DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20000111The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General:
**Secretary-General Meets with Security Council
Good afternoon. The Secretary-General met this morning with members of the Security Council to discuss candidates for the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission for Iraq (UNMOVIC).
He first met with the five Permanent Members, and then he met with all 15.
He described these talks as "constructive and helpful" to him, and he says he hopes to be able to make an announcement soon.
**Security Council Notes
The Security Council met this morning for consultations on the Secretary- Generals Report on the United Nations Mission of Observers in Prevlaka (UNMOP) and on the situation in Kosovo. The Prevlaka Mission of course concerns the peninsula in the southern part of Croatia, just across from the Bay of Kotor from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. In his report the Secretary-General hopes that following the elections in Croatia it will be possible for the political process to resume. The last talks between the two sides were held 10 months ago.
The Secretary-General recommends that the mandate of the Mission and its 27 military observers be extended for a further six months. The current mandate expires on 15 January.
Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Bernard Miyet and Jock Covey, who is the number two United Nations official in the Kosovo Mission, will be present for the briefing of the Council on the latest developments in Kosovo.
Because the Council started an hour later than scheduled, it is highly unlikely that the Kosovo background briefing that we wanted to offer to you will take place at 1 p.m. And so we've pushed it back to 3 p.m. today here in room 226. It will be a background briefing, attributable only to a senior United Nations official.
Meanwhile, from Kosovo today, we have two press releases. One is on the sixth meeting of the Kosovo Interim Administrative Council during which progress was reported in creating the structures that will run Kosovo until elections.
Bernard Kouchner, the Special Representative, said after the meeting, "This is the first time in the history of the United Nations system that we are sharing the administration and working directly with the local people".
Kouchner said that at today's meeting they had been pre-occupied with the current state of electrical power in Kosovo, which received a blow last night when a fire caused the main power plant to shut down. Kosovo's two power plants have suffered from years of neglect.
The second press release is on the donation of toys, sports equipment and educational materials from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to the children of Kosovo, which we reported to you yesterday.
**Yugoslav Tribunal: Bosnian Serb Officials Plead Not Guilty
Today at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Radoslav Brdnin and General Momir Talic pleaded not guilty to additional charges brought against them, including genocide. Those two Bosnian Serb senior officials are accused of having planned, instigated and organized the campaign of ethnic cleansing in north-western Bosnia in 1992. The charges against them include genocide, torture, deportation, persecution, destruction of property and destruction of religious sites. Brdnin was arrested on 6 July, and Talic on 25 August of last year. They are charged on the basis of both their individual and command criminal responsibility.
**East Timor Commission of Inquiry Report
Today the Secretary-General is receiving the report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights Violations in East Timor. That report is now being studied by the relevant Secretariat officials. The Commission of Inquiry, which was led by Sonia Picado of Costa Rica, was established following a resolution of the Commission on Human Rights at a special session that they held on 27 September last year. Its mandate was to gather and compile systematically information on possible violations in East Timor. The Commission was to report to the Secretary-General with its conclusions in order to enable him to make recommendations for future action. The report is to be made available to the Security Council, the General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights at its next session.
**Notes from East Timor: Refugees Returning, UNHCR Reports
Meanwhile, in East Timor, a large number of Timorese refugees are leaving camps in West Timor's provincial capital, Kupang, and registering to repatriate, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Last Saturday morning, 462 people returned to Dili from the Kupang camps -- they travelled by ship. A similar number is expected to arrive in Dili tomorrow. By today, some 600 refugees had already gathered at Kupang's transit centre to board the next ship to Dili.
As recently as three weeks ago, UNHCR had reported only a trickle of refugees leaving the Kupang camps. However, according to testimony from the refugees, the weakening power of the militias and the UNHCR mass information campaign have encouraged them to return.
In other East Timor news, United Nations civilian police and investigators from the International Force in East Timor, that's INTERFET, today exhumed six bodies at a beachside graveyard in Maubara, about 25 kilometres west of Dili.
Three of the bodies were identified by relatives; two of the exhumed had been shot several times, while three had multiple stab wounds. The bodies are believed to be those of victims of an attack on a church in nearby Liquica that occurred on 6 April of last year.
On Wednesday, the United Nations police and INTERFET will resume their work by exhuming another 10 bodies believed to be those of victims of a separate attack which took place in Dili on 17 April.
**Iraq Programme Weekly Update
The Iraq Programme's weekly update will be out later this afternoon. It shows that last week Iraq exported 6.9 million barrels of oil, at an estimated value of $151 million. The total revenue since the beginning of the current phase of the programme -- that's phase seven -- as of 12 December, is around $850 million.
So far, the Sanctions Committee on Iraq has approved 64 contracts for the sale of oil, for a total volume of 202.2 million barrels.
**UNHCR Notes: Improvements Reported in Ingushetia
We have available today the briefing notes from Geneva of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
UNHCR reports that the flow of people across the border between Chechnya and Ingushetia continues in both directions, but the number of people going back to Chechnya now outnumbers those who are leaving. An estimated 70,000 people have gone back to Chechnya, while between 150,000 and 180,000 displaced Chechens remain in Ingushetia.
The returns to Chechnya and the large-scale humanitarian effort have improved the situation on the ground in Ingushetia, according to UNHCR. Today, UNHCR's twenty-first aid convoy to Ingushetia reached the capital, Nazran. Meanwhile, UNHCR continues to be concerned about the fate of some 20,000 or more civilians who have been trapped in the heavy fighting in the Chechen capital, Grozny.
