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

It's the loneliest hour of the day, the noon briefing. Well, you've just had a thorough briefing on the state of play on Kosovo by the Deputy Secretary-General, who was here at 11 a.m. I just want to recap the most recent developments as the United Nations begins its work in Kosovo.

On Friday night, the Secretary-General sent a letter to the Security Council appointing Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, as his Special Representative, on an interim basis, for the implementation of the international civil presence in Kosovo. Sergio Vieira de Mello departed for the region on Saturday and arrived in Pristina Sunday afternoon and immediately established the United Nations advance team headquarters in Kosovo. He was in Prizren today as part of his mission to meet with community leaders who will assist the United Nations mission to build Kosovo's democratic institutions.

To recap United Nations activities on the ground over the weekend, a small team of humanitarian agency liaison officers accompanied the first NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) deployment into Kosovo on Saturday. On Sunday, the first multi-agency convoy to Kosovo in nearly three months arrived in Pristina. The 50-vehicle convoy included 23 trucks loaded with 250 tons of relief aid, including Humanitarian Daily Rations, or Meals Ready to Eat, wheat flour, hygienic kits, blankets, tents, plastic sheeting and bottled water. The supplies were from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). As a second multi-agency 40-vehicle convoy arrived in Kosovo a short while ago today, the UNHCR began distribution of emergency aid today. We have just learned that four trucks carrying 50 tons of emergency supplies arrived in Glogovac and distribution began for an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 displaced persons in that town.

The KFOR (the Kosovo Force) has brought to the attention of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia the existence of various mass grave sites, and it is the Tribunal's understanding that KFOR is securing the sites on their behalf. The Tribunal is not discussing its planning as to where or when they intend to bring investigators in. There is now an initial forward planning presence on the ground making preparation for the bulk of the team of investigators to arrive.

We have available for you upstairs a Pristina-datelined press release issued on Sunday announcing the establishment of the United Nations presence in Kosovo; the most recent seven-day return plan prepared by the UNHCR; a UNICEF handout on its humanitarian priorities; and the Secretary-General's just issued report on Kosovo.

**Security Council and East Timor

As you know, the Security Council is not meeting today. The United Nations public information campaign on the East Timor popular consultation started yesterday. The first radio broadcast went out Sunday evening from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m. It was repeated twice during the day today, at six in the morning and at noon. The second programme was broadcast at 7 p.m. Monday evening.

Initially, the broadcast will air three times a day in four languages. The programmes are broadcast by Radio Indonesia. The second edition of the United Nations Mission in East Timor, or UNAMET, page was issued today in the main local newspaper. The UNAMET will continue to publish on the back page of the paper as a regular feature of the information campaign.

As we are on East Timor, let me update you on UNAMET deployment. By Friday, there were 99 international staff on the ground, and 102 local staff had been recruited. Some 20 international staff were to have arrived over the weekend. By the end of this week, some 800 additional local staff are to be hired. The UNAMET Police Commissioner, Alan Mills of Australia, is already in Dili and was to be introduced this afternoon by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Ian Martin, to the Head of the Indonesian East Timor Task Force, Ambassador Tamidi.

**Unveiling

At 12:30 p.m. today, the Secretary-General will attend the unveiling of the official portrait of his predecessor, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, in the lobby. We have copies of the Secretary-General's speech in our Office in both English and Arabic. In it, the Secretary-General expresses his gratitude to Dr. Boutros-Ghali, saying, "you led with a firm and steady hand a United Nations seeking to find its bearings in a world full of sudden change. You gave our work solid intellectual foundations in your agendas for peace, development and democracy. You opened the door for the reforms we are pursuing today". Both Secretaries-General and their wives will be on hand at the unveiling.

**World Food Programme in Indonesia

The World Food Programme (WFP) today announced a major expansion in its relief efforts for Indonesia. The WFP has increased its emergency operation in the country to feed 1.7 million more people, at a cost of over $135 million. This development came in response to the economic crisis which has rocked

Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 14 June 1999

Indonesia, seriously undermining food security there. You can pick up a press release in my Office with more details.

**New Head for Food and Agricultural Organization

The race is on to see who will head the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in the coming years. There are two candidates for FAO Director-General, including the incumbent, Jacques Diouf of Senegal, who has been serving in that office since the beginning of 1994. The other candidate, Juan Carlos Roland Vignaud of Argentina, currently serves as his country's Ambassador to Sweden. The election will be held at FAO's Conference in mid-November, with the winner taking a majority of votes from among the agency's 175 member States. There's a press release coming out on the racks with more details.

**For Football Fans On 18 June, the Secretary-General and the President of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, FIFA, you know FIFA, the World Soccer Federation -- they'll hold a press conference on the North Lawn at 11:30 a.m. The press conference will take place the day before FIFA's Women's World Cup Games, which will be played in major cities, and will launch a cooperative relationship between the United Nations and FIFA. The two organizations will announce that FIFA has agreed to fly the United Nations flag at all World Cup Games beginning with the Women's World Cup Games the next day. The United Nations and FIFA will also join forces to publicize efforts through cooperative projects in the areas of tolerance, health and development, as well as efforts to aid children. Joint projects are planned with UNICEF, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, the UNHCR, and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Following the press conference, students from the United Nations International School will participate in a soccer clinic on the North Lawn, led by soccer great Pele. And for more information, you can contact Assistant Secretary-General for External Relations Gillian Martin Sorensen's office here, who is organizing the event.

**Development Update

The June/July issue of Development Update is out today, and you can get it at the documents counter. The issue includes features on the impact of environmental issues on trade relations and on Bretton Woods institutions collaboration with the United Nations on social policies.

