DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20000530The following is a near-verbatim transcript of todays noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.
**Sierra Leone
Over the weekend, the Secretary-General issued a statement welcoming the news that the detained peacekeepers in Sierra Leone had been freed. The Secretary-General said he was grateful to the West African leaders who pushed hard for this outcome, in particular President Charles Taylor of Liberia, and that the development will create conditions in which the long and agonizing search for peace and stability will at last be realized.
The United Nations mission in Sierra Leone said 467 detainees have been returned to Freetown via the Liberian town of Foya, but they also drew attention to the fact that more than 250 are still surrounded by the Revolutionary United Front at two different locations. They are made up of 224 from India and 11 other military observers at Kailahun, and 23 Indians at Kuiva. Most of those released are Zambians, of whom four are still unaccounted for, and it is increasingly likely that they may be the bodies discovered at Rogberi junction last week.
There are six United Nations personnel injured and they are currently in a hospital in Freetown. Some of them will require specialized treatment outside the country. We are now making arrangements to medivac them. The reinforcement of the United Nations force continues with the Jordanian and Bangladeshi deployment proceeding at a good pace. The force strength as of this morning is 11,060.
**Lebanon
The Special Envoy of the Secretary-General, Terje Roed-Larsen, is in Damascus today, where he is to meet with Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa.
Over the weekend, Larsen traveled to Israel, where he met with Prime Minister Ehud Barak, Foreign Minister David Levy and Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, and told them that the United Nations assesses that the process of Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon is proceeding "very well". He also raised with the Israeli officials the matter of Lebanese citizens who are held in Israeli prisons, saying that their release "would give an added impetus to the restoration of international peace and security in the area".
Then on Monday, Larsen met in Beirut with Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and Prime Minister Salim el-Hoss. In a statement issued after that meeting, Larsen said that the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has verification teams moving throughout southern Lebanon, checking positions that had previously been held by the Israeli Defence Force and the South Lebanon Army. The United Nations troops are using mobile patrol units and helicopters for that task.
He said those positions are vacated, but noted that Israel's withdrawal from the border area -- including movement of security-related infrastructure on Lebanon's side of the border -- is continuing. With cooperation from both sides,
Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 30 May 2000
Larsen added, United Nations cartographers expect to complete marking a practical line, corresponding with the internationally recognized border of Lebanon, within the next few days. That line on the ground in turn will be used by the United Nations troops to confirm Israel's withdrawal.
The United Nations Force reported today that dozens of soldiers from the South Lebanon Army have returned to Lebanon from Israel, and have turned themselves in peacefully to Lebanese authorities. On the ground, the situation is reported as calm, with increasing signs that Lebanese authorities are moving in to the south.
We have transcripts of three press statements issued by Larsen over the long weekend.
**Security Council
The Security Council began consultations today at 10:30 a.m. on the Western Sahara mission to consider the draft resolution extending the mandate of that mission for a further two months. Then, Council members heard a briefing on Sierra Leone. At 5 p.m., the Council is expected to be briefed on the Ethiopia- Eritrea conflict. A formal meeting to vote on the mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on the Golan Heights, whose current mandate is set to expire on 31 May, is expected to take place after 5 p.m.
**Ethiopia/Eritrea
On Monday, thousands of new Eritrean refugees poured across the Sudanese border to Lafa, arriving on foot, and in donkey carts and trucks and tractors, which shuttled them away from the villages in western Eritrea that had reportedly been taken by Ethiopian troops.
This morning, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) staff in Lafa reported that the number crossing dwindled overnight, but that small groups were still arriving. They estimate that the total for the previous 24-hour period could reach 10,000. Refugees arriving in Lafa told UNHCR that Ethiopian troops now controlled the town of Tesseney, 30 kilometres from the Sudanese border. Most said there had been no fighting for the town, although others reported hearing artillery fire nearby. None of the arrivals on Monday was injured. Most of those crossing into Sudan on Monday were children and women, although there were also significant numbers of men. The latest arrivals are exhausted and badly in need of water and food.
The World Food Programme (WFP) says that its airlift to Eritrea continues, despite the bombing of Asmara airport and vicinity. WFP today continued airlifts of high-energy biscuits to Asmara to feed thousands of recently displaced people from the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
**Kosovo
Kosovo's Interim Administrative Council, which is representative of all of the province's ethnic groups, today condemned the killings which took place on Sunday night in the village of Cernica, in which three Serbs, including a four- year-old child, were murdered in cold blood. The Council called on the people of Kosovo to support the investigations of the police and the Kosovo Force.
The Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Bernard Kouchner, in a statement following the killings, said that the killer, who UNMIK Police have identified, "in his own disgusting form of extremism, has only strengthened the hands of all extremists, and the hand of President Milosevic".
A press release from UNMIK is available in my office.
**First Global Ministerial Environment Forum Opens
The First Global Ministerial Environment Forum opened yesterday in Malmo, Sweden. The meeting, a special session of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), is being attended by over 100 environment ministers, the largest such gathering ever under UNEP auspices. The Forum was addressed through a video message by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and heard an opening statement from UNEP Executive Director Klaus Toepfer, who noted that the ministers have the opportunity to provide their unique environmental perspective to the upcoming Millennium Assembly and Summit and "to shape the environmental agenda of the twenty-first century".
