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 saying today's guest at the briefing would be the Under-Secretary-General for Management, Joseph Connor, who would elaborate on the subject of "a check he had received". (Mr. Connor's briefing has been issued separately.)

The Security Council had met at 11:15 a.m., Mr. Eckhard then said. The Council had first been briefed on Afghanistan by the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi. The Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, who had been scheduled to brief in the morning session, had briefed in the afternoon. Given the late start of the Council's consultations on Afghanistan, Ambassador Brahimi would not be able to join the noon briefing and it was suggested that he be met at the stake-out position in front of the Council. The Special Envoy had also expressed a willingness to brief on background, which would have to take place in his office, although perhaps not until tomorrow. Correspondents could join the group briefing by contacting the Spokesman's Office.

Under "other matters", he continued, the Council was scheduled to be briefed on the situation in Tajikistan by the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hedi Annabi. That briefing was postponed until Thursday. This afternoon, the Council would be meeting for further consultations on a draft resolution concerning Iraq. Final action on that text was not expected today.

Mr. Eckhard then read a statement on Tajikistan, attributable to the Spokesman: "The Secretary-General is deeply concerned at reports from Tajikistan, according to which forces of a former Tajik officer have taken over parts of the Leninabad Province. The Security Council is being briefed this morning on these events. The Secretary-General is firmly opposed to this use of force and calls on all those concerned to pursue their aims by peaceful means. The peace process in Tajikistan must be safeguarded."

The mission to Tajikistan by a team of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, which had been announced last Friday, had been postponed due to the current security situation in that country. The two-week mission, scheduled to start next weekend, was aimed to assess the extent of opiates trafficking from Afghanistan and to assist the Tajik Government in strengthening border controls.

With regard to Hurricane Mitch, Mr. Eckhard said the World Food Programme (WFP), in a press release issued in Rome today, had announced that it would increase deliveries immediately after a country-by-country assessment of food needs was completed. The Pan American Health Organization, which was the regional office for the Americas of the World Health Organization (WHO),

Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 4 November 1998

had in Washington issued an urgent appeal for medical assistance for the victims of the Hurricane.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had been continuing efforts to mobilize the international community to assist an estimated 2.5 million people affected by the hurricane across Central America, Mr. Eckhard said. To help address an urgent need for rescue resources, OCHA, through its Military and Civil Defense Unit in Geneva, had asked potential donor countries to provide military and civil defence assets, particularly rescue boats and helicopters, to reach the isolated communities.

As a result, the Spokesman said, the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance/USA had allocated $750,000 to pay for helicopter flights. It had also made available disaster transportation, including delivery of relief supplies, and use of aircraft for disaster assessment and search and rescue operations. France had sent an initial team of 20 individuals, and a few other countries had also indicated the possibility of providing rescue boats.

The OCHA itself, Mr. Eckhard said, was preparing to send a selection of appropriate relief items to the affected area by airlift from its warehouse in Pisa, Italy. A commercially chartered plane with up to 55 tons of relief supplies was expected to leave Pisa on Friday for Honduras and Nicaragua. Contributions reported to OCHA so far had amounted to $5.51 million.

A press release on the subject from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) was available in room S-378, the Spokesman noted.

Mr. Eckhard then said the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, had presented her annual report to the General Assembly's Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) today, and for the first time that presentation had been followed by a dialogue. The session had been covered live by United Nations Television and the text of her presentation was available in room S-378.

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for both the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Louise Arbour, had issued a statement today, the Spokesman said. The statement had reaffirmed that the Prosecutor was required to conduct the investigation and prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law in Kosovo, which she had already articulated during her briefing with the press in New York last week.

In the statement issued today, the Spokesman added, Ms. Arbour had recalled that there had been protracted armed violence between Yugoslav authorities and organized armed groups in Kosovo throughout most of the year. "It is my position", Ms. Arbour had stated, "that an internal armed conflict has existed in Kosovo during 1998 and that the International Criminal Tribunal in the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has jurisdiction over persons committing serious violations of international humanitarian law during that conflict".

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The Spokesman said Ms. Arbour had cited the several Security Council resolutions supporting her position, and she had stated that there had been numerous allegations specific and credible enough to require further investigation. Those allegations had been in connection with willful killings, including a number of summary executions; with wanton destruction, including the use of disproportionate force and the causing of devastation not justified by military necessity; with attacks against civilians, including reprisals; and with the practice of plunder.

Mr. Eckhard said Justice Arbour was still planning to travel to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at the end of this week. However, the visa issue had not yet been resolved. The text of Ms. Arbour's statement was available in room S-378.

Also available there, Mr. Eckhard added, were two statements adopted by all members of the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC), which had concluded its semi-annual meeting at Headquarters in New York on Saturday. The first of those was an ACC Joint Statement on Africa and the second was the ACC Joint Statement on the Security and Safety of Staff of the United Nations System. Concerning security, ACC members had deplored attacks against United Nations staff and had noted that system-wide training from the United Nations Security Coordinator's Office would be extended to all duty stations early next year.

