges for the third trial chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the Spokesman said the Council would be voting this morning by secret ballot to select candidates for election by the General Assembly. Each member could vote for up to nine candidates. A minimum of six and a maximum of nine candidates who received nine votes or more would be eligible for election by the Assembly. At 3:30 p.m. today, the Council was expected to adopt a resolution indicating those names to be forwarded to the Assembly, which would then elect three judges for the new trial chamber. A fact sheet on that process was available.

Mr. Eckhard said his Office had just learned that the United Tajik Opposition leadership had confirmed to the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) today that three suspects were being held by the opposition field commander in connection with the killing of four United Nations staff on 20 July. The three suspects, whose names were not given, were being held in Tavildara in the vicinity of where the murders had taken place.

On Guinea-Bissau, the Secretary-General welcomed yesterday's signing of an agreement in Cape Verde between the Government of Guinea-Bissau and the self-proclaimed junta, the Spokesman went on to say. The agreement reaffirmed the ceasefire and the memorandum of understanding that had been agreed upon between them on 26 July. The Secretary-General noted that the meeting between the two sides to the conflict had been held under the joint auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Community of the Portuguese-Speaking Countries. He hoped that those two groups would continue their joint efforts to help achieve lasting peace in Guinea-Bissau.

Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 27 August 1998

Mr. Eckhard said the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that an eight-truck UNHCR-led convoy carrying food parcels for 3,000 families had been turned back at a checkpoint by Serbian police at Slatina outside Pristina earlier today. According to the UNHCR, it was the first action of its kind. The convoy, carrying enough food to feed between 15,000 and 20,000 people for one month, had been destined for the Decane area in western Kosovo. The UNHCR had expressed concern and the hope that today's action was a freak incident.

The Spokesman said that the UNHCR was assisting more than 230,000 people driven from their homes in the Kosovo conflict. Among the 170,000 people displaced inside Kosovo, 50,000 were on the move without shelter in isolated pockets difficult to reach by aid workers.

There was a note available from the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs on the Cuban drought, he went on to say. The note appealed to the international community for support to overcome the consequences of the drought. Also available was a press release from the World Food Programme (WFP) issued today in Jakarta, announcing the WFP's return to Indonesia to assist 5.3 million people hit hard by drought and economic crisis in that country.

Mozambique had ratified the Convention on the Prohibition of Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, the Spokesman said. That brought the number of ratifying countries to 33; 40 were needed for the Convention to enter into force.

Most correspondents had probably seen the letter of resignation of UNSCOM inspector William S. Ritter, Mr. Eckhard said. In that letter, Mr. Ritter expressed his disapproval of a number of institutions, including the United Nations Secretary-General. Mr. Eckhard said he would like to address the points Mr. Ritter had made in connection with the Secretary- General.

"First, where he said that the Secretary-General acted at the behest of Iraq, I think you all know the Secretary-General well enough to know that he is a consensus builder by nature, and he doesn't act at the behest of any Member State", the Spokesman said. It was equally untrue and unfair to characterize the Secretary-General's proposal for a comprehensive review of the disarmament efforts in Iraq as equivalent to "investigating the investigators". The Secretary-General had offered that proposal, not to distract from the Council's disarmament objectives, but to strengthen the consensus in favour of them".

"Finally", the Spokesman said, "to accuse any Secretary-General of being a sounding board for Member States' complaints is to deny him one of his primary functions. I think that is part of his job description."

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