DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20000613The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.
**Report of Secretary-General on Democratic Republic of Congo
The Secretary-General's report to the Security Council on the Democratic Republic of the Congo is out today. Noting that the situation in that country and the prospects for further progress in the peace process have become particularly uncertain, he cited fighting around Mbandaka in the north-west and in the Kivus in the east, as well as the recent clashes in Kisangani as having cast into doubt the implementation of the April 8 ceasefire agreement.
The Secretary-General said that the continued outbreaks of fighting in violation of the ceasefire and the difficulties experienced in the inter-Congolese dialogue augur ill for the timely deployment of the second phase of the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He said the Secretariat would continue its preparations for deployment in the hope that conditions would soon permit it.
He noted that deployment is also subject to delays arising from the difficulties faced by the troop-contributing countries that had undertaken to provide battalions and other units. Many of the contingents lack essential equipment without which it would be irresponsible to deploy them. In view of the recent experiences in Sierra Leone, the Secretary-General said he ordered a full review and reassessment before deployment took place.
Drawing attention to Kisangani, the Secretary-General invited the Council acting under Chapter VII, that is the enforcement provision of the United Nations Charter, to demand that Rwanda and Uganda order their armed forces to desist forthwith from further fighting and withdraw from the city immediately and from the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo promptly thereafter. He also urged the Council, also acting under Chapter VII, to demand the subsequent early withdrawal of all other foreign forces in the country as foreseen in the Lusaka agreement.
**Mourning for President Al-Assad
Today, the United Nations flag outside Headquarters is being flown at half- mast, in observance of the official mourning for President Hafez al-Assad of Syria. The funeral of President Assad, who died on Saturday, was held this morning in Damascus, after which his body is to be transported to his hometown, Qardaha. Iqbal Riza, the United Nations chief of staff, is attending the ceremony on behalf of the Secretary-General.
**Lebanon
Today in Lebanon, work by a United Nations team on verifying Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, which had been scheduled for this afternoon, was postponed when some Lebanese experts who would accompany the team were absent because they attended the funeral of President Assad.
Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 13 June 2000
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) will resume verification work early tomorrow morning. Otherwise, the situation in Lebanon remains quiet, according to reports from the United Nations mission.
**Security Council Consultations
The Security Council has just gone into a formal meeting, which began with a minute of silence in honour of the late President of Syria, Hafez al-Assad. The Council is currently hearing an open briefing by Jacques Klein, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
We have the text of his briefing available upstairs.
In those remarks, Klein says he is committed to adding the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina to what he calls "the much overlooked list of United Nations successes". He notes progress in police training and judicial reform, also mentioned in the Secretary-General's recent Bosnia report, and said the mission is preparing a medium-term plan to fulfil its core mandated tasks by the end of the year 2002.
However, he adds, despite five sets of internationally-run elections in five years, no local election has yet been fought on non-ethnic and non-ideological grounds. He urges the need for "social reconstruction" in Bosnia, including the development of a national university and efforts to restore religious tolerance.
Once the Council's open briefing concludes, we will bring Mr. Klein to room 226 to talk to you. We'll inform you when that briefing begins.
In consultations before the formal meeting began, the Council heard from Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast on the latest developments in the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict. Eritrea last week accepted a peace plan developed by the Organization of African Unity to deal with the conflict and Ethiopia's Council of Ministers is currently meeting to consider that plan.
Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hédi Annabi was also on hand to answer questions from Council members. As we told you yesterday, a three-member United Nations team is on standby to travel to Algiers, the site of the current proximity talks, to discuss a possible United Nations role under a peace plan.
Tomorrow, the Council is expected to hold consultations on Cyprus, Bougainville and Sudan. It may also go into a formal meeting on Cyprus afterwards.
**Sierra Leone
United Nations peacekeepers from the Jordanian Special Forces Company, deployed at Rokel Bridge north-east of Freetown in western Sierra Leone, came under fire by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) three times between 3 p.m. yesterday and 6 a.m. this morning and beat back three attempts by some 200 RUF fighters to cross the river by canoe towards the unit. There were no reports of United Nations casualties.
Meanwhile, an Indian doctor who yesterday visited the 21 United Nations personnel being detained at Pendembu in the eastern part of the country reported that all were in good health and that supplies were reaching them regularly. There is no change in their status.
The humanitarian situation remains a concern with the number of civilians displaced since early May reaching more than 105,000 -- more than half of whom have been displaced over the last 10 days. More than 22,000 newly displaced from the Makeni/Magburaka area in north-central Sierra Leone have been registered at the town of Mile 91, where food distribution is scheduled to begin on Wednesday. The extremely precarious security situation is an obstacle to effective aid distribution.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced that 138 children associated with the fighting forces, including 92 former child combatants, were handed over to the agency by a pro-government militia, the Civil Defense Force, yesterday.
We have a press release from UNICEF on this subject.
**Panel Discussion on Dialogue among Civilizations
This afternoon at 1:15 in Conference Room 4, a panel discussion will be held on Dialogue among Civilizations: Towards a Culture of Peace. It is organized by the International Religious Foundation and Inter-religious and International Federation for World Peace, in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of Indonesia to the United Nations.
The President of Indonesia, Abdurrahman Wahid, will be the keynote speaker and Giandomenico Picco, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilizations, will deliver a message on behalf of the Secretary-General. In it he says, In this ever shrinking world civilizational dialogue is no longer an option -- it is a reality The aspirations of individuals and groups to have their voices heard, and their identity appreciated, stand a better chance of being realized in our times than ever before".
The Secretary-General is meeting President Wahid at 3 p.m.