**Treaty Update

Uganda on Friday became the forty-fifth country to sign the International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings. There are four parties to that treaty, which needs 22 ratifications to enter into force.

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**Documents and Reports

Among the documents out today are several reports that are being considered by the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) at its annual session, which starts today. You'll find that the issue of reform is taken up a lot in these documents, with one entire report devoted to "UNDP and United Nations Reform", that's document DP/1999/6. That report covers such issues as predictable financing, UNDP relations with the World Bank, and support for natural disaster mitigation activities.

**Condolences

Finally, I would like to extend our sincere, if somewhat belated, condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of Raghavendra Chakrapani, a long-time United Nations correspondent who recently passed away. As a reporter for "The Hindu" who was President of the United Nations Correspondents Association in 1977, he had an active presence here at Headquarters and will certainly be missed.

**Press Conferences

Press conferences tomorrow, 11:15 a.m., "Child Safety on Line, Protecting Children and Youth from Paedophilia-related Crimes on the Internet". That is sponsored by UNESCO and will be in this room. There's a background note available.

And then at noon, here at the noon briefing, our guest will be Emi Watanabe, Director of the Bureau for Development Policy of the UNDP, on the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought, which is 17 June.

Any questions?

**Question-and-Answer Session

Question: Is the United Nations in any way involved with the recent dispute between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and the Republic of Korea?

Spokesman: No, we have no role there except our residual role from the troops.

Question: Has the Secretary-General made plans to speak or meet with anyone regarding the dispute at all?

Spokesman: Not to my knowledge. I'd have to double check to be sure, though.

Daily Press Briefing - 5 - 14 June 1999

Question: How would you describe the main task of Mr. Vieira de Mello as a representative for Kosovo? Is it just the main coordination of all the humanitarian elements or does it go beyond it?

Spokesman: It goes beyond that because he is starting the work that the Special Representative will eventually take over once he or she is named, to establish the headquarters presence at Pristina, to oversee the civilian operation of the mission, and that involves what he's doing today, for example, meeting with local political leaders, which is the democratization function that the United Nations will be carrying out. He's doing preliminary work on police roles, the security and judicial role that the United Nations will oversee. Essentially, he's overseeing the whole mission. The Deputy Secretary-General, as she mentioned, will be going to Geneva tomorrow. She'll be meeting individually with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the European Union and NATO. And then on Wednesday she'll have a meeting with all three, firming up what each of these organizations will do. And the Special Representative oversees all of the civilian work that will be done by the United Nations, the European Union, the OSCE, and links with NATO. And Sergio Vieira de Mello already had his first meeting with General Jackson yesterday and they agreed they would meet daily to coordinate the civilian and the military side.

Question: Have they decided what those three organizations will do?

Spokesman: In the Secretary-General's report of this morning, you'll see that the functions are divided along four lines, with reconstruction and development being overseen by an European Union representative; and institution- building, human rights, democratization, by the OSCE. There's been a lot of consultations with those two organizations to draw up a tentative list of who will do what before it was announced in the report that came out this morning. So, this report is still a bit schematic and general; so, to nail down the specifics, the Deputy Secretary-General is going to Geneva to have those meetings.

Question: Who will train and create a police force?

Spokesman: You'll see that police functions fall under the United Nations, but that police training is assigned to the OSCE.

Question: When will the Secretary-General name the permanent Special Representative?

Spokesman: He's making every effort to do it quickly. It's obviously something that's going to have to enjoy the general support of Member States, and the consultation on the appointment is taking some time. I can't predict when it will be concluded. I would hope it would be by the end of this week. But then I said last week that I thought it could be by the end of that week.

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Question: Has anything been mentioned about the amount of money involved?

Spokesman: We, the United Nations, are looking at the cost of our part of the mission. It is assumed that the OSCE and the European Union will finance their part of the mission, and then a big part of the humanitarian and other work that will be done there will be based on voluntary contributions. So, there will be multiple sources of funding for this mission and I don't think we're ready to release a ballpark figure for any of those components. But it's coming, we're working on it.

Question: How large a United Nations civilian staff are we looking at?

Spokesman: Even that is still being sorted out. That's one of the things Sergio Vieira de Mello is looking at.

Question: On quite another issue. Are you going to defend the Spice Girl, Jerri Halliwell, who got some criticism in the Philippines regarding her remarks about birth control, from the Government or at least the Catholic Church, and she is a United Nations ambassador.

Spokesman: Well, I think the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has correct relations both with the Government and Church. They may not always see eye to eye on the kinds of issues that this Special Envoy or Ambassador is addressing. I think they anticipated a little bit of a negative reaction to the message she's taking. If we wanted visibility, though, we're getting it.

Question: I hate to bring this up again, but if you're going to have Pristina as your headquarters, a lot of matériel will have to be flown in, right? So, you'll be having to use the airport. What is the status now with the Russians there? What is the status in the airport right now?

Spokesman: I think Sergio Vieira de Mello went in by helicopter yesterday, so, I assume from that the airport is functioning. As far as the dispute, if we can call it that, or the lack of agreement between NATO and the Russian Federation as to the role of the Russian troops there, I think we have to leave it to them to work it out. As far as I know, we had access to that airport yesterday.

(It was later announced that Mr. Vieira de Mello had gone in by road, as had the supplies and matériel of agencies and NATO.)

Question: So, there is no indication the Russians will not cooperate with the civilian side of the operation, with the United Nations?

Spokesman: Not that I'm aware of. Thank you.

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