The full text is available in my office.
**World Health Organization Seeks Ban on Advertising and Promotion of Tobacco
Also available in my office is a press release from the World Health Organization (WHO) on the occasion of World No Tobacco Day, which is tomorrow, 31 May. According to WHO, every day 11,000 people die due to a tobacco-related disease. Children, sometimes as young as nine, are lured into the tobacco habit by aggressive marketing and advertising. Most of today's 1.2 billion smokers started before they were eighteen. With a focus this year on the entertainment and sports industries, which are the prime vehicles for carrying tobacco messages around the globe for their largely young audience, the WHO is seeking to make the case for a global ban on advertising and promotion of tobacco.
**Carla Del Ponte to Visit New York
The Chief Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, Carla Del Ponte, arrives in New York on Thursday. She is expected to brief the Security Council here on Friday.
**Press Conferences
Immediately after this briefing, Ambassador Tuiloma Neroni Slade of Samoa and Alan Simcock of the Department of Environment, Transport and Regions of the United Kingdom will be talking about the United Nations Open-Ended Informal Consultative Process on Ocean Affairs.
Tomorrow, there will be a press conference in this room at 11 a.m. on the "World's Women 2000: Trends and Statistics". That publication will be launched at the press conference and provides the latest statistical data on the status of women, documenting women's progress worldwide. Introducing the report will be Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Nitin Desai, Assistant Secretary-General and Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women Angela King, and Francesca Perucci, researcher and author of the report.
**Conventions
We are also pleased to announce that Namibia has ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women on 26 May. This is the first ratification of the Protocol, which opened for signature, ratification and accession on 10 December 1999. Thirty- seven Member States have so far signed the Protocol. It awaits nine more ratifications to go into force. The Convention and its Optional Protocol reflect the principle of universal and indivisible rights shared by all nations.
**Questions and Answers
Question: Does the Secretary-General agree with the statement by Prime Minister Salim el-Hoss that the Lebanese Government could exert its authority in South Lebanon without deploying its army? Would he make a recommendation to the Security Council based on those grounds?
Spokesman: That is a decision to be taken by the Lebanese Government. The Security Council calls for Israel to withdraw and for the Lebanese Government to effectively extend its administration to the South. It is a decision of the sovereign Government of Lebanon on whether special police would be enough or whether they need to deploy their army.
Question: What is the United Nations position on Foday Sankoh?
Spokesman: I can only tell you what the Secretary-General has said. He feels that by his actions, Foday Sankoh has excluded himself from the peace process. He said that once last week and once the week before. Otherwise, it is really up to the Government of Sierra Leone. The President issued a statement for the first time last week saying that he felt that Sankoh should be tried and I understand that the West African Heads of State meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, over this weekend recommended that he be removed from Sierra Leone for his protection. Although the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr. Adeniji, was present at the Abuja meeting, we have no formal reaction to either position on Foday Sankoh or opinion on the need for a trial. We have not taken a position.
Question: Regarding the situation in Kosovo, have any Serbs joined the Administrative Council? If so, how many of them?
Spokesman: Yes, they have. I do not know how many. I will give you that number later.
Question: Do you have any information on a request by the West African States to end the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Sierra Leone and that it be turned over to their command and that the mandate be changed from peacekeeping to peace enforcement?
Spokesman: I believe that they issued a summary declaration with eight points at the end of their three-day meeting and I think what you mentioned are included in those points. We have just received and are studying that text, so I have nothing to say at the moment about our reaction to their summary statement.
Question: Are the Secretary-General's remarks on a more muscular peacekeeping operation part of a new strategy?
Spokesman: He said that peacekeeping needs to be rethought. He said this at the commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University in Washington. He was reiterating what he had said there that the idea was that a peacekeeping force, although it does not go to make war, although it is distinctly configured to peacekeeping and not warmaking, it needs enough of a warmaking capability as a deterrent. It needs that extra military strength, so it would not have to use its military strength. It is an evolution of his thinking, but it is not a fundamental change in the concept of peacekeeping. It is a fundamental shift, but not a change in its nature. He is not saying peacekeepers now have to make war. He says that a peacekeeping force needs an enforcement capability sufficient to deter any challenge to the peace agreement.
Question: Will this have an impact on recommendations for troop strength?
Spokesman: It could well have. The Secretary-General said in light of what has happened in Sierra Leone, for example, he was rethinking the force requirements for the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Question: Does the word "operative" mean "robust"?
Spokesman: The word "robust" as applies to peacekeeping has been around since Bosnia. Yes, you can say more robust.
Question: Did the Secretary-General communicate this concept to the Security Council?
Spokesman: No. He has been talking to Lakhdar Brahimi, who heads the Panel which has been taking a fresh look at United Nations peace operations in light of the lessons, particularly from Rwanda and Srebrenica -- the two reports that came out on our experiences in those places. This panel is to present a paper in late summer that could be presented at the Millennium Assembly and Summit, so that governments at the highest level can rethink the basic principles of peacekeeping. The speech at Johns Hopkins was the first public announcement by the Secretary- General of the lines along which he is thinking and that he invites Lakhdar Brahimi and his Panel to think.
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