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 the Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Fred Eckhard.

Kosovo

The daunting task of implementing the Kosovo peace plan has begun. The Secretary-General, who has been entrusted to establish the international civilian administration in Kosovo under the resolution which was adopted by the Security Council yesterday, has ordered the immediate dispatch of an advance headquarters team to the region. They are prepared to leave Saturday and Sunday. A few from Headquarters, many from the region, they will assemble in Skopje in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and are expected to travel from there to Pristina in Kosovo by road.

Among the tasks to be carried out by the advance United Nations Headquarters team are the establishment of coordination mechanisms with the military and other international actors operating in Kosovo, as well as advising the military on the implementation of non-military tasks.

In addition to the advance Headquarters team, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations is also dispatching over the weekend to the region a forward logistics and communications team to start work on planning for the United Nations mission. Humanitarian agencies, meanwhile, are forging ahead with their plans to send in a humanitarian convoy to Kosovo at the earliest opportunity to provide urgently needed relief to hundreds of thousands of people marooned inside Kosovo.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) are sending personnel with the international security force, which is to deploy in Kosovo, possibly starting tomorrow, and the first United Nations multi-agency convoy in two-and-a-half months is prepared to go into the province on Monday. That convoy includes 32 trucks from UNHCR, WFP and UNICEF, as well as selected NGOs. It will carry humanitarian daily rations, or meals ready to eat, pallets of bottled water, blankets, tents, plastic sheeting and hygienic kits. Two multi-agency convoys are planned to go to Kosovo daily from Skopje, which will be the logistical hub for relief operations into Kosovo, once security is assured.

The convoy operation is part of the monumental task of providing humanitarian aid inside Kosovo, initially to hundreds of thousands of displaced people, and later to the three quarters of a million people outside the Serbian province who are eager to return home. As many as 500,000 to 600,000 people are believed to be in desperate condition inside Kosovo. There has been no assistance provided to them since 23 March, and the situation is

grim, according to a United Nations assessment mission that visited Kosovo last month.

The report on the findings of the needs assessment mission dispatched by the Secretary-General, which has already been the subject of a Security Council meeting last week, has been issued today as a document. The report contains a series of recommendations for assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, including Kosovo, as part of a region-wide strategy encompassing all the countries and regions of south-eastern Europe in sectors ranging from agriculture and the environment to the issue of the disarmament of small arms.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights plans to call a coordination meeting with different agencies working on the ground with human rights mandates as soon as she comes back from the Russian Federation. She will be there all of next week.

I said yesterday that the Secretary-General could send to the Security Council a letter with his choice of a Special Representative by the end of today. However, consultations on that selection are continuing, and at this point it looks like that letter would not be sent to the Council today.

Security Council

The Security Council held consultations this morning on Sierra Leone and East Timor. Both issues were taken up by Council members yesterday early evening and resolutions have gone into blue overnight. Formal meetings are just getting under way now.

When adopted, the resolution on Sierra Leone will extend the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) until 13 December. The resolution stresses the importance of an overall political settlement and takes note of the Secretary-General's intention to revert to the Council with recommendations on an expanded UNOMSIL presence in Sierra Leone with a revised mandate and concept of operations in the event of a successful outcome to the negotiations currently being held in Lome, Togo, between the Government and rebel representatives.

The resolution on East Timor authorizes the establishment until 31 August of the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) to organize and conduct a popular consultation on the autonomy proposal for East Timor. The UNAMET will have political, electoral and public information components. The resolution also authorizes the deployment of 280 civilian police officers to act as advisers to the Indonesian Police and 50 military liaison officers to maintain contact with the Indonesian Armed Forces. The Council also condemns all acts of violence from whatever quarter and calls for an end to such acts and the laying down of arms by all armed groups in East Timor.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 11 June 1999

Statement Attributable to Spokesman

This statement attributable to the Spokesman on Cyprus is available upstairs:

As stated in his report on the renewal of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) mandate, the Secretary-General is aware of diplomatic efforts currently under way concerning his mission of good offices in Cyprus. In this context, he is studying the 10 June joint statement by the G-8 Foreign Ministers in preparation for the G-8 Summit meeting to take place in Cologne next week, which highlights the continuing interest of the international community in a solution to the Cyprus problem.

Since assuming his functions, the Secretary-General has spared no efforts to bring about a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem. He remains in contact with all concerned and expects to be able to report to the Security Council on his good offices mission before the end of the month.

Louise Arbour's Resignation

The Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Tribunal for Rwanda has issued a statement today in The Hague, in which she said that she had informed the Secretary-General of her intention to resign from her post as Prosecutor and take up her new duties at the Canadian Supreme Court effective 15 September. The text of her statement is available in my office.

We also have a statement attributable to the Spokesman, which says, in part, the following:

From the very outset, Mrs. Arbour has fulfilled her duties as Prosecutor with tireless vigour and dynamism. In her time in office, she has steered to a successful conclusion the proceedings in respect of more than a dozen accused, including a former Prime Minister of Rwanda, Jean Kambanda.

