DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by extending a welcome to all after the short Thanksgiving holiday and stating he would start his first briefing with news of the Secretary-General, who had arrived in Algiers from Paris in the afternoon on Sunday, 29 November, and had been greeted by Algerian Foreign Minister Ahmed Attaf.

While still in Paris on Saturday, Mr. Almeida e Silva continued, the Secretary-General had attended the closing session of the Franco-African Summit, where he had brought together the parties in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for what the Secretary-General had described as "frank and useful" discussions. With the assistance of the Secretary- General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Salim A. Salim, and French President, Jacques Chirac, the Secretary-General had urged the parties to conclude a ceasefire agreement. In the end, the parties had found common ground, agreeing that they wanted the war to end through political agreement and deciding on a cessation of hostilities leading to a ceasefire, since all stated their awareness of the urgent need for a political solution. A ceasefire was expected to be signed within the next two weeks or so.

Mr. Almeida e Silva said the Secretary-General this morning had flown to Tindouf in western Algeria, where the Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (POLISARIO) was headquartered, where Western Saharan refugees were and where the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) had its base. After visiting the MINURSO premises and addressing the staff, the Secretary-General had taken a helicopter to the refugee camp at Smara, where he had been greeted by the Secretary-General of the POLISARIO, Mohamed Abdelaziz. For nearly an hour, the two Secretaries- General had met one-on-one, after which Secretary-General Annan had met with sheiks or leaders of families and clans from the refugee camps, who had expressed their frustration with delays in the peace process, but who had pledged to continue cooperating with it.

After a lunch hosted by Secretary-General Abdelaziz, Mr. Annan was scheduled to hold a press conference prior to his return to Algiers via Tindouf, the Deputy Spokesman said. The Secretary-General would remain in Algiers tonight and tomorrow, where he would hold meetings with the Foreign Minister and Prime Minister of Algeria. While in Algiers, the Secretary- General was also expected to inaugurate the United Nations House.

Meanwhile here in New York, Mr. Almeida e Silva said, the Security Council this morning had received a briefing from the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Kieran Prendergast, on his recent visit to east Africa regarding the Sudan and Somalia. Consultations had begun at 11:30 a.m., since the Council President had attended a meeting of the Committee on the Exercise

of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. And, as announced last Friday, a senior United Nations official would give a background briefing at 3:30 p.m. today in room S-226 on the situations in the Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea/Ethiopia.

On Saturday, the Deputy Spokesman continued, the United Nations had received from the Government of Iraq the distribution plan for the oil-for-food programme authorized by Security Council resolution 1210 adopted on 24 November. The annexes containing the detailed lists of food, medicine and other supplies to be purchased under the programme had been given to the Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad and sent on to United Nations Headquarters electronically. "The 1,500 pages are in the process of being printed out today", the Deputy Spokesman stated, adding that the procedure now was for the Office of the Iraqi Programme to study the distribution plan and send it by week's end to the Secretary-General for his consideration, since the plan required his approval to take effect. The regular weekly update from the Office of the Iraqi Programme was expected to become available this afternoon.

In a statement attributable to the Spokesman, the Secretary-General had welcomed the formation of the new coalition government in Cambodia today, with Samdech Hun Sen as its Prime Minister, Mr. Almeida e Silva said. The Secretary-General had also said he looked forward to the early completion of the process establishing a Senate, in accordance with the agreement reached earlier between the Cambodian People's Party and the National Unified Front for an Independent, Peaceful, Neutral and Cooperative Cambodia, the FUNCINPEC party. Further, the Secretary-General had taken the opportunity to extend his sincere wishes to the Royal Government and the Cambodian people on the auspicious occasion, and had expressed his desire to see Cambodia "resume its full role in the family of nations".

The Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Louise Arbour, had written a letter to the President of the Security Council dated 27 November on the issue of visas for travel to Kosovo, Mr. Almeida e Silva said. In the letter, Ms. Arbour had recalled that the authorities in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had offered to issue visas imposing the condition that "no member of the Prosecutor's team would be allowed to enter Kosovo for investigatory purposes". In response, Ms. Arbour had taken the position that she could not accept such restrictions, which effectively prevented the Office of the Prosecutor from performing its mandated duties. The letter was available as document S/1998/1124.

Yesterday, 29 November, had marked the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and it was being observed at Headquarters today, in part by the 10:30 a.m. meeting mentioned earlier in connection with the participation of the Security Council President, Mr. Almeida e Silva said. The Secretary-General, in his message on the occasion, had said the recent Wye River Memorandum signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization

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had been an encouraging development. The Secretary-General had expressed the earnest hope that the agreement would be fully implemented, paving the way for negotiations to resume on all tracks, and he had also appealed to the parties "not to be swayed by incidents of violence perpetrated by those opposed to the peace process". Rather, he had said, the parties should redouble efforts in pursuit of a lasting solution to the conflict.

The full text of the Secretary-General's message was out in Press Release SG/SM/6808, the Deputy Spokesman said. And, as a reminder, all were invited to attend the opening this evening of an exhibit in observance of the Day entitled "Bethlehem 2000" at 6 p.m. in the Public Lobby of the General Assembly Building.

Mr. Almeida e Silva then said that in a press release issued today by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, or UNAIDS, its Executive Director, Peter Piot, had warned of an "unprecedented emergency" in southern Africa. The remarks had been made in Johannesburg on the eve of World AIDS Day. Both the press release and a fact sheet about AIDS in Africa, also issued by UNAIDS, were available in room S-378.

