DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20000317The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General:
**Cambodia Talks
Good afternoon. The United Nations Legal Counsel, Hans Corell, and his team began talks in Phnom Penh today with a Cambodian delegation headed by First Minister Sok An, concerning the terms of reference for the proposed trial of Khmer Rouge leaders responsible for the late 1970s genocide.
Mr. Corell described today's talks as concentrated. They will resume tomorrow.
**Secretary-General Returns to New York
The Secretary-General returned from Paris last night after a day of meetings that included discussions with French President Jacques Chirac.
He also met with the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koichiro Matsuura, and talked with heads of United Nations agencies based in Paris. A report on the day's events is available in my Office, if you're playing catch-up.
Also, a transcript of a press conference that he gave at midday in Paris yesterday is also available in my Office. And the audio of that press conference will be aired immediately following the noon briefing today and you can pick that up on video channels 3 and 31, as well as MX channel 8 -- and a bunch of other things I don't understand, ask Maricel.
**Secretary-General and Ted Turner Receive Polio Eradication Award
This morning in the Secretary-General's conference room, he and Ted Turner were awarded the Polio Eradication Champion Award by Rotary International in recognition of the efforts by the United Nations System and by the United Nations Foundation, the charity set up by Turner, to eliminate polio by this year.
The Polio Eradication Initiative was launched by the World Health Assembly in 1988, and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and Rotary International, along with the United Nations Foundation, have been the major partners in a massive worldwide campaign to immunize children against polio.
The Award that the Secretary-General and Ted Turner received today was established by Rotary International in 1995 to honour heads of State, government ministers and other leaders who have made significant contributions to polio eradication.
Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 17 March 2000
**High Commissioner for Human Rights to Visit Chechnya
Mary Robinson, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, will be visiting Chechnya and other parts of the Russian Federation, from 31 March to 4 April 2000. The dates of her trip were announced today in Geneva. During her visit, Mrs. Robinson is expected to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov on 4 April. And she hopes to spend two days out of the five in Chechnya.
**Emergency Relief Coordinator to Lead Inter-Agency Mission to Angola
Tomorrow, Carolyn McAskie, the Acting Emergency Relief Coordinator, will lead a six-day inter-agency mission to Angola, a country beset with complex problems related to the protection and humanitarian needs of some 1.7 million internally displaced people. This mission, requested by the Secretary-General, will include officials from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF, and will undertake a comprehensive assessment of existing coordination arrangements. This mission occurs at a time of increasing attention to the issue of coordination of assistance of internally displaced peoples (IDPs). The mission will visit Huambo and Kuito -- two of the provincial capitals where most IDPs are located.
We have the terms of reference for this mission available in my Office if you're interested.
**Mozambique Update
On Mozambique, as of today, 463,000 people who lost their homes in Mozambique are cared for in 121 centres. Contributions reported to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs for the flood victims now total $119 million. Ross Mountain, the Secretary-General's Special Humanitarian Envoy to Mozambique, is back in Geneva today where he updated the donor countries on the outcome of his mission. He also gave a press conference, and we hope to get a summary of that later today.
The transitional appeal for Mozambique, which will cover a six-month period and address reconstruction needs, is expected to be launched next week.
The latest situation reports on Mozambique are available in my Office.
**Technical Assessment Team in Democratic Republic of Congo
On the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations technical assessment team in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has completed trips to three of the four sites where peacekeeping troops will eventually be based.
Mbuji Mayi, Kananga and Mbandaka were visited on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Matadi, the fourth site, will be inspected tomorrow.
Deployment of the 5,500-strong force is expected to take from four to six months, which means at the earliest by the end of June.
Bernard Miyet, the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, has himself just completed a visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and he will brief the Security Council on the proposed mission in 11 days, on 28 March.
**Security Council Notes
The Council is not meeting today. Their next scheduled meeting is Monday, when they will hold consultations on Afghanistan, including a briefing by the head of the United Nations Support Mission for Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell.
**Spokesman's Statement on Death of Morris Abram
The following statement is attributable to the Spokesman concerning the death of Morris Abram:
The Secretary-General was saddened to learn on his return from Paris last night of the sudden death of Morris Abram, whom he considered an ally and a friend. The two had known each other since the 1980s, when they were both working in Geneva, and where they had what the Secretary-General later described as an immediate meeting of minds. Morris Abram was by then already well known for his dedication to human rights issues. Although he later also became well- known for his critical appraisals of the United Nations, he was invariably driven by a desire to make of the United Nations a better institution. Morris Abram's record as an indefatigable advocate of human rights, freedom, tolerance and civil rights, from the Nuremberg trials until his death, should serve as an example and inspiration for us all.
**Ogata Meets Croatian President
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, met today in Zagreb with Croatia's new President, Stipe Mesic, and other officials during her current trip to Croatia.
The High Commissioner has been hoping to speed up the process of refugee returns to Croatia, where some 65,000 Croatian Serbs have returned to their homes since 1995, but where the bulk of some 300,000 Croatian Serbs remain refugees. Most of the Croatian Serb refugees are living in Serbia and Montenegro, as well as in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Yesterday, Ms. Ogata visited villages in the Pakrac area of western Slavonia, which have accommodated Muslim and Croat refugees from Bosnia, as well as Croats who were displaced from eastern Slavonia.
We have further details in the UNHCR briefing note.
**UNMIK Press Release
We also have a press briefing from the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) available in my Office, and a press release from that mission concerning the Central Election Commission, which is expected to hold its inaugural meeting next week.
**Signings
Venezuela became the thirty-first nation to sign the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
**Press Releases
We have another press release from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on the opening in The Hague of the World Water Forum. We also have press releases from the WHO on the health crisis in Mozambique and the need for time- limited exemptions to a universal ban on DDT.
**Payment
San Marino became the seventy-second Member State to be paid in full for the 2000 regular budget, and that's with a check for just over $21,000.
**The Week Ahead
Let me give you a few of the highlights. The full document is available in my Office.
On Sunday, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Bernard Miyet begins a trip to Sierra Leone, where he will meet with President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and other leaders and visit United Nations deployment sites and disarmament camps. After departing from Sierra Leone, Mr. Miyet will meet in Bamako, Mali, on Wednesday with President Alpha Conare, the current chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
On Tuesday, that is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Secretary-General will deliver a message on racial discrimination to mark the occasion.
That same day, the Security Council will hold open briefings on East Timor and on Tajikistan.
And the newly appointed Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, chaired by Lakhdar Brahimi, will hold its first meeting in New York.
On Wednesday, the Security Council will hold an open briefing on Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On Thursday, the Council has scheduled an open debate on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, at which it will discuss the Secretary- General's recent report on the role that United Nations peacekeepers can play in that process.
And then Friday, the Council will hold consultations and an open briefing on the humanitarian situation in Iraq, at which Benon Sevan, the Executive Director of the Office of the Iraq Programme, will speak.
That's all I have for you. Any questions before we go off for the weekend?
**Questions and Answers
Question: Fred, forgive me, I might not have been here when the story first came out. But this morning with the Rwandan ambassador there was some discussion over whether there's an actual report being drafted on the deaths of the Rwandan President that preceded the genocide there. Is there any report being prepared? It came out of a National Post article that appeared three weeks ago.
Spokesman: Well, the National Post article referred to a United Nations report and I referred all of you to the Tribunal, but the Tribunal has refused to comment on a leaked document. So we really have nothing to say about that subject, nor apparently does the Tribunal want to say anything.
OK, thank you very much. Have a good weekend.
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