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 noting that the Secretary-General had begun the final day of his working visit to Algeria with a visit to the Senate, where he had met with the Senate President, Bachir Boumaza and other members. He had then met with the President of Algeria, Liamine Zeroual, for about an hour before attending a luncheon hosted in his honour by the President. Before leaving Algiers, the Secretary-General had held a press conference, the transcript of which would be made available in room S-378 as soon as received.

The Secretary-General would travel to Tunisia in the late afternoon (Algeria time), Mr. Almeida e Silva continued. He was expected to be met at the Tunis airport by Foreign Minister Said Ben Mustapha.

Mr. Almeida e Silva then said the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) had confirmed this morning that multinational Stabilization Force (SFOR) troops in the United States sector in Bosnia and Herzegovina had detained Radislav Krstic, indicted by the Prosecutor on 30 October and accused of genocide committed during and after the fall of the United Nations safe-area of Srebrenica in his capacity as Commander of the Drina Corps of the Bosnian Serb army. Arrangements were being made to transfer the accused to the seat of the ICTY in The Hague. A press release from ICTY, available in room S-378, contained further details on the significant arrest.

"Even as we speak", the Deputy Spokesman said, the Security Council was starting a meeting for consultations. The Council would first discuss its programme of work for the month of December and would then take up Angola. The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Bernard Miyet, was scheduled to update the Council on the situation in Angola. A draft resolution was expected to be circulated today with a view to formal action tomorrow, since the current mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in Angola (MONUA) would expire then.

The Secretary-General's annual report to the General Assembly and the Security Council on Afghanistan would be released as a document today, Mr. Almeida e Silva said. In his report, the Secretary-General had said that Afghanistan, once a flashpoint of superpower rivalry, had now become the stage for a new, regional struggle for power in which the domestic, economic and national security interests of its neighbours and their supporters were being played out. While noting the usefulness of the Six-Plus-Two forum to discuss the Afghan issue, the Secretary-General had said he was "somewhat disappointed by the "failure of some of those countries to narrow their differences and cease supplying weapons and other war material that fuel the conflict in Afghanistan".

Further, Mr. Almeida e Silva said the Secretary-General in his report had welcomed the success of his Special Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, in defusing a possible military confrontation between Iran and the Taliban during his visit to the region. The Secretary-General had also called on Iran and the Taliban to open a bilateral dialogue at an early date with a view to further reducing tensions, particularly along the border. In addition, the Secretary-General had proposed the establishment of a civil affairs unit having a monitoring function within the United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA). The primary objective of the unit would be to promote respect for minimum humanitarian standards and deter massive and systematic violations of human rights in the future. The Security Council was expected to take up the Secretary-General's report next Tuesday.

The Deputy Spokesman then said the Executive Director of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) in Iraq, Richard Butler, had gone to Paris today and would travel to Moscow on Thursday where, at the invitation of the respective governments, he would hold consultations regarding the work of UNSCOM. Mr. Butler was scheduled to return to New York on Saturday, 5 December.

Today, unfortunately, some bad news had arrived from the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), Mr. Almeida e Silva said. One Pakistani soldier had been killed and another severely wounded last night in a road accident apparently caused by a burst tire. The accident had occurred at a location about 106 kilometres north of Dakhla. The families of the soldiers were being notified.

This afternoon, Mr. Almeida e Silva continued, the Deputy Secretary-General was scheduled to meet with the United States Chairman of the Congressional Appropriations Committee, Congressman Harold Rogers, at his request. This evening, Deputy Secretary-General Fréchette was scheduled to address the Cosmopolitan Club in New York on the United Nations perspective regarding global concerns. The full text of Mrs. Fréchette's address was available in room S-378.

A message of the Secretary-General for Human Rights Day which this year commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to be celebrated 10 December, had been issued and was on the racks today, Mr. Almeida e Silva said. "Knowing the power of human wrong, we reaffirm our faith in human right", the Deputy Spokesman said, quoting the Secretary-General, and adding that the Secretary-General had gone on to say the "faith in human right" would ultimately sustain humanity through its darkest hours and help defend human rights where most imperilled. The challenge was "to make every day matter in the fight to broaden the horizons of human rights", the Secretary-General had continued, "until that day when no man is tortured, no woman abused and no child denied dignity -- when all human beings enjoy their human rights".

Also, Mr. Almeida e Silva said, today was the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. In his message to mark the occasion, the Secretary-General had said that slavery-like practices were still a grave and persistent global problem. He had cited such slavery-like forms of human

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rights violations as bonded labour, trafficking in women and the forced conscription of children into military service. Governments bore the primary responsibility for eradicating contemporary forms of slavery, the Deputy Spokesman said the Secretary-General had stated. However, since official action alone was not enough, the Secretary-General had called for civil society to do its part by "pressing governments to act, conducting consumer campaigns and raising public awareness". The full text of the Secretary-General's message had been issued as Press Release SG/SM/6814.

The Conference of Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO) would hold a celebration of its fiftieth anniversary tomorrow, Mr. Almeida e Silva said. The celebration entitled, "CONGO at 50: A Reaffirmation of Commitment" would be held from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Conference Room 1. The Deputy Secretary-General would be the keynote speaker while representatives of the United Nations, NGOs and Member States would speak on such issues as United Nations-NGO partnerships in the twenty-first century, NGO contributions to United Nations processes and principles, and experiences with CONGO. All were welcome to the celebration sponsored by the United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI). Copies of a backgrounder on CONGO and a programme for the event were now available on the racks.

