DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Manoel Almeida de Silva, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General:

**Secretary-General

Good afternoon. I'll start with the report on the Secretary-General's activities in Tirana, Albania, today. He arrived there this morning, where he was met by President Rexhep Meidani. At the airport, he met with United Nations agency representatives and non-governmental organizations working in Albania. He thanked the President and the Albanian people for opening their borders and their homes to ethnic Albanians from Kosovo.

He then flew by helicopter to the Kosovo border to the town of Kukes. He was briefed there by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) field staff before proceeding by car to the refugee camp known as Kukes II, which lies in the shadow of a huge ridge dividing Albania from the Kosovo province of Serbia. He visited a family in their tent and spoke with others in a tented infirmary, including a young mother who said she had been shot in the leg by a Serb sniper while carrying her child over the mountains into Albania.

After visiting a second camp run by the non-governmental organization Médecins sans frontière, he met with the press. "Again today", he said, "I have heard heartbreaking stories about Kosovo. I have seen people uprooted from their homes who are anxious to go back again. We are all doing our best to get them home before the winter." While there, the Secretary-General received a plea from Kosovar refugee children to help them to return to Kosovo.

Returning to Tirana, he had a meeting with the President and members of his cabinet at the Presidential Palace. They discussed the prospects for return, the problems of winterization of the camps later this year, and the current efforts to find a peaceful settlement. The Secretary-General then expressed the hope that refugees could return home before winter so that winterization could be carried out in Kosovo itself, rather than on this side of the border.

He then met with the speaker of the Parliament and other parliamentarians for a frank review of the political and humanitarian aspects of the Kosovo conflict. His last official meeting was with Albanian Prime Minister Pandeli Majko and with other ministers for an in-depth discussion of the political approaches to a solution in Kosovo.

He returned to Amsterdam by a private plane provided by the Dutch Government. Tomorrow, he will proceed to Sweden and then begin an official visit there on Tuesday.

**Kosovo

There have been no reports of new arrivals into Albania today, a day after only four people, all men, crossed the border Wednesday.

One train arrived on the border with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia today carrying an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 refugees from Kosovo.

The multi-agency United Nations mission sent by the Secretary-General to assess the needs of the civilian population affected by the Kosovo conflict arrived in Pristina a short while ago. The mission -- the first inside Kosovo by the United Nations since it pulled out of Kosovo on the eve of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) airstrikes -- is scheduled to spend three days in the province. The team is expected to assess the situation in and around Pristina today. A United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) truck carrying supplies such as baby food, juices, washable diapers, soap, oil and shampoo, sleeping bags, towels and children's underwear for Kosovar children are part of the convoy.

We can try to put you in direct touch with the spokesman travelling with the mission if you are interested, as was raised yesterday in the briefing here. As for the news conference by the Kosovo mission, as requested yesterday, we are looking into what arrangements are possible. It doesn't look like it will be possible in Kosovo nor in Podgorica, but may be possible out of Belgrade. We are still checking on what is possible and will let you know.

The two United Nations staff members who were injured in a road accident earlier this week have both been operated on and were recovering in a Belgrade hospital.

**Special Envoys to Balkans

The Secretary-General's Special Envoys for the Balkans, meanwhile, continued their consultations in Europe today. Eduard Kukan travelled from Washington, D.C., to Moscow, where he had a meeting scheduled with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov. Carl Bildt, who had been in Brussels, was also expected to travel to Moscow.

**Report on Refugee Return

The UNHCR and other United Nations agencies have issued a 19-page report, outlining a planned effort to return refugees and internally displaced people to their homes in Kosovo, once the situation on the ground permits.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 20 May 1999

While the UNHCR cautions that prospects for return appear "remote" at the present time, international agencies must already start planning for the return of up to 1.5 million refugees and internally displaced people uprooted by the conflict.

The UNHCR, which will coordinate the return effort, reiterates that no significant refugee return will be possible until Serbian military and paramilitary forces withdraw from the province and until a robust international military force is deployed to protect both the civilian population and the humanitarian work. It also lists security guarantees from the Yugoslav Government as essential for refugee return.

The UNHCR acknowledges that while it is impossible to predict the future political arrangement in Kosovo or its timing, some kind of "interim administration" or "international protectorate" is likely.

We have copies of the summary of the return plan, as well as two background fact sheets on Kosovo -- one from the World Food Programme (WFP) and another from the World Health Organization (WHO) -- in addition to the daily UNHCR update.

**Asma Jahangir

Asma Jahangir, the Human Rights Special Rapporteur on Summary and Extrajudicial Executions, will visit the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania from 23 to 28 May. There is a press release upstairs in our Office on this.

**Budget for East Timor

Also available upstairs on the racks is the report of the Secretary- General with the proposed budget for the United Nations mission in East Timor. The total budget is $45.6 million for operations for the period 5 May to 31 August. This amount does not include the civilian police contingent, currently estimated at up to 300 people, at a cost of $7.4 million. The budget foresees some 660 international civilian personnel and some 4,000 local staff.

The budget was discussed yesterday by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ) and will be taken up by the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) during their current session. Their session will end next Friday and, therefore, they'll be making their recommendations before then, and the issue will then go to the General Assembly.

**Security Council

There are no Security Council consultations scheduled today. Friday, the Council has Iraq's "oil-for-food" programme on its agenda. The Security

Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 20 May 1999

Council Sanctions Committee concerning Sierra Leone is meeting today at 3:30 p.m. in Conference Room 7. The Chairman of the Committee is expected to brief interested reporters following the session. As you know, the Chairman of that Committee is Ambassador Petrella of Argentina.

**Pino Arlacchi

Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the Vienna-based United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, arrived today in Vientiane, Lao People's Democratic Republic, for an official visit. Tomorrow, he will deliver a keynote address at the ministerial meeting of the countries signatory to the 1993 Memorandum of Understanding for subregional cooperation in the field of drug control. The countries involved are China, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam.

On the same day, Mr. Arlacchi will also sign a $1.8 million project for "development of cross-border law enforcement cooperation in South-East Asia".

**United Nations Children's Fund

We have a press release upstairs from UNICEF, which says that less than half of all Haitians can read and write. Over half of the nation's children fail to reach the fifth grade. And only one in five young people in Haiti reach secondary school. This focus on conditions in Haiti continues UNICEF's "education alert", based on the findings of the agency's State of the World's Children 1999, which stresses the right of all children to basic education. More details on this are available in the press release we have in our Office upstairs.

**Situation of Pool

Yesterday we had a question on the pool -- the fountain in front of the Building at the Secretariat Entrance. The reply is that last fall, leaks in the pool were repaired due to age and the effects of weather. Building Maintenance Services wanted to wait out the winter so as to finish all maintenance on the pool. The first three rows of black pebbles were unsatisfactory and are being replaced with pebbles that Building Maintenance Services has in reserve for such situations when maintenance is required. The black and white pebbles come from the Dodecanese Islands and are a gift from Greece.

That's all I have. Do you have any questions?

Alright, so have a good lunch and a pleasant afternoon.

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