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 Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

**East Timor

Good afternoon. Ballot counting is continuing through the night in Dili, East Timor, and the expectation is that it can be completed by morning. It is not excluded therefore that the results could be announced in Dili on Saturday, their time, which could mean sometime tonight New York time. Please stay in touch with our office through the afternoon to get an update.

The United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) reported today that militia rampaged through the regions of Maliana and Liquica, burning homes and attacking residents. The village of Maliana, where two local United Nations staff were killed in this incident -– as we announced yesterday -- is described today as a "ghost town". The United Nations evacuated all international staff from Maliana. United Nations staff remain in Liquica, where 20 to 30 homes were burned. Dili remained quiet, although some militia activity was reported there as well.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says her staff are in a race against time to provide urgently needed assistance to displaced people in East Timor, who now number about 50,000. Many of these are temporarily housed in churches and schools. UNHCR and other aid agencies are providing these people with rice, beans, dried fish, sugar, salt, as well as mats, blankets and kitchen sets.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, today issued a statement expressing deep concern over the reports of spiraling violence in East Timor.

Mrs. Robinson said the current violence threatens to derail the consultation process and seems aimed at denying the East Timorese their right to determine their own future.

She said, "It is essential that the progress achieved until now in East Timor not be reversed". She emphasized that the vote's outcome will represent the will of the people of East Timor and must be respected.

We have copies of the full statement in my office. **Security Council

The Security Council is holding consultations this morning on Iraq. The Secretary-General's Special Envoy, Prakash Shah, is attending the meeting.

Under other matters, they are expected to discuss East Timor, and I understand that they are on standby through the weekend, awaiting the announcements of the outcome of the popular consultation.

**Kosovo

Today is the first day the United Nations mission in Kosovo began to collect revenues for the province.

As we mentioned to you yesterday, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, just hours ago opened the first United Nations Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK) customs house. And that is at the border crossing between Hani I Elezit and Djeneral Jankovic with the border of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The UNMIK Customs Service will be collecting duties, excise tax and sales tax initially at three border-crossing points with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania on goods ranging from alcohol and cigarettes to gasoline and satellite dishes.

Kouchner today also issued a new regulation on currency, which makes all currencies in Kosovo legal tender for transactions and establishes the Deutsche mark as the currency for all UNMIK’s official transactions, such as collection of customs duties.

The United Nations mission in Kosovo also announced today that it had completed the selection process for the first class of 200 students who will attend the Kosovo Police Service School beginning Tuesday of next week. The first class range in age from 20 to 45. Twenty per cent are female and over half have a college education. The breakdown is 83 per cent Albanian and 13 per cent Serbian ethnic origin.

We have press releases available for you on the Kosovo police service and on the new currency regulation as well as the text of the regulation.

**International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

Today at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, genocide suspect Casmir Bizimungu pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.

He was Rwanda's Health Minister during the 1994 genocide, and among other crimes, he is charged with allowing massacres to take place in a public hospital under his control.

You can read more about that in a press release in my office.

**World Health Organization

The World Health Organization (WHO) today issued a new set of guidelines for drug donations that the agency hopes will improve donations during emergencies.

Dr. Jonathan Quick, the Director of WHO's Department of Essential Drugs and Other Medicines, said, "As soon as any disaster reaches our television screens, many drugs, a great majority sent with the best of intentions, are dispatched to the scene of the emergency. However, there also have been problems with some drug donations. They fail to meet the most urgent real health needs and, once in the country, they clog up already overloaded distribution systems and become difficult to dispose of."

WHO said the release of the revised Guidelines is particularly timely in light of the flux of drug donations into Turkey following the earthquake there. Large quantities of donated and unsolicited medical supplies are hampering the restocking of regular or emergency medical structures, according to a report from the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

You can pick up the WHO press release if you want more information on that.

**Afghanistan

We reported last week that a United Nations mission would be heading to Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley to assess the situation of displaced persons there.

