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:

**Carolyn McAskie Noon Briefing Guest

Good afternoon. The guest at today’s briefing, arriving here in a few minutes, will be Carolyn McAskie, the Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator. She will make an announcement regarding an appointment by the Secretary-General in connection with the food emergency in the Horn of Africa and then she will also discuss with you her recent visit to Angola.

**Launching of Secretary-General’s Millennium Report

The Secretary-General will launch on Monday, 3 April, his report containing his vision for the United Nations. The report is titled “We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the Twenty-first Century”. It will be discussed then at the Millennium Summit that will be held here at Headquarters in New York in September.

Tomorrow at 11 a.m., in this room, we’ll have a background briefing on this report conducted by a senior United Nations official. Press kits with copies of the report both embargoed until Monday, 3 April at 10 a.m. Daylight Savings Time, will be made available at the background briefing tomorrow, and afterwards at the press documents counter.

The Secretary-General will present the Millennium Report to the General Assembly at 10 a.m. on Monday, and then he’ll come to this room at 10:45 a.m. to give a press conference on the subjects contained in the report. The press conference will be simultaneously broadcast in seven locations worldwide, but New York will be the point of launch. There will be no noon briefing on Monday.

We have a media advisory on the report’s launch available in my office.

**Security Council Visits Washington, D.C.

There is no meeting of the Security Council today. In fact, there is no Security Council in New York today -- they’re all in Washington. All 15 ambassadors, acting in their personal capacities, are participating in a day- long visit to Washington, D.C..

This morning, they met at the United States State Department with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering.

At 2 p.m., they are scheduled to hold a public meeting with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator Jesse Helms, and that meeting will be the only public one on the members' schedule. Then, at about 4:30 p.m., they are to leave for the White House, where they will be briefed by Jim

Daily Press Briefing - 2 30 March 2000

Steinberg, the Acting Director of the United States National Security Council. Sandy Berger, the Director, is out of the country.

Then tomorrow, the Council will meet with the Secretary-General to wrap up its work for the month of March and that will be in closed consultations. Before that meeting, the Council expects to hold a formal meeting to vote on a draft resolution concerning oil spare parts and equipment for Iraq.

**Sierra Leone

Today, the United Nations mission in Sierra Leone disarmed 60 rebel fighters who had been involved in clashes with other rebel factions for the past 10 days near Kabala in the northern part of the country. A team of 21 United Nations military observers has spent the past several days negotiating an end to the fighting and two platoons of the Kenyan battalion are now in the region monitoring the situation. Last night, about 350 people came out of the bush, among them 60 rebel fighters, 180 women and children, who are members of the fighter’s families, and 110 local people who had been held captive by the rebels.

A convoy of 60 Gurkhas from the Quick Reaction Company left Freetown today to bring back the disarmed combatants and their families. The abductees are being cared for in Kabala.

Still in Sierra Leone, yesterday, a young armed rebel came to the United Nations Mission headquarters in Freetown, asking to join the disarmament programme. The fighter told United Nations staff he had escaped from his commander who is not permitting his soldiers to disarm. That unit he belonged to is in the northern part of Sierra Leone. He looked terrorized and said that had he been caught while he escaped, his commander would have had him executed. He was taken to the nearest disarmament centre.

**East Timor

On East Timor, a member of the National Council of Timorese Resistance (CNRT) was killed yesterday at Maubisse during a fight that broke out with a group of ex-militia. Nine former militia members were engaged in a reconciliation programme run by the CNRT in which they perform community service before being reintegrated into the local community. These ex-militia were reported to be doing fieldwork. For reasons, which are still unclear, the group fought with CNRT members overseeing them. During the struggle, one CNRT man was killed and three others were injured. And one former militia member was also hurt.

The local population captured eight of the nine ex-militia who attempted to escape. However, the ninth who was believed to have killed the CNRT victim is reportedly still at large. United Nations civilian police and peacekeepers are looking for him. This is the first time during the course of the reconciliation programme that such a violent incident has occurred. More than 100 former militia members have been through this programme successfully reintegrated into the local communities that have agreed to accept them.

Daily Press Briefing - 3 30 March 2000

And then Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations Transitional Administrator in East Timor, met today with President Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia and that was in Jakarta. Mr. Vieira de Mello briefed the President on his meeting yesterday with the Indonesian Defence Minister and the commander of Indonesian forces. And as I told you yesterday, the main issue to be discussed is the Memorandum of Understanding on judicial cooperation.

