DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20000412The following is a near-verbatim transcript of todays noon briefing by Marie Okabe, Associate Spokesman for the Secretary-General:
**Secretary-General in Cuba
Good afternoon. I'm sorry for the delay. The Secretary-General this morning addressed the first-ever Summit of the Group of 77 countries formed in 1964 to fight poverty and promote development, and which today numbers 132 member countries plus China. He called on the developing countries of the South to work more closely together and said that South-South cooperation was now a pillar of the new approach of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The timing of the meeting, he said, couldn't be better. It comes just five months before the Millennium Summit at which world leaders are expected to define the kind of United Nations they want to see in the twenty-first century.
At that gathering, he declared, the South's voice should not only be loud but also clear, consistent and constructive. He urged the heads of State to read his Millennium Report and to react to his proposals to reduce poverty, curtail the illegal small arms trade and help poor countries benefit from the information technology revolution.
He called for a strengthening of the United Nations so that the global economy could be made more equitable by underpinning it with rules based on shared social objectives and institutions.
In the margins of the Summit, the Secretary-General will have a number of bilateral meetings. Later today he is expected to meet with Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia, the President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo, General Pervez Musharraf, the Chief Executive of Pakistan, President Joaquin Chissano of Mozambique and Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestine Authority, as well as with the President of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings.
The Secretary-General is also scheduled to attend a reception this evening hosted by Cuban President, Fidel Castro.
**Security Council Consultations on Democratic Republic of Congo
The Security Council began its work this morning with closed consultations, in which it heard a briefing by Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Bernard Miyet on the latest developments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Miyet noted the adoption last 8 April by the Political Committee of a plan to disengage the belligerent forces from their current lines of confrontation, under the supervision of the United Nations Mission and the Joint Military Commission. The adoption of the plan has added urgency to the deployment of the United Nations Mission, he said, noting that the Mission's chief of staff has stressed the need to
Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 12 April 2000
deploy United Nations liaison and observer teams to Mbandaka and Mbuji-Mayi "as rapidly as possible".
He also noted concerns on the humanitarian front, with deterioration in conditions in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo since the beginning of this year and some 550,000 internally displaced people caught up in the war.
We had hoped to have Mr. Miyet come to talk to you, but we just learned from the Council that he has an urgent scheduling conflict, so we're trying to arrange something for you possibly later in the afternoon. But we will squawk whatever it is that we have arranged.
After the item on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Council is expected to discuss, under "other matters", the composition of a Security Council mission to Kosovo planned later this month. The mission is scheduled to visit Kosovo on 27-28 April and is to be led by Ambassador Chowdhury of Bangladesh.
The Council is not expected to discuss Angola, however, since Council members received the report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Office in Angola only yesterday evening. The Angola consultations will be rescheduled so that the members have time to evaluate the report.
We do, however, have the notes from Mr. Miyet's briefing upstairs in our office for you.
**Secretary-General Requests Six-Month Extension of Angola Office
The new report by the Secretary-General to the Council on Angola, which I mentioned just now, was delivered to the Security Council last night, and it should be issued as a document sometime today. It is already available on the United Nations Web site.
In the report, which covers developments with the United Nations Office in Angola since January, the Secretary-General notes that the security situation in Angola has continued to deteriorate, particularly along the border areas with Namibia and Zambia.
He also notes allegations of grave human rights violations against both the Government and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), and says that special attention should be paid to the need to ensure respect for the human rights both of internally displaced persons and of those living in zones captured recently from UNITA.
The United Nations Office puts the total amount of the war-affected population at 3.7 million, including 1.6 million internally displaced persons - - out of a total population of 12.6 million.
The Secretary-General also notes in the report that he will send his Adviser for Special Assignments, Under-Secretary-General Ibrahim Gambari, to Angola in May to hold discussions with the Government and will designate a head of the United Nations Office shortly. He also requests the Security Council to extend the Office's activities by six months, until 15 October.
**Western Sahara Envoy Visits Spain and France
The Secretary-General's Personal Envoy for Western Sahara, James Baker, met this morning in Madrid with the Foreign Minister of Spain, Abel Matutes, and briefed him on his visit to Algiers, Tindouf and Rabat, which wrapped up yesterday.