Also in UNHCR news, a two-member team just completed a mission to Panama, conducted from 2 until 7 January, to assess the needs of 355 Colombians who fled to Panama from the Colombian coastal town of Jurado. They had fled following an attack last 12 December by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
The 355 Colombians are now living in the Panamanian coastal village of Jacque, UNHCR reports, where they are staying with townspeople and are said to be in good shape.
Finally, UNHCR reports that more than 7,500 Angolans have arrived in Western Zambia since the New Year began, following heavy fighting in Angola's Cuando-Cubango province.
The refugees, mainly women and children, have been arriving on foot, and are in poor health, with several cases of diarrhea, malaria and skin diseases. Since fighting in Angola intensified in October, a total of 20,500 refugees have fled to Zambia.
Just as a reminder, the High Commissioner, Sadako Ogata, will brief the Security Council on the refugee crises in Africa at an open meeting on Thursday.
**1999 Inter-Agency Emergency Appeals
Figures as of the end of December for the 1999 inter-agency emergency appeals have just been released. According to these figures, donors have provided $1.7 billion out of the $2.4 billion required for humanitarian operations covered by these appeals. This amounts to just over 69 per cent of the total funds needed.
It is important to note that while south-eastern Europe received 80 per cent of the requested contributions, in Africa some countries in urgent need of assistance were provided with less than 20 per cent of the requirements. Two examples are Republic of the Congo and Uganda. Still, according to these figures, Africa has so far received 72 per cent of its overall needs. And we have a very interesting chart that provides a breakdown country-by-country of these various appeals which you can pick up in my office.
**Meeting of Committee of Experts on Ottawa Convention
The first meeting of the standing committee of experts on the general status and operation of the Ottawa Convention, which was held from 10 to 11 January, is concluding now in Geneva, according to a press release we've made available in my office. The meeting, co-chaired by Canada and South Africa, has been acting at the working group level to review progress in relation to the implementation of the articles of the Ottawa Convention, as well as to examine potential avenues for future activity.
In particular, discussions centred upon transparency issues in article seven reporting obligations, which requires signatory States to submit details of their progress towards compliance with the Convention. This information received by the Disarmament Affairs division is made available on the United Nations public access Web site, and currently indicates that over 2 million stockpiled landmines have been destroyed by 29 signatory countries since the entry into force of the Convention.
**UNICEF Appoints Two New Deputy Executive Directors
We have a press release here from the UNICEF saying that the United Nations Children's Fund today announced the appointment of two new Deputy Executive Directors. One is Kul Gautam, a national of Nepal, who has served with UNICEF since 1973, and was appointed Deputy Director for Alliances and Resources, and will oversee UNICEF's role in global advocacy for children, inter-governmental and United Nations relations, and resource mobilization and alliance building.
The second is Andre Roberfroid, a national of Belgium who has served with UNICEF since 1974. He is now Deputy Director for Programme and Strategic Planning and will manage the overall direction of UNICEF's global planning and programming initiatives in the coming years.
**Payments
And finally no, next to finally -- honour roll today. Australia is the thirteenth Member State to be paid for the year 2000 in full, and that's with a payment of almost $15.6 million.
**World Chronicle Television Programme
And the last announcement concerns World Chronicle television. Their programme, featuring Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci, the President of the Economic and Social Council, will be shown today at 2:30 p.m. on in-house television channel 3 or 31.
**Questions and Answers
Question: Two questions. You say this report on human rights violations on East Timor will go to the Council and the General Assembly. When will we get it?
Spokesman: I can't tell you today. I think it's still being evaluated, and so I think that the handling of the report is still -- how it will be handled -- is still being decided. So the time-frame is not yet fixed. Soon as we know, we'll let you know.
Question: And the other one which relates to what you said about the refugees registering in Kupang, to return by sea. The numbers are obviously up from what they used to be but you know, respectfully, 460-something isnt an awful lot of people when you consider the huge numbers overall in West Timor. My question is, is it necessary for the refugees to go all the way to Kupang, which is the far end of West Timor, in order to come back by sea. What's the matter with the land border?
Spokesman: The United Nations Mission and INTERFET have now established, I think, three land-border crossings. My impression is that these people going by boat from Kupang are in camps in Kupang and they're not travelling from elsewhere in West Timor. I'll have to double check for you to be sure, but that's the clear impression I have. [It was later confirmed.]
There have been problems with these border crossings from time-to-time as they're have been with the camps themselves, and we're continuing to try to improve security.
One of the problems, there was reference in this announcement to the mass information campaign and they've organized West Timorese journalists to go over to East Timor and to come back and to report on the situation in East Timor because the militia in the camps have been spreading scare stories to the people, to say if you go back there will be no work, no security -- the situation is terrible.
I think that information campaign on the part of UNHCR is starting now to have some effect. They are seeing what they consider, while the numbers are still small, a significant increase in the rate of return. I think the estimate, and its still just an estimate, is that there is something in the neighborhood of 100,000 refugees still in West Timor.
Question: It's a very large percentage that's missing. Can we find out what the conditions are like in the camps today, and is pressure continuing to be put on the Indonesian authorities to do something about these militia?
Spokesman: Yes. We continue to raise this issue with the Indonesian authorities and you see reference today, I think for the first time, of a weakening of the militia's control over the camps. We reported a few weeks ago that UNHCR was now finding it possible to circulate in some camps without military escort, whereas before -- even with military escort -- they would sometimes be prevented from entering the camps. My impression is there's a gradual but steady improvement in the situations in those camps. I'll try to get more details for you, though.
Question: Is there any news on the nomination of the Under-Secretary-General for Oversight?
Spokesman: Nothing new on that. Unfortunately, I have nothing to add to what I said last time around. I think the Secretary-General is now on his third list of candidates. Were not expecting to have an announcement very soon.
Thank you very much. * *** *