Moreover, as a result of her efforts and those of her staff, more than 50 persons are now in detention awaiting trial before the two International Tribunals. Many of the alleged ringleaders of the Rwanda genocide figure among those detainees, including a number of former cabinet Ministers and other senior political and military figures. Most remarkably, though, Mrs. Arbour's advocacy of the two Tribunals and their work has succeeded in bringing the cause of international criminal justice to the forefront of the world's attention.

In short, Mrs. Arbour has played a leading role in bringing closer a world in which the rule of law will prevail in the affairs both of nations and

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of their peoples, and in eradicating the culture of impunity, with regard especially to war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

The Secretary-General lauds the outstanding contributions of Mrs. Arbour to these international endeavours.

Afghanistan

The UNICEF representatives in Kabul this week began moving polio vaccines across the front lines into Parwan Province north of the Afghan capital as part of a second round of so-called National Immunization Days in that war-torn country. The second round of the campaign is scheduled for 13 to 15 June. It targets 4.4 million children under the age of five in every part of the country. In the first round of National Immunization Days in May, about 75 per cent of the children were reached.

For more details, see the summary of the weekly United Nations Information Centre briefing held earlier today in Islamabad, which also contains an update on the status of refugee return from Pakistan and Iran.

UNCTAD Calls for Debt Relief

We have available in my office a press release from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), saying that the United Nations today called upon the Heads of State of the Group of Eight meeting in Cologne, Germany, from 18 to 20 June to improve substantially the terms on which relief is currently provided to heavily indebted poor countries in order to eliminate, "once and for all their debt overhang problem and permit sustainable economic growth".

Highlights of Week Ahead

Let me give you some of the highlights of the week ahead. You can get the full document in my office.

No Security Council consultations are scheduled for Monday, but on Monday there will be an unveiling of an official portrait of the former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, which was done by the Norwegian artist Even Richardson. That will take place at 12:30 p.m. in the Secretariat lobby. You know, where all the portraits are -- by the elevator banks there.

The Secretary-General, Mr. Boutros-Ghali and Even Richardson will be in attendance.

On Tuesday, Council consultations on implementation of resolutions 1196, 1197 and 1209 regarding the situation in Africa will be held. Also on Tuesday, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

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(UNESCO) will have a press conference at 11:15 a.m. on the theme "Protecting Children and Youth from Pedophilia-Related Crimes on the Internet".

Wednesday, Council consultations will feature a briefing by the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Democratic Republic of the Congo Peace Process, Moustapha Niasse.

Thursday, there will be consultations in the Security Council on the United Nations mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a view to a formal meeting. Afterwards, the Rwanda Panel appointed by the Secretary-General to conduct an independent inquiry into the actions of the United Nations during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda will arrive here in New York, and then on 18 June they will have a series of meetings with Secretariat officials. They are scheduled to leave New York on 19 June.

Also, 17 June is the International Day to Combat Desertification and Drought. The Secretary-General's message will be posted on the United Nations Web site at www.un.org.

Question-and-Answer Session

Question: How quickly is the Secretary-General going to replace Mrs. Arbour?

Answer: Did you say when?

Question: Yes. Would you rather I had said who?

Answer: No. That's a fairly elaborate process. I think it would take a fair amount of consultation and there is no predicting how long it will take. The important thing is that an equally dynamic individual be selected to replace her.

Question: What is the Secretary-General's take on today's meeting between the Ambassadors of Libya, the United States and United Kingdom and the Secretary-General.

Answer: He is calling the three of them together in response to the Security Council resolutions on Libya. He is required, as you will recall, under an earlier resolution, to provide a report within 90 days of when the two suspects were handed over for trial in the Netherlands, and he would hope that these discussions today would facilitate his 90-day report.

Question: Was the meeting called by the Secretary-General? Was the Libyan Ambassador invited by the Secretary-General also?

Answer: Yes.

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Question: Would the Libyan Ambassador be participating in the meeting or just observing it?

Answer: No. What is required is for all three Governments to clarify their positions in regard to this previous Security Council resolution, so he is there to talk with each of them. There are no observers -- there are three participants.

Question: Who participates in the Rwanda Panel; how many people does it consist of; where do they come from and who appointed them?

Answer: The Secretary-General appointed the Panel of three persons headed by Ingvar Carlsson, the former Prime Minister of Sweden. They are coming from their respective countries.

Question: Is it fair to say that the Secretary-General does not know yet when the sanctions against Libya will be lifted and that this meeting is part of the process of determining that?

Answer: The 90-day report, under the terms of the resolution, is part of this process. It's the Security Council that will decide whether to definitively lift sanctions against Libya. They've asked the Secretary- General to provide them with a report and they will base their decision -- in whole or in part -- on his report. So I don't think he will be asking for the sanctions to be lifted. He will be reporting on what they asked him, and then they will make a decision.

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