In comments made to the press afterward, the text of which is available upstairs, Baker said that the Settlement Plan concerning Western Sahara is "stuck", and he added that it is "extremely difficult" to obtain the consensus among the parties necessary to proceed forward.
However, he said, he will brief the Secretary-General in the next few days on the substance of his talks with the Governments of Morocco and Algeria and with the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Sagui el-Hamra and Rio de Oro (Polisario) on whether the parties can, as he put it, "achieve an early, durable and agreed resolution of their dispute".
After his meeting with the Spanish Foreign Minister, Baker flew to Paris to meet with French President Jacques Chirac. He will head back to the United States later today.
**Bertini Begins Visit to Horn of Africa
World Food Programme Executive Director, Catherine Bertini, began her tour of the Horn of Africa today to assess emergency relief needs in the region. Her first visit was to Ethiopia's drought-stricken Somali region. Bertini, named by Secretary-General Kofi Annan as his Special Envoy to the region, visited Gode in south-eastern Ethiopia where some 1.3 million people are affected by the crisis. Of the affected population, one third are severely malnourished.
During her visit to Gode, Bertini surveyed several feeding centres. According to sources on the ground the situation in Gode is improving, with mortality rates having reportedly declined up to 70 per cent.
On her way to Gode, Bertini passed a cemetery where she saw many fresh graves; animal carcasses -- donkeys and cows, mainly -- littered the countryside.
Bertini also met with government officials today. The meeting resulted in an agreement to set up eight new feeding centres for children in and around Gode. Each centre will cater to 1,000 to 1,500 children. Bertini also discussed with the officials the problem of insecurity in the area and, in particular, the safety of humanitarian aid workers.
Tomorrow, that's Thursday, Bertini will meet with senior government officials, including the Ethiopian Prime Minister, in the capital of Addis Ababa.
**Resolutions on Chechnya and China Introduced at Human Rights Commission
In Geneva last night, at the Commission on Human Rights, the United States introduced a draft resolution expressing concern at the continuing reports of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms in China, while welcoming progress realized on the economic, legal and development front. Portugal, on behalf of the European Union, also introduced a draft resolution on Chechnya, which among other things, "calls upon all parties to the conflict to take immediate steps to halt hostilities and the indiscriminate use of force, and to begin without delay the holding of a political dialogue".
The texts of those two drafts are available in our office.
Today was the deadline to introduce draft resolutions on the situation of human rights in specific countries. In addition to the two draft resolutions I already mentioned, draft resolutions were introduced on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Southern Lebanon and West Bekaa, Iraq, Afghanistan, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, Rwanda, Myanmar, Sierra Leone, Cuba, as well as on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The vote will take place on 18 April.
**Forensic Work to Resume in Kosovo
The Spokesman for the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia announced today in The Hague that forensic work for the Tribunal would resume in Kosovo on 18 April after being shut down during the winter. He added that there are 300 suspected sites to be examined in four months. More details are in the weekly briefing notes, which are available in our office.
**Press Releases
We also have briefing notes from Pristina in Kosovo, where the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo notes that United Nations Police on Monday discovered a brothel in Urosevac where eight women were being kept against their will. Police say the women had been kidnapped from Russia, Bulgaria and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The police are now working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to ensure the women's return home. In a separate incident, United Nations Police arrested two men in Pristina yesterday for trafficking in women.
On the racks is the latest report from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on the work of the Stabilization Force, that's SFOR, in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
And among other releases, we have an item from the United Nations Volunteers Programme, noting the preparations by the Volunteers for electoral registration of the Kosovar population. Some 250 United Nations Volunteers are already in Kosovo and their number is expected to reach 700 by June.
**Peacekeeping Deployment
And we have available upstairs the "Monthly Summary of Troop Contributions" as of 31 March of this year.
The chart points out that as of the end of March there were 29,286 military and civilian police personnel serving in 15 peacekeeping operations and three political missions.
I should point out this is the highest deployment figure reached since December 1995, when the deployment reached just over 31,000.
**Press Conferences
Press conferences scheduled -- today at 3 p.m. we have a background briefing by the Canadian Security Council team to discuss issues before the Council next week, for example sanctions in general, Angola sanctions in particular and the protection of civilians in armed conflict. Delegations are invited to view the briefing in Studio 4, located in the first basement.