The mission, which just returned, found that 100,000 people were displaced by recent fighting in the area. The health situation in the Panjshir Valley is under control, but the displaced people there still need food, shelter and blankets. A United Nations shipment of 108 metric tonnes of food is expected to arrive in the area today or tomorrow.

You can find more details on that in a press release from Islamabad, which is in my office.

**UNICEF Battles Child Labour

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) is embarked on a 29-nation programme to combat child labour with pilot programmes aimed at eventually providing schooling to millions of children presently forced to work full time. Some 250 million children aged five to 14 work -– and one in five of these work in hazardous situations -– sentenced to lives of poverty, with an increased threat of disease and early death.

The UNICEF initiative is developing means by which education can be made available to working children.

A full press release on that subject is available as well.

**General Assembly

We have an embargoed press kit that you can pick up at the documents counter concerning this year's General Assembly session, which will open on 14 September.

Among other items, the kit contains the provisional agenda for this year's session.

There is also a Web page on the next General Assembly session, at . You'll find there the provisional list of speakers for the general debate, which starts on 20 September.

**The Week Ahead

Finally we have “The Week Ahead” which you can pick up in my office. I’ll mention just a few highlights:

On Tuesday, 7 September, the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations will meet to complete its consideration of the question of the consultative status of Christian Solidarity International.

At 11 a.m. that same day, the book entitled The UN and Global Commerce will be launched at a press conference in this room.

On Wednesday, the Council is scheduled to hold consultations on Kosovo, and the Secretary-General’s report on the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) is due.

On Thursday, the Council is scheduled to hold consultations on the Ethiopia/Eritrea conflict, as well as on East Timor.

That is all I have for you. I await your questions.

**Question-and-answer session

Question: Will the Secretary-General make a statement in person today on East Timor?

Spokesman: We are still awaiting confirmation, but there is a good chance that the Secretary-General himself will make the announcement from this room and will take your questions.

Question: Are you concerned about the safety of the United Nations staff, especially after reports of a massacre in Maliana where 20 people were killed?

Spokesman: There were reports of deaths in Maliana. The figure of 20 was mentioned to our people in Dili, but we have no way of confirming that. But as I said yesterday, our concern is for the innocent people of East Timor, as well as for our own staff, international and local. The security situation has to be brought under control. We think Indonesia is capable of doing that. We continue to appeal to them to do what is within the realm of possibility, namely to clamp down on these renegade elements running around with machetes and weapons. Their intention in signing this agreement was to allow this consultation to go forward and for the future of East Timor to be determined in a peaceful way. We hope that they will make good on that commitment.

Question: Mary Robinson raised the issue of an international peacekeeping force in East Timor. Is the United Nations as a whole now giving more thought to this?

Spokesman: Nothing has changed since yesterday, when I said that those discussions appeared to be going on in capitals and in the corridors here. I don’t know if, when the Council takes up East Timor today under “Other Matters”, they will formally discuss that option. The pre-conditions, I would assume, for the Council would be the approval of Indonesia and Portugal for the deployment of military, and then of course the Council approval. I don’t know that it would be practical to try to put together a peacekeeping force from scratch, given the urgent security concerns we are all looking at. But a “Coalition of the Willing”, as we call it -– governments that might be willing to send in troops, who have the capacity to deploy troops quickly, armed, ready to act -- that could be accomplished relatively quickly. But, again, I am getting way ahead of the Security Council here, because to my knowledge, at this point they have not yet even discussed this option.

Question: Has the Secretary-General spoken with the Indonesian Government today, or how many times this week? Or is everything going through Mr. Marker? Where is Mr. Marker at this moment?

Spokesman: I believe he may still be in Jakarta. I’ll have to look into that. He was there yesterday for discussions with the Government on the security situation. I don’t have a log of the Secretary-General’s phone calls, so I can’t tell you whom he might have spoken to by phone, but he has been following the situation very closely.

Question: To put together a United Nations force takes weeks, months even. Will the Council give their blessing to an international force that is not under the United Nations flag? I think the Australians are ready to move.