Still on AIDS, Mr. Almeida e Silva said World AIDS Day would be observed at Headquarters tomorrow in a programme co-sponsored by the Department of Public Information (DPI) and the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR), in association with UNAIDS. The programme would begin at 10:30 a.m. in the Economic and Social Council Chamber. The Deputy Secretary-General, Louise Fréchette, and the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Kensaku Hogen, would be participants. Le Monde correspondent Afsane Bassir Pour would moderate a panel discussion on, "Youth: A Force for Change". Panellists would include: the Chairman of AmFAR's Campaign for AIDS Research, actress Sharon Stone; New York UNAIDS representative James Carmichael; United Nations International School (UNIS) student Lila Gollogly; and Candido Gonzalez, a person living with HIV/AIDS. All were invited to attend.

Available today in room S-378, Mr. Almeida e Silva said, was a list of meetings being held in Brussels by the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara Otunnu.

"Also, today was a good day for international justice", the Deputy Spokesman announced, adding that five countries had today signed the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Those new signatories were Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Lesotho, Tajikistan and the United Kingdom. To date, 61 countries had signed the Court's Statute and there were as yet no ratifications, of which 60 were needed for the Statute to enter into force. A list of the countries that had signed the Rome Statute was available in room S-378.

In response to a question, Mr. Almeida e Silva confirmed that 60 ratifications were needed for the Statute to enter into force and that, as of

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yet, only signatures had been rendered, numbering 61. The correspondent then asked if there were any indications the Secretary-General could continue his trip and go on to Libya, to which the Deputy Spokesman said there was no new information and no confirmation on that plan.

In response to a series of questions from a number of correspondents on the Secretary-General bringing Mr. Kabila together with rebels involved in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mr. Almeida e Silva said he had no further information on that. In response to a correspondent's recollection of a New York Times article quoting rebel leaders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo stating they knew nothing of a ceasefire agreement, the Deputy Spokesman reconfirmed that the Secretary-General had met with parties who had been in Paris at the time, while no details were available with regard to other meetings or contacts.

Asked whether the Secretary-General had expressed any further view of consular immunities as related to the case of Chilean General Pinochet in the United Kingdom, Mr. Almeida e Silva referred to the statement made by the Spokesman last week in which he said that the case showed a development in international law and in humanitarian law, indicating how those were evolving. The Secretary-General encouraged Member States to sign the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Jadranka Mihalic, spokesman for General Assembly President Didier Opertti (Uruguay), said this morning the President had delivered an address at the solemn meeting of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in observance of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The address was available as a press release in English and Spanish.

Also this morning, the plenary had considered the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ms. Mihalic said. The representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina had introduced a draft resolution on the item, contained in document A/53/L.55. Later in the debate, he had also introduced some oral revisions that had resulted from ongoing informal consultations. Eleven other speakers had been inscribed in the list. As a second item of the morning, the Assembly was scheduled to take up the report of the Fifth Committee on the report of the Economic and Social Council. The last item of the morning would be the report of the Fifth Committee regarding the scale of assessments for the apportionment of expenses of the United Nations, which was in connection with requests from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Congo and Iraq for exemption from application of Article 19 of the Charter.

Also this morning, the spokesman said it had been announced that the Assembly would consider: the reports of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee and the report on agenda item 18 (Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples) on 3 December in the afternoon; the reports of the First Committee on Friday, 4 December in the afternoon; the reports of the Sixth Committee on Tuesday, 8 December in the

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afternoon; and the reports of the Third Committee on Wednesday, 9 December in the afternoon. On 4 December in the morning, the Assembly would consider agenda item 160 related to the problem of computer conversion in the year 2000 (global implications of the Year 2000 date conversion problem of computers).

This afternoon the Assembly would take up consideration of the Question of Palestine, Ms. Mihalic said. A report of the Secretary-General and the report of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People were before the Assembly, along with four draft resolutions contained in documents A/53/L.48-51, which concern the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the Division on Palestinian Rights, the special information programme on Palestine in DPI, and the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine. So far, 26 speakers had been inscribed to address the Assembly on the item, and its consideration would continue tomorrow morning.

Also tomorrow, Ms. Mihalic said, the Assembly would consider the situation in the Middle East. There would be two reports of the Secretary- General before the Assembly and two draft resolutions, one on the situation in the Middle East: Syrian Golan (document A/53/L.53) and one on Jerusalem (document A/53/L.52). So far, 25 delegations had been inscribed to address the Assembly on the item.

Ms. Mihalic then said that the General Committee would meet tomorrow morning to consider adding an item to the agenda for the session, on observer status in the General Assembly for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, proposed by the Dominican Republic. It would also consider the allocation of the item concerning armed aggression against the Democratic Republic of the Congo (agenda item 167).

As for the Main Committees, Ms. Mihalic said the Second Committee would hold informal consultations this afternoon and was scheduled to complete its work at the current session tomorrow afternoon. The Fifth Committee had a full agenda today with morning, afternoon and evening meetings scheduled. This morning, the Committee was considering: the Secretary-General's tenth progress report on the Integrated Management Information System; procurement reform and outsourcing; reports of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) on human resources management; and financing of the International Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Starting in the late morning, the Fifth Committee would hold informal consultations on a series of items before it, which would continue into the afternoon and evening.

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