At 5:30, Dr. James Orbinski, President of Médecins sans Frontières International, Paul Smith-Lomas, Emergencies Director of Oxfam Great Britain, and Guy Tousignant, Secretary-General of CARE International, will discuss the issue of the protection of civilians in armed conflict, and that's sponsored by the Canadian Mission.
And tomorrow, the Department of Economic and Social Affairs is sponsoring a press conference by non-governmental organizations on the annual World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting in Washington and its relevance to the Social Development Preparatory Committee meeting currently taking place here at Headquarters. Guest speakers will be from the Women's Environment and Development Organization, Social Watch, International Council on Social Welfare, and the World Council of Churches.
**William Shawcross Sunday Times Interview
And finally, William Shawcross, the journalist whose interview with the Secretary-General appeared in the Sunday Times of London three days ago, has been in touch with our office to say that he will be sending a letter to the editor to this week's Sunday Times to say he made an error in transcribing one of the quotations.
In the letter, Shawcross says that in his interview with the Secretary- General, he referred to "some African leaders". The word "some" got dropped in the article, making it seem that the Secretary-General appeared to be criticizing all leaders of Africa. Shawcross says "that would be ludicrous and he did not do that".
And that's what I have for you today. I'm sorry that Mr. Miyet could not join us here.
**Questions and Answers
Question: There was just a story out of the Middle East saying that Israel has accepted a United Nations proposal to demarcate the border with Lebanon. Do you have any details on this proposal and has Lebanon accepted the proposal?
Associate Spokesman: As you know, the Secretary-General informed the Security Council in a letter that was made public earlier this week that he is awaiting a formal letter from Israel on the withdrawal, and only after that will he be making a formal comment on this evolving situation.
So for the moment, the Secretary-General has asked that he be the only one to speak on this issue, and so we will not have any further comment.
Question: Is there a United Nations proposal or is there not a United Nations proposal? At least we ought to know that. Is this a real thing that they say exists, or are you saying that there never was such a United Nations proposal? That we need to have.
Associate Spokesman All I can tell you right now is what I just said, and the fact that the United Nations is, as in all operations, currently having internal meetings here on contingency planning on Lebanon, and that is ongoing.
Question: Can you kindly take the question because I think that it is legitimate that we ask if there is such a thing as a United Nations proposal. Can you kindly take that question and get back to those of us with really horrifying deadlines, like as of now.
Associate Spokesman: O.K. I'll get back to you. (The correspondent was later told that discussions are ongoing, and therefor we could not comment on details.)
Question: The Security Council trip to Congo. Is that firm, is there a date or is that up in the air?
Associate Spokesman: You'd have to ask the Security Council President on the dates of it, but I understand that preparations are under way for both missions to Kosovo as well as to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Question: Is there any response from the Secretary-General to this report that we all saw in the New York Times about diplomats napping at the United Nations, this startling revelation. Any response from your end?
Associate Spokesman: I have no official response on the article. Just the other day I saw one of the wire services reporting on, I think, a rating of some of the bathrooms at the United Nations as well. So maybe one day there will be a complete insider's guide to the United Nations put out by one of you. But no, I have no official comment.
Question: United Nations officials never nap, we know that. But Amnesty and Human Rights Watch came out with a joint statement earlier this morning, calling on the United Nations to reject Russia's stated desire to have an international investigation of alleged human rights abuses in Chechnya. I was wondering if there was any reaction to that yet, or what is Mary Robinsons or the United Nations position. Have they accepted a Russian-led national committee of inquiry, or should there be an international one?
Associate Spokesman: We reported to you I believe last week after Mary Robinson's trip to the region that she did call for a national investigation in Chechnya. I have no immediate comment on the reports that you just saw, but we'll certainly check with Robinson's office and get back to you. (Mary Robinsons office had no further comment.)
Question: The problem is that the United Nations accepts a national investigation - and is not calling for an international investigation?
Associate Spokesman: Robinson called for a national investigation.
Question: Is it similar to East Timor and Indonesia?
Associate Spokesman: I don't know if she drew any parallels between the two, but what she called for in the case of Chechnya was a national investigation and she was widely reported to have announced that after her mission. (The reporter was told later that Robinson, in her address last week to the Commission on Human Rights, did not mention East Timor, but recalled in the context of another urgent situation, the Commission supported a national commission of inquiry and an international commission of inquiry.
Any other questions? Then have a good afternoon.
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