DAILY BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, began today's noon briefing by announcing that the Security Council was having consultations today on the situations in Sierra Leone, Angola and Kosovo. Council members would be briefed by the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, Hedi Annabi, on developments in Angola. The Council might convene a formal meeting, following consultations, to adopt a resolution on extending the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL). From 3 to 4:30 p.m., the Council was scheduled to hold an Arria formula meeting on Burundi. At the meeting, which had been organized by Gabon, statements would be made by the former President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, and the President of the Burundi National Assembly, Leonce Ngendakumana.

The Spokesman announced that the United Nations Security Coordinator and Special Emissary of the Secretary-General, Benon Sevan, had departed Angola late yesterday for New York. He was expected to arrive this evening. The United Nations search team and engineering unit excavating the site of the first United Nations plane crash had been unable to return to the site today, as the Angolan army had reported shelling in the area. Concerning the second missing United Nations aircraft, the exact location of the crash site had not yet been confirmed, even though it was believed to be located not far from the first.

The Spokesman said humanitarian agencies, including the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), were expressing increasing alarm over the plight of hundreds of thousands of people in Freetown, Sierra Leone, who had been trapped in their homes without water and electricity and had been unable to go out in search of food since the city had been invaded by rebel forces last Wednesday. In sporadic telephone conversations, the UNHCR had said that local staff remaining in Freetown had raised the spectre of a humanitarian disaster unless a ceasefire was arranged and humanitarian supplies were distributed. In some parts of the capital, the WFP reported that desperate people had been venturing out into the streets to look for food, but soldiers had been forcing them back into their homes. All shops and markets had been shut down since last Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Spokesman said, reports from the region today had indicated that Freetown was quiet and rebels appeared to have left, giving rise to the possibility that forces of the Economic Community of West African States' Monitoring Observer Group (ECOMOG) might have retaken it. The city had been described as a "smoking ruin", however, with extensive fire damage reported.

Concerning the situation in Kosovo, Mr. Eckhard said that tension was running high following the killing of an Albanian journalist on Monday and the capture last weekend of eight Serbian soldiers by Kosovo rebels. Shelling by

Government troops of a number of villages last weekend had led to a fresh displacement of some 2,000 people. The UNHCR, which had reported that finding at its Geneva briefing earlier today, had warned that the continuing incidents in Kosovo were of concern and could erupt in full-scale fighting and a new wave of refugees if no political solution was found soon.

The Spokesman drew attention to a press release issued by the WFP today concerning the Sudan. In it, the Programme's Executive Director, Catherine Bertini, warned that a continued cessation of hostilities was of paramount importance to avoid a repeat of last year's famine. "An escalation in fighting would strike a deadly blow to thousands of extremely fragile people", she said. "So much help has been provided and so many lives have been saved. We simply cannot accept that a resurgence in fighting wipes it all away", she added. Her warning had come three days before a ceasefire agreement in southern Sudan was due to expire.

The Spokesman noted that the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs for the Sudan, Tom Vraalsen, was in Khartoum this week on a mission aimed at renegotiating the ceasefire between the Sudanese Government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. The WFP said that more than 2 million people in southern Sudan continued to require relief food to survive.

Mr. Eckhard drew attention to the address by the Secretary-General this morning at the ceremonial meeting of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, marking the formal turnover of the chairmanship from Indonesia to Guyana. In it, the Secretary-General had said that economic and social challenges of 1999 were shaping up to be every bit as numerous as those of the past year when the Group of 77 countries had been hit very hard. "If the dark cloud of crisis has had any silver lining", the Secretary-General had said, "it is that the past year was especially fruitful for international economic cooperation at the United Nations".

The Secretary-General had also pointed out that the Group of 77 had played a central role in the strengthened process of dialogue and had argued, for more than a decade, in favour of according simultaneous attention to both economic and social issues, Mr. Eckhard said. A full text of the Secretary- General's statement was available in the Spokesman's Office.

From 3:30 to 4 p.m. today, a meeting of troop contributors for the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM) was scheduled to meet in Conference Room 2, Mr. Eckhard said. The meeting would be followed at 4:30 p.m. by closed consultations among Council members and troop contributors concerning the United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP) in Conference Room 3. The Council was expected to take up the situation in Prevlaka tomorrow, with a view to a formal meeting on Thursday. The Mission's

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 12 January 1999

current mandate would expire on 15 January, and the Secretary-General had recommended a further six month extension.

Mr. Eckhard said it had been announced in Geneva today that the working group on child's rights -- which had been scheduled to hold a two-week session on the draft protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child aimed at raising the minimum age of recruitment into the armed forces to 18 years old - - had ended its session last night after only a single day of work. The panel had agreed that more time was needed for consultations before negotiations could resume. Those might not take place for another year. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Olara A. Otunnu, present at the meeting, had given a press conference today in Geneva. A summary was available in the Spokesman's Office.

The Spokesman then said that the WFP had announced that it had begun an emergency airlift of life-saving food supplies in the city of Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, where it had reported that the nutritional situation of displaced citizens had reached "alarming" levels. Further details were contained in a WFP press release, issued today in Abidjan.

Finally, Mr. Eckhard announced that two more countries -- Botswana and Iceland -- had come through with full payments for 1999, in amounts of more than $103,000 and $332,000, respectively.

Asked for a read out of the meeting today between the French Ambassador and the Secretary-General, the Spokesman said he would try to get a read out for the correspondent. He had been unable to comply with the request for a read out from the Secretary-General's meeting yesterday with the Russian Ambassador, because it had been a one-on-one meeting, but he would check on the meeting with the French Ambassador today.

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