**Somalia

On Somalia, a United Nations aircraft carrying a pilot and three international staff members working for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) was fired upon at the Kismayo airport in Somalia this morning, and as a result, all United Nations air and ground operations in the area have been suspended until further notice.

There has been widespread insecurity in and around Kismayo for several years. Kismayo, some 425 kilometers southwest of the capital, Mogadishu, has been the scene of on-again off-again clan-based fighting for control since former president Siad Barre was deposed in January 1991.

We have a press release on that incident, if you’re interested.

**James Baker to visit Western Sahara

In his last report on Western Sahara, the Secretary-General declared his intention to send his Personal Envoy, James Baker, to the region to hold talks with all parties in an effort to achieve an early, durable and agreed resolution of their dispute.

We can now tell you that Baker's trip to the region will be held from 8 to 11 April. He is to visit Algiers and Tindouf on Saturday, 8 April, before arriving in Rabat the following day. On Tuesday, 11 April, he will visit Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, before departing from the region later that day.

He is to meet with officials from the Moroccan, Algerian and Mauritanian Governments and from the Polisario Front.

**No-Smoking

We've received a reply from the Management Department concerning your complaints about smoking in the South Lounge.

The General Assembly, as I indicated to you, has not approved making this a no-smoking building as would be required were we subject to New York City health rules.

However, management will propose building a well-ventilated smoking room at the basement level. Signs will be posted elsewhere in the building strongly discouraging smoking, but we do not have the Assembly's authority to ban it outright.

Daily Press Briefing - 4 30 March 2000

**UNICEF Press Release on Children Caught in North Caucasus Conflict

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in a press release regarding the impact on children caught in the North Caucasus conflict, said it welcomes the visit by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, to Chechnya. She’ll be there this weekend.

UNICEF said it has communicated to her its concerns about children and added that it was very hopeful that Robinson’s efforts to draw attention to the plight of the affected population will result in renewed actions on their behalf.

**Seminar on the Role of Civil Society in Policy Formulation

Tomorrow at UNICEF House, the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development will be holding a seminar on the role of civil society in policy formulation. Specialists from the agencies research network will discuss important trends affecting governance at all levels, in a series of panels that will begin at 9 a.m.

**Panel Discussion on Globalization and Development

Also tomorrow, a new book on “Globalization: the United Nations Development Dialogue”, will be released. At the same time as it’s released, there will be a panel discussion on “Making Globalization Work for Development” that will take place in the Trusteeship Council Chamber at 1:30 p.m. tomorrow, and you’re all invited.

**Press Releases

Among press releases today, we have statements made at the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva by the Special Rapporteurs on Rwanda and Equitorial Guinea. The Rwanda Rapporteur's statement is in French, while the Equitorial Guinea report is in Spanish.

We also have copies of Pino Arlacchi’s speech on Offshore Banking -- that’s the Conference that we mentioned to you yesterday. And he, of course, is the head of the United Nations Drug and Crime Control Programme.

And we have from the International Court of Justice a release announcing the programme of public hearings on a dispute between India and Pakistan concerning the shooting down of a Pakistani plane last August. The first round of oral arguments will begin next Monday, 3 April.

Also, we have a press release -– you’ll find it on the racks -- from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) concerning the meeting of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Daily Press Briefing - 5 30 March 2000

**Press Conferences

And press conferences, this afternoon at 4 p.m. Cecilia Medina Quiroga of Chile, the Chairman of the Human Rights Committee, and others will discuss the work of the Committee’s 68th session.

And tomorrow at 12:30 p.m., Carol Bellamy, the Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund and Olara Otunnu, the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, will talk about consultations they were currently holding with leading non-governmental organizations on key issues affecting children and armed conflict.

That’s all I have for you. Any questions before we go to Carolyn McAskie?

**Questions and Answers

Question: Concerning the visit to Washington, the members are there in their individual capacity. Does that mean they are not there in their individual capacity as members of the Council?

Spokesman: They’re obviously invited as members. They travel in their individual or personal capacity, meaning that the United Nations does not pay the airfare as if it were an official function or activity of the Council. So they’re going in their personal capacities, they’re paying their own way down. They’re the guests of the United States Government while they’re in Washington, and then they’ll pay their own way back.

Question: Why did they decide to do it that way, because the Security Council as an organ was invited to go to Washington?

Spokesman: This is an unprecedented event. The Council members were invited in their personal capacities, accepted in their personal capacities, and I think if you have any further questions, you’ll have to ask the Council why they did it that way. I can’t speak for them without specific guidance, which I don’t have.

* *** *