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

Welcome to the briefing. First, on Kosovo. Against the backdrop of the return to Kosovo of more than half of the 800,000 refugees, the United Nations sought to defuse tensions between Serb and Albanian communities, took the first steps to re-establish the non-existent judicial system and began to deploy the first team of international police to the field.

The Secretary-General's acting Special Representative in Kosovo, Sergio Vieira de Mello, today named six legal experts who will meet tomorrow to select a panel of judges which will immediately begin addressing the issue of detainees arrested and held by KFOR throughout the province.

De Mello had received agreement on the setting up of a sectoral commission on the appointment of judges during a meeting of the embryonic political consultative council he chaired with the Kosovo Albanian leadership on Saturday, and which took place as expected. The meeting was briefly delayed because de Mello travelled to defuse a volatile situation in Mitrovica -- which we mentioned to you on Friday -- accompanied by KLA leader Thaci who used his influence to calm a group of Kosovo Albanians threatening to march into the Serb part of the divided town. Thaci was able to pacify the crowd and encouraged them to disperse.

De Mello is expected to reconvene the consultative council again on Wednesday of this week.

On Tuesday, there will be a meeting of another one of the joint civilian commissions bringing together Kosovo's Albanian and Serbian representatives chaired by the United Nations. This one will be in the critical area of health, which has become a battleground for authority as manifested in the tensions among medical staff in hospitals as we have been reporting to you.

Also over the weekend, the first contingent of international police -- 35 from the United Nations mission in Bosnia -- arrived on Sunday. They are being briefed today and will be deployed to the field tomorrow.

Today, we began the organized repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Kosovar refugees, taking more than 300 from camps in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to their homes in Pristina.

The returning refugees from two camps north of Skopje made their trip aboard 10 buses organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration. Some of the returnees had been in the camps since early April.

Of some 800,000 refugees in regional asylum countries at the beginning of June, more than half have already gone back on their own, marking one of the fastest spontaneous returns seen by the UNHCR in decades. The early returns occurred despite warnings from the UNHCR, KFOR and others that refugees face an uncertain security situation, heavy damage in many areas and the lack of an international support system. Dozens have been wounded or killed by mines and many returned to find their towns and villages destroyed.

The organized returns target Pristina, Prizren and Urosevac -- three urban areas determined in conjunction with KFOR that the necessary security condition for return now exists. Organized returns from Albania are expected to begin Tuesday.

As the number of returnees surpassed the numbers outside Kosovo, aid operations inside the province were stepped up.

The World Food Programme (WFP) continued to conduct four helicopter missions across the province daily to areas not accessible by road.

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in a press release, announced that Nobel Peace Prize Winner Jodi Williams and Canada's Ambassador for Mine Action will visit Kosovo beginning Wednesday to appeal for an intensification of the demining effort in the province.

The UNHCR, meanwhile, is looking into the condition of Serbs who remain in Kosovo. On Sunday, the UNHCR visited an orthodox monastery in Pec and found that about 100 displaced Serbs were sheltered there. The UNHCR is sending relief items to the monastery. The UNHCR also has been looking into the situation of the Krajina Serb refugees in Kosovo. Many are believed to have left.

On the reconstruction front, the Deputy Secretary General is scheduled to meet with representatives of the European Union here at United Nations Headquarters tomorrow.

Meanwhile, two more countries -- Belgium and Spain -- joined the "Friends of Kosovo" -- the group of countries with whom the Secretary-General will be meeting on Wednesday morning here at United Nations Headquarters.

**Security Council Consultations

The Security Council is meeting this morning on Iraq and other matters. Under other matters, the Council will discuss its draft resolution on Cyprus and will also take up Kosovo.

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The President of the Council is also expected to brief on meetings he's had with representatives of Indonesia, as well as Cyprus, Greece and Turkey.

** Secretary-General in London

The Secretary-General travelled from London to Oxford yesterday, where he delivered a lecture to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies this morning. The text was basically unchanged from the embargoed copy we made available to you on Friday.

In it, he said "... we must accept -- and even cultivate -- the presence of different traditions within each region of the world, and indeed with each society ... . The aim is not to eliminate differences between human beings, but to preserve and even celebrate them as a source of joy and strength".

He took questions from the audience afterwards, and we're expecting a transcript shortly.

Dr. Farhan Nizami, the Director of the Centre, gave the Secretary-General a tour before the speech, and then hosted a lunch for him afterwards.

In the afternoon, he was scheduled to meet with the Director of OxFam, David Bryer, before getting on a plane to return to New York, where he will arrive early this evening.

** East Timor

Thirty more civilian police monitors arrived in East Timor over the weekend, and 74 United Nations Volunteers (UNVs) were expected to arrive today. The 70 UNVs who arrived a week ago, as well as the 70 police who arrived in two batches over the past two weeks, have already been deployed to the field.

There were no new reports of intimidation over the weekend reported to the United Nations mission. The deployment of United Nations police is expected to gradually stabilize the situation.

The Secretary-General's Personal Representative on East Timor, Jamsheed Marker, gave a press conference in the region on Saturday, and we have the transcript, if you're interested, in my Office.

** General Assembly Special Session

As you know, this Wednesday the General Assembly will open a three-day special session to review progress since the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, which was held in Cairo.

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There's a note to correspondents on the racks with details about the media arrangements for the event. You might want to have a look at that. It provides information on access, photos, video, live television feeds and the live Web cast.

And on the subject of electronic information, the DPI has asked me to announce that United Nations Radio just produced its first CD containing a special series on population and development issues to coincide with the special session. It features subjects like maternal mortality, domestic violence and teen pregnancy. Contact the Media Division for more information.