Mr. Almeida e Silva then noted another event to take place tomorrow. From 1:15 to 2:45 p.m. in Conference Room 4, there would be a panel discussion on "independent living and life cycle approaches to sustainable and secure livelihoods of persons with disabilities". Sponsored by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the panel discussion would be part of the observance of the 1998 International Day of Disabled Persons. As a reminder, the Deputy Spokesman said, persons with disabilities worldwide now numbered more than 10 per cent of the world's total population. Most disabled people were poor and lived in areas where needed services were unavailable.

The United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) had announced that Human Rights Watch would release its annual report and would brief correspondents tomorrow at 11 a.m. in the UNCA Club, Mr. Almeida e Silva said. Also, at 5:30 p.m. tomorrow in the UNCA Club, the Cyprus Mission would sponsor a Mediterranean-cuisine reception to honour UNCA veterans on the occasion of UNCA's fiftieth anniversary.

Finally, Mr. Almeida e Silva said, the spokesman for the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), Sandro Tucci, had just sent word announcing the completion of a five-day visit to Tajikistan as part of the ongoing UNDCP mission in that country. The visit had been undertaken to assess the needs of the Tajik Government and of Russian border guards for strengthening border control at the Tajik-Afghan border. The assessment team had visited sites at the border itself and had held discussions with border guards, senior government officials and representatives of other law enforcement agencies in developing an assessment of overall needs. The team

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had also held meetings with government representatives in Dushanbe prior to finalizing a project document that would form the basis of a UNDCP project.

A correspondent said reports were circulating in North Africa and the Middle East that the Secretary-General would be travelling to Libya. Asked to give some indication of whether the Secretary-General would travel to Libya from Tunisia, Mr. Almeida e Silva said he had seen the same reports and the transcript of the Secretary-General's press conference earlier today in Algiers would indicate, once it arrived, that the trip was a possibility but could not be confirmed at this point.

Another correspondent recalled a recent report in the New York Observer in which the Secretary-General was said to have asked New York City Mayor Rudolf Giuliani how Donald Trump had managed to get a permit to build a 90-story tower. "How does the Secretary-General feel about a 90-story building being put up across the street?" the correspondent asked.

Mr. Almeida e Silva said the Secretary-General in a casual conversation with the Mayor during a social event had mentioned the new building in the midst of a range of topics the two had discussed. The conversation had not gone beyond the level of the interest of any neighbour in a new project.

Another correspondent pointed out that there were questions about whether the tower would create a security risk for the United Nations and whether it would overshadow the United Nations garden. "You say the Secretary-General is interested in the tower as any neighbour would be, but what are the Secretary-General's real feelings about having that tower go up?" the correspondent pressed and Mr. Almeida e Silva said the Secretary-General was not familiar with details of the project and that his interest was that of a neighbour interested in an important neighbourhood project.

Jadranka Mihalic, spokesman for General Assembly President Didier Opertti (Uruguay) said that this morning the plenary was hearing the remaining 11 speakers in the debate of the situation in the Middle East. The representatives of Qatar and Egypt had introduced draft resolutions A/53/L.52 and L.53. (The latter included the corrigenda in the English, Spanish and Russian versions.) The Assembly was expected to take action on the drafts, as well as on the four drafts on the question of Palestine (document A/53/L.48-51).

Results of the General Assembly vote on the question of the Middle East came in during the course of the briefing, and Ms. Mihalic announced that the resolution A/53/52 on Jerusalem had received 149 votes in favour to one against with seven abstentions. The result of the vote on L.53 and its corrigendum had been 97 in favour, two against and 58 abstentions.

In addition, Ms. Mihalic said, it had been announced in the plenary this morning that the reports of the First Committee would be considered by the

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plenary in the morning rather than afternoon of 4 December, while agenda item 160 on the global implications of the year 2000 date conversion problem of computers would now be considered on Monday, 7 December. The latest tentative schedule of the plenary was contained in document A/INF/53/3/Add.4, now available. The Assembly had also agreed this morning that in view of the large number of speakers already inscribed for the observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (102 Member States and four Observers), statements would be limited to five minutes.

This afternoon, the Assembly would observe the fiftieth anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the spokesman said. A representative of Armenia would introduce the draft resolution on that item contained in document A/53/L.47, and 16 other speakers were to address the Assembly on the item. Tomorrow morning, the plenary would hold open-ended informal consultations in a closed meeting on agenda item 30, United Nations reform: measures and proposals, concentrating on the preparations for the Millennium Assembly. Tomorrow afternoon, the plenary would consider the reports of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee and the Ad Hoc Committee of the General Assembly for the Announcement of Voluntary Contributions to UNRWA would meet in the morning.

This morning, Ms Mihalic added, the Open-Ended Working Group on the Question of Equitable Representation On and Increase in the Membership of the Security Council and Other Matters Related to the Security Council had held its first organizational meeting at the current session, appointing the Permanent Representatives of Sri Lanka and Sweden as its Vice-Chairmen.

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) was the only Main Committee still continuing its work at the current session, Ms. Mihalic said. The Committee would hold informal consultations this morning, this afternoon and this evening on a series of draft resolutions before it.

In response to a question, Ms. Mihalic then clarified that the report of the Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization) would be considered tomorrow afternoon in the plenary while the report of the First Committee (Disarmament and International Security) would be considered on Friday morning rather than Friday afternoon.

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