Mr. Eckhard said another press release available in room S-378 had been received from Sarajevo, from the Office of the High Representative for Implementation of the Peace Agreement on Bosnia and Herzegovina, Carlos Westendorp. It concerned a review of textbooks being carried out in Sarajevo under the supervision of the Sarajevo Education Group, which had become concerned over a campaign of disinformation being conducted by local media. The aim of the textbook review was to withdraw from schools those texts which contributed to ethnic hatred and intolerance.

Among the notable documents on the racks today, Mr. Eckhard said, was the report of the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Human Rights in Cambodia, Thomas Hammarberg (document A/53/400). Mr. Hammarberg would be at the noon briefing on Friday. Also on the racks was the report of the Working Group set up by the General Assembly to elaborate an international convention for the suppression of acts of nuclear terrorism (document A/C.6/53/L.4). That report provided details on the negotiation process and contained a draft anti-nuclear-terrorism treaty.

"And speaking of treaties", Mr. Eckhard said, a list of all the multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-General in document A/53/525 was also on the racks today. In addition, he continued, copies of the Status of Outstanding Contributions to the United Nations Regular Budget, International Tribunals and Peacekeeping Operations as at 31 October were

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available in room S-378, as was a reference copy of the Detailed Status of Contributions listing all peacekeeping operations.

The Spokesman said that at 11:15 a.m. tomorrow, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu, would be joined at a press conference in room S-226 by journalist Anna Cataldi, who just this week had been recognized as the seventh United Nations Messenger of Peace. They would discuss the plight of children affected by armed conflict.

An event of particular note in the Journal, Mr. Eckhard said, was a seminar entitled "accounting for gender in national budgets", organized by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM). That would take place this afternoon from 1:15 to 2:45 p.m.

In response to enquiries by correspondents, Mr. Eckhard clarified that the Secretary-General would leave on Friday morning for Paris en route to the Maghreb region of North Africa.

Referring to the report of relief shipments being transported from Pisa to Honduras, another correspondent asked whether the United Nations had any warehouses in Latin America. Mr. Eckhard said the main United Nations supply depot was in Pisa. He said he would double-check on which agencies had their own depots, and added that yesterday's announcement about agency activity in response to the hurricane had implied that some agencies had reserves in the region.

Jadranka Mihalic, spokesman for General Assembly President Didier Opertti (Uruguay), said that shortly before the noon briefing, the Assembly had adopted by consensus a draft resolution on dialogue among civilizations (document A/53/L.23/Rev.1), which had been introduced this morning by the Islamic Republic of Iran. There had been altogether ten speakers during the debate on the item.

Also this morning, Ms. Mihalic continued, the Acting President, Subhas Chandra Mungra (Suriname), had informed the plenary of the revised schedule of plenary meetings for the period from 10 November until 10 December. The schedule was available in document A/INF/53/3/Add.3. No plenary meetings were scheduled for the rest of this week and none for Monday. On Tuesday morning, the Assembly would take up the report of the Credentials Committee, the report of the Economic and Social Council and the issue of culture of peace.

Also this morning, the spokesman said, the 1998 United Nations pledging conference on development activities had opened and was scheduled to continue through tomorrow. At yesterday's United Nations/Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Pledging Conference for the World Food Programme, close to $350 million had been pledged. The outcome of today's pledging conference would, of course, be announced tomorrow.

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As for the work of the Main Committees, Ms. Mihalic said the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) had continued this morning to take action on the draft resolutions before it. So far today, it had taken action on three drafts: on the Convention on the Prohibition of Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction; on nuclear disarmament; and on the nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere and adjacent areas.

The Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), the spokesman said, was expected to conclude this afternoon the general discussion of the issue of the comprehensive review of the whole question of peacekeeping operations in all their aspects and then to take action on a draft resolution on the item, which was already before the Committee (document A/53/C.4/L.8). The Second Committee (Economic and Financial) would begin this afternoon its consideration of the issue of training and research, specifically the issue of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). It would then hold informal consultations with the Chairman of the Committee on the assessment of the Committee's work, and later, on a series of draft resolutions.

The Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural) had continued this morning its general discussion of human rights issues, including the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who had introduced the report and then opened a dialogue with the Committee, Ms. Mihalic said. In addition, the Committee was scheduled this morning to hear introductory statements by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iraq; on the elimination of all forms of religious intolerance; on the situation of human rights in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; and on the situation of human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

This afternoon, the spokesman continued, the Committee would hear introductory statements by the Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, Nigeria, and Haiti, as well as by the Special Rapporteurs on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions and on Internally Displaced Persons. Also, a number of draft resolutions were scheduled to be introduced in the Committee, including one on the promotion and protection of the rights of children (document A/53/C/.3/L.14/Rev.1), and two on the elimination of racism and racial discrimination (documents A/53/C.3/L.24 and L.25).

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) had continued this morning its general discussion of the United Nations common system and the United Nations pension system, Ms. Mihalic said. This afternoon, the Committee was scheduled to conclude informal consultations on programme planning. The Sixth Committee (Legal) was still continuing consideration of the report of the International Law Commission on its fiftieth session.

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