** Western Sahara

The Secretary-General's latest report on the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is out on the racks today (S/1999/721).

The key development since the last report is the cooperation of both parties in the resumption of the identification process, which began on the 15th of June. Since then, over 2,300 people have been interviewed, bringing the total number of those identified since the process began to nearly 150,000.

Meanwhile, the UNHCR is preparing to repatriate refugees to the Territory in accordance with the Settlement Plan. Pre-registration has begun to determine the willingness of refugees to return and to determine their final destinations in the Territory.

The Secretary-General stresses the importance of the parties staying the course as the 15th of July approaches. That's the date when the first part of the provisional voters list will be published and the appeals process will commence.

**Nuba Mountains

The United Nations humanitarian assessment mission to the Nuba Mountains returned over the weekend after visiting five villages which had not been accessed by the United Nations in over 10 years. That's in the Sudan.

Ross Mountain, the Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator, was on the mission and he spoke to the press in Geneva today. He said that while they did not find evidence of massive famine, there were signs of malnutrition which must be addressed. Access had been negotiated with both sides, he said, and the United Nations is relatively optimistic that it will be able to gain access to the people in greatest need.

We have a transcript of his press briefing in my Office.

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**International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

We have a press release upstairs from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda on the case of Alfred Musema, who is charged with genocide and crimes against humanity.

His trial ended today and the prosecution is asking for life imprisonment.

**FAO and WHO on Organic Foods

We have a press release from the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) on the work it is doing with the World Health Organization (WHO) to develop guidelines for the production, processing, labelling and marketing of organically produced food.

Consumer demand for organic food is on the rise worldwide, providing new market opportunities for farmers. International guidelines are considered important for consumer protection and for governments wishing to develop regulations in the area of organic food production.

You can read more in the press release.

**Press Conferences

Tomorrow at 3 p.m, Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and others will be here [room S-226] to brief correspondents on the achievements of the Preparatory Committee on Population and Development, the current state of negotiations, and what lies ahead at the General Assembly special session.

The United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) has asked me to tell you that the briefing by United States Ambassador Peter Burleigh has now been rescheduled to Thursday of this week at 10:30 a.m. at the UNCA Club.

** Question-and-Answer Session

Question: I'm confused about how justice is going to be rendered in Kosovo since the Yugoslav Criminal Code is not going to be used. Is the United Nations going to create its own code?

Spokesman: We're probably going to use the Criminal Code of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of, I believe, 1976. So, they will be using that basic document, except where it conflicts with human rights standards the European Commission has adopted, and any other international standards. As KFOR arrests people, they feel they can only hold them for 48 hours according to European Commission standards, if they are not going to trial or to be brought before judges. And there are no judges. Unfortunately, they have been arresting people and then releasing them. We hope now, this week, to get judges appointed.

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Question: Any news on contributions to the Kosovo Trust Funds or to the International Police Force?

Answer: No. I don't think any contributions have been received yet. And the police -- that's going very slowly. We reported last week that Bernard Miyet, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, met police-contributing countries and made an impassioned appeal. And, I think, he's going to do that again this week. There's considerable interest, but not yet enough substantive commitment of police. We've no police barracks. We've got to start from scratch. The police are also in shorter supply than the military for peacekeeping. So, it's a little harder to get them.

Question: Could you give us a little more details about Wednesday's meeting of the Foreign Ministers?

Answer: No, except that it looks now like it would go from 8 in the morning to 12 noon. I think that's still a provisional programme. I'll give you the final programme tomorrow. Of the Group of 8, I think five are coming at the Foreign Minister level, and of the non-Group of 8 on the Friends' side, four Ministers are expected to be here. So, there will be at least eight Foreign Ministers, or maybe more. We're still talking about press arrangements. The proposal is that the Secretary-General brief the press. He'll be chairing the meeting. It's his meeting. Whether the Ministers will meet with you individually or as a group, we don't know that yet.

Question: On Tuesday afternoon, there'll be a meeting with representatives, you said, of these countries. Are they having problems? On Wednesday, there's the major meeting, and on Tuesday afternoon, there's the preparatory meeting?

Answer: I'm not aware of that.

Question: Does the information on organized returns include those brought to the United States?

Answer: We are just returning them from the camps in Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. I'm not aware that a return is being organized for any that have gone to so-called third countries. I have to look into that.

Question: Can you tell us anything about the meeting called by the Secretary-General for Wednesday -- agenda, goals?

Answer: We may give you that information tomorrow. It's pretty obvious that he needs to appeal to them and through them to other governments for police, administrators and money for the Trust Funds in order to pay the civil service in Kosovo. So, I think those are the three priorities. I think they'll also be assessing where they are with deployment. He might take the

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opportunity to announce his selection of a Special Representative. I'll have to see whether there's some formal programme I can release to you.

Question: Can you name the countries from which Foreign Ministers are coming?

Answer: I better not guess. Perhaps, if you come to my Office, I think I can probably give you what we know so far. I can give you the eight names that we think will be coming.

Question: With the General Assembly in session at the same time, would we be able to know, you think, by tomorrow what to expect from UNTV to enable us to plan in terms of coverage?

Answer: Okay.

Question: The Democratic Republic of the Congo went before the International Court of Justice against Rwanda and Uganda, and, at the same time, the Security Council was handling the same question. What is the protocol? Who has jurisdiction?

Answer: They are two separate things. The Democratic Republic of the Congo took a complaint to the Court. The Council was discussing not the legal side of it, but the security side of it. I don't see a contradiction there. Both are doing their job as laid out in the Charter.

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