DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19990430
The following is a near verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by the Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Manoel de Almeida e Silva:
**Kosovo Crisis
Good afternoon. In what the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) described as the final cleansing of the city of Prizren in south-western Kosovo, thousands of new refugees from Kosovo are pouring into Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the biggest exodus aid officials have seen in weeks. By 4:30 p.m. local time today -- that's about an hour and a half ago -- more than 16,000 refugees had crossed the two borders. Many more were on their way.
The UNHCR said more than 8,500 refugees had crossed over into the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and another 7,500 had crossed into Albania. On the Albania side, UNHCR staff put the rate of new arrivals at 1,000 per hour. A line of vehicles stretched along the road leading to the border as far as the eyes could see.
Most were from Prizren -- either permanent residents of Prizren or people previously displaced from other areas. They had two distinct stories to tell. Many of the displaced said authorities had gone from street to street, house to house, telling people to leave. They were searching for men -- but most men had already left or were in hiding. Others, who were Prizren's permanent residents, said they left without prompting by the authorities because conditions were continuing to deteriorate.
One doctor and six nurses -- all Albanian -- said they were at work Thursday morning at Prizren hospital when police arrested them, bundled them into a vehicle and drove them near the border. They did not have time to tell their families they were being forced into exile or pack anything. It took one hour from the time they were working normally until they became refugees in a neighbouring country. The UNHCR said there now seems to be a clear pattern emerging in Prizren, that the authorities there appear to be on their final push to cleanse the town of the remaining ethnic Albanians.
In a report to the Commission on Human Rights meeting in Geneva, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, today called for an immediate end to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and for a return to diplomacy and peacemaking. Mrs. Robinson also announced plans for a 12-day trip to the Balkans, starting Sunday, which would include a visit to Belgrade. She said she intended to have a meeting with President Slobodan Milosevic.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said it was dispatching a team of mental health experts to Albania at the beginning of May to initiate counselling activities in the refugee camps. They will train volunteers from among the refugees themselves, health workers and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Kits from the WHO containing essential drugs to cover the needs of 2,000 mental health patients for six months will be sent to Albania shortly.
According to the WHO, the Ministry of Health of Serbia reports more than 4,000 wounded civilians, 18 damaged district hospitals, and 15 primary health centres since the start of the crisis. The figures have not been confirmed by independent sources, but the WHO said it was sending new emergency health kits to Belgrade to meet the needs of a population of 100,000 people for three months, and tubercolosis kits for the treatment of 250 patients.
The UNHCR again expressed its strong concern over the number of humanitarian evacuations from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The departure processing is going too slowly, it said, and asked all governments to keep formalities to an absolute minimum and to speed up the pace of evacuations with immediate effect.
Louise Arbour, the Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, will be meeting with French authorities in Paris on Wednesday and Thursday next week as part of her efforts to seek help in war crimes investigations.
As we announced earlier, we are attempting to have Ms. Arbour meet with you this afternoon. We'll let you know as soon as it's confirmed.
**Secretary-General's Activities
The Secretary-General returned to New York this morning from Moscow. He will work out of his residence, where he is now, until this afternoon when he leaves for Michigan.
Tomorrow, the Secretary-General will deliver the commencement speech at the University of Michigan before the largest live audience he has ever addressed -- some 80,000 people -- at the football stadium there. It will be on the theme of diversity and the United Nations' struggle for tolerance and human rights.
According to the text, which will be out with an embargo later this afternoon, the Secretary-General will refer to reports of inhuman crimes committed in Kosovo, saying "the battle against intolerance still needs desperately to be fought". He will note that, slowly but surely, an international norm against the violent repression of minorities is emerging that will and must take precedence over concerns of State sovereignty.
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**Secretary-General Condemns Coup d'état in Comoros
The Secretary-General condemns the coup d'état in the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros, which overthrew the constitutional Government.
The Secretary-General reiterates his condemnation of any attempt to change the government of any country by force or by other unconstitutional means. He calls on all political, military and civil society leaders to make every effort to avert violence in the country, and to work for an early return to peace, stability and constitutional order.
**Security Council Consultations
The Security Council has scheduled consultations on a technical rollover resolution on the United Nations Mission for the Referendum on Western Sahara (MINURSO).
Also in the morning session, a draft resolution on the humanitarian situation in and around Kosovo was expected to be introduced.
Following the consultations, there will be a formal meeting on the resolution to extend MINURSO, whose mandate expires today. The other two formal meetings to consider the applications for United Nations membership by Kiribati and Nauru have been postponed until early next week.
**Secretary-General Welcomes Cambodia's Admission to ASEAN
The Secretary-General welcomes the formal admission of Cambodia to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) which occurred at a ceremony in Hanoi today (30 April). The Secretary-General recognizes this event as a major step in the consolidation of Cambodia's relations with the region. The ASEAN now links all the nations of the South-East Asian region, which will afford new opportunities for the region as a whole.