Spokesman: That is what I was referring to before, that a “Coalition of the Willing” is another option the Council would have. But again, it would have to proceed from an invitation from Indonesia and Portugal, so as not to get into a paralysing Council debate over forceful intervention.

Spokesman: The Minister of Justice said yesterday that he would welcome an intervention. Is that not an invitation?

Spokesman: You would have to ask the Council that, but I believe it would have to be something more formal. I think a written invitation, or perhaps a statement by the Indonesian Ambassador here addressed to the Council would be required.

Question: Will the United Nations again be perceived as waiting too long before acting? The Secretary-General has been preaching preventive diplomacy, being ahead of the situation for years. What about the standby force?

Spokesman: We still don’t have rapid reaction capability. We have a number of formal arrangements with potential troop contributors, who have told us they can make available to us troops, police, transport capabilities, etc. on a rapid response basis. But it is not an open-ended commitment, it is a commitment in principal, and then they have the right in any specific case to say, no, we have no wish to participate in this current mission you are trying to put together. It is a step in the right direction. It is still not full rapid reaction capability. We still have to put missions together from scratch. It is time consuming and if you have an urgent need, it is not the way to go.

Question: Have any special arrangements been made with the Indonesian authorities once the results of the consultation are announced? How will the new troops that Indonesia is bringing in be deployed?

Spokesman: I don’t know. I think you should ask the Indonesians that question.

Question: Why is the United Nations waiting for an invitation from the Indonesian Government, considering that the United Nations doesn’t recognize Indonesia as the administering Power of East Timor?

Spokesman: I said Indonesia and Portugal. If you are familiar with Security Council debates on intervention, you know that there are members of the Council who are in principal opposed to forceful intervention. So without an invitation from the administering Power, Indonesia, the former colonial Power, Portugal, I don’t think you would have the political requisites for easy agreement in the Council on approving a new mission.

Question: Is the Secretary-General calling for the Security Council to condemn Indonesia, considering that you feel Indonesia can stop the violence?

Spokesman: No, our position continues to be that we are exhorting Indonesia to live up to their part of the bargain, to effectively deploy their security forces, and to restore law and order in East Timor.

Question: Many people feel that adding Indonesian soldiers in Timor is just adding fuel to the fire, since they were the ones responsible for the killings for so many years.

Spokesman: We can’t get away from the basic fact that Indonesia agreed to take responsibility for law and order. We are pressing them to fulfil that responsibility.

Question: Did anybody discuss at the time of the 5 May Agreement contingencies in case Indonesia failed to provide security?

Spokesman: I am not privy to the discussions that led up to that agreement. I am not aware that there had been any discussion of this kind of contingency plan.

Question: There was a feeling, I am sure, that despite the window of opportunity offered here, security arrangements were less than perfect.

Spokesman: Well, the political situation in Indonesia was changing. After all these years of debating this East Timor situation, the sudden decision by the Indonesian Government to go along with the popular consultation was a breath of fresh air. It was a breakthrough. Everyone felt very good about it, despite the fact that there was perhaps some concern about security. But Indonesia said they would take care of law and order. We had no choice but to accept the good faith of the parties to the agreement and to act accordingly.

Question: Was there no scepticism?

Spokesman: I don’t think there was, frankly, at the time. It was only with the emergence of the militias that the concern began to grow.

Question: Was there no request from Indonesia at that time for a United Nations force to be there before the consultation, to be there during the consultation?

Spokesman: No, the discussion, and in fact the agreement calls for, should the outcome of the consultation be a rejection of the autonomy proposal, that United Nations peacekeepers would go into the province for the transitional period, awaiting then the Indonesian parliament’s legislative action concerning the status of East Timor, and that the peacekeepers would then provide an element of stability during the transition phase. But it was not anticipated to be needed during this time up to the announcement of the outcome.

Question: In retrospect, was it a mistake?

Spokesman: Again, the nature of the agreement is what it is. It is what the parties signed their name to. The security element was provided for in the agreement: it would be Indonesia that would take care of that. It is always easy in retrospect to say, Oops, we should have done things differently.

Thank you very much.

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