**Secretary-General Appoints New Representative for Guinea-Bissau
The Secretary-General has appointed Samuel Nana-Sinkam, a national of Cameroon, to be his Representative in Guinea-Bissau and the Head of the United Nations Peace-building Support Office in that country.
A biographical note on Mr. Nana-Sinkam is available in the Spokesman's Office.
**World Food Programme (WFP)
The World Food Programme (WFP), in a press release issued in Luanda today, made an urgent appeal to the international donor community to provide
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funds to pay the costs of airlifting food to beleaguered cities in the Angolan highlands.
The agency said it was seeking $8.8 million to charter additional cargo aircraft to transport food supplies to the war-affected cities of Kuito, Huambo and Luena. Air deliveries, which are more expensive than using trucks, are essential because military activity on the ground has made overland transport too dangerous.
In addition to providing relief food to well over 700,000 displaced people in Angola, the WFP is also supporting supplementary feeding programmes to over 200,000 vulnerable persons.
**United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director, Carol Bellamy, issued an urgent call for the protection of child rights during violent armed conflicts.
A copy of the press release is available in the Spokesman's Office.
**Press Briefing Notes from Islamabad
We have available in our Office the weekly briefing from the United Nations Information Centre in Islamabad.
Today's briefing featured a representative of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) who spoke about the problem of underage children working in Pakistan. He stressed that while the problem still affects millions of boys and girls, some progress is being made, demonstrating that our efforts can make a difference.
More details are available in the notes in the Spokesman's Office.
**New Headquarters of WMO To Be Inaugurated
The World Meterological Organization (WMO) will have its new premises officially inaugurated by the President of the Swiss Confederation on Tuesday, 4 May.
A press release is available in the Spokesman's Office.
**Treaty Update
Yesterday, Ecuador became the seventy-seventh country to ratify the anti-landmine Convention. So far, 133 countries have signed that treaty, which entered into force on 1 March.
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**Press Conferences
The organizers of the two press conferences on the Commission on Sustainable Development regret any inconvenience caused to you this morning when they changed the times of those press conferences. The new schedule will be as follows: at 2 p.m., Simon Upton, Chairman of the Commission, will brief you on the outcome of the Commission's meetings; and at 2:30 p.m. you can hear the NGO perspective on the same meetings.
**The Week Ahead
Finally, I will just highlight a few of the points included on our weekly feature, The Week Ahead. You will find it in its entirety in the Spokesman's Office.
On Monday, the first meeting of States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction will begin in Maputo, Mozambique. The meeting ends on Friday.
A Security Council forecast is not yet available for next week as Gabon assumes, over the weekend, the presidency of the Security Council for the month of May. The new President will hold bilateral meetings on Monday in preparation for that month's programme. Also on Monday, the Council is scheduled to have its monthly lunch with the Secretary-General.
There will be an observance of World Press Freedom Day on Monday at 11 a.m. in Conference room 2 at Headquarters. Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information Kensaku Hogen will open the event organized by the United Nations in cooperation with the Freedom Forum and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). A videotaped message from the Secretary-General will follow, as will remarks by Robert Giles, Senior Vice-President of the Freedom Forum. An advanced text of a joint message by the Secretary-General; Frederico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO; and Mary Robinson, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is available.
On Tuesday, there will be a senior officials' meeting on East Timor which will be followed, on Wednesday, by the ministerial-level meeting. Also on Tuesday, the Secretary-General is meeting with leaders of independent research institutes gathering here at Headquarters on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, is expected to brief the Security Council on the Kosovo crisis. She will hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m. And at 5 p.m. that same day, Ireland is to receive the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt International Disability Award. It will be received by the President of that country. The
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previous winners of that Award were Republic of Korea and Canada in 1996 and 1997. The Secretary-General will deliver remarks at the event.
**Question-and-Answer Session
Question: Has Louise Arbour contacted the United Nations about possibly resigning?
Deputy Spokesman: Not to my knowledge. But you can talk to her directly as she is going to be here.
Question: Do we have a timing for the signing of the Timor agreement?
Deputy Spokesman: Not yet. I think on Monday morning we'll have it.
Question: Is the cooperation of the General Assembly necessary for the approval of the appointment of two new Members to the United Nations?
Deputy Spokesman: Yes, the Security Council has to recommend it to the General Assembly, and if you want more details, in the Spokesman's Office we have a fact sheet detailing those procedures.
Question: In the final document of the NATO summit, there were several references to the role of the United Nations and the primacy of the Security Council. Does the Secretary-General have any comment on the outcome of the summit or these points in particular?
Deputy Spokesman: We have made no comments.
Question: Do you have any idea who will replace Diego Cordova next week?
Deputy Spokesman: I have no idea.
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