**Humanitarian Update
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that some of Eritreas internally displaced are going home. Some 5,000 internally displaced persons at the Debarwa camp, about 30 kilometres south of Asmara, reportedly left over the weekend for the Areza area. There are still nearly 50,000 displaced at the Debarwa camp, which mainly shelters people who have fled the central Senafe front, about 100 kilometres south of Asmara.
UNICEF reports that Executive Director Carol Bellamy will undertake a five- day, five-nation tour of the Horn of Africa beginning with a visit to Ethiopia on Thursday, 15 June, and continuing to Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia and Kenya. She hopes to draw renewed attention to the drought that is causing displacement and disease to millions in the region.
**Iraq Programme Update
We also have the weekly update from the Iraq Programme in my office for 3 to 9 June. You can pick up a copy from my office.
**Secretary-General Appoints Chief Military Observer of UNMOGIP
The Secretary-General today announced the appointment of Major-General Manuel Saavedra of Uruguay as Chief Military Observer of the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP). Major-General Saavedra has served in the Uruguayan armed forces since 1961 and has held senior command and staff appointments in the field and various headquarters in the Uruguayan army. Currently, he is general director of the Military Institute of Branches and Specialties. He also served in the multinational force and observers in Sinai in 1984 and the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia in 1993.
His bio is available in my office.
**Chief Prosecutor Decides Not to Investigate NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia announced today that the report upon which the Chief Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, based her decision not to open a criminal investigation into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 1999 air campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is now publicly available. A copy of the report can be found on the Tribunals web site at www.un.org/icty.
You will recall that the Prosecutor stated in her address to the Security Council on 2 June that although some mistakes were made by NATO, she was satisfied that there was no deliberate targeting of civilians or unlawful military targets by NATO during the campaign.
A press release is available in my office with more details.
**UNDP Special Adviser Named
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) today named United States economist and author Nancy Birdsall to an appointment as special adviser to UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown. She will work on a part-time basis and support the work behind the yearly Human Development Report. She is currently Senior Associate and Director of Economic Programmes for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has previously served as Executive Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank.
**Media Advisory on Millennium Summit
We have a media advisory concerning the Millennium Summit with useful information and contact numbers available on the racks.
**UNCA Briefing
The United Nations Correspondents Association has asked me to invite you to a press briefing by Wilfred Grey and he is going to present a new book called UN Jigsaw and that will take place today at 4 p.m. The event is co-sponsored by the committee on teaching about the United Nations.
**Questions and Answers
Question: Could you disclose the agenda of the meeting between the Secretary-General and the Indonesian President?
Spokesman: No. The President asked for the meeting and we have no indication at this time of the agenda.
Question: The Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister has described the drafting of the addendum to the Security Council resolution on renewing the mandate of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) as clumsy and tantamount to recognition of the republican movement in Cyprus. Can you comment?
Spokesman: No, I cannot comment on that. All I can say is that the Secretariat is consulting with all concerned and we hope to resolve the difficulties that might still exist in connection with the draft. We hope we are not clumsy drafters and will find a clever solution.
Question: With reference to the Secretary-General's report on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, could you tell us why he decided to ask the Council to demand the withdrawal of forces, specifically the Rwandans and Ugandans immediately, and then everyone else under Chapter VII? Why that Chapter when there are 228 military liaison and other observers in the area at the moment?
Spokesman: If you look at that Chapter you will observe that it calls for graduated levels of response to achieve the desired result, in other words, to enforce a decision of the Council. Economic sanctions are supposed to be attempted before you move to military enforcement, and prior to the former, there are diplomatic sanctions or actions that can be taken. So, there are at least three levels of enforcement spelled out in Chapter VII. You should not think necessarily of the military option as the only one that the Secretary-General would have in mind in recommending that Chapter to the Council. In fact, I think what he does have in mind is sanctions as an effective instrument in this case should the parties reject or not comply with the Council's call.
Rwanda and Uganda first, because that is a new element. It is in effect a new war within the Congo. So, let us clean up that latest development, the Rwandan/Ugandan conflict, move them out and then all other foreign forces should get out as well.
Question: What is the situation in Kisangani now, and how many military observers are there? Is the Secretary-General going to suggest to the Council that economic sanctions be placed on these two countries?
Spokesman: In his report, he is inviting the Council to consider, under Chapter VII, calling for the withdrawal of all foreign forces -- Uganda and Rwanda first, everyone else afterwards. Then there is the question, what are the options under Chapter VII since a strong military presence is not in the Congo, and I said the military option is not the only one under that Chapter. There are economic and diplomatic sanctions that can also be used to pressure countries to comply.
There are now 24 military observers in Kisangani and they are deployed on both sides, the Ugandan and Rwandan sides. I believe it is quiet, but I would have to check the latest cables for you.
Question: Does the Secretary-General believe that there would still be a mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo?
Spokesman: He is saying in his report that although we still have problems getting the troops -- the right troops with the right equipment -- he continues to
hope that the conditions will eventually develop. In other words, concerning these fighting incidents that have taken place, not just in Kisangani, but elsewhere in the country, they should be resolved in a way to allow peacekeepers to be deployed; that troop contributors could come forward with the right troops with the right equipment; and he also says that he wants to rethink the troop and equipment requirements in light of the lessons of Sierra Leone. So, with all of those caveats, he says he is still prepared to plan for eventual deployment. But, clearly, the conditions for that to happen do not exist today.
Question: Would that reassessment mean more than the 5,500 troops that are there now?
Spokesman: He wants to rethink the numbers and the equipment requirements.
Question: Would the Security Council decide on what sanctions they would implement?
Spokesman: This report invites the Council to consider this action. How and whether they will take it is now up to them. You would have to wait to see what they do. Diplomatic sanctions can be breaking off diplomatic relations. It can be cutting off communications and so on. That is the lowest level of Chapter VII action.
Question: Do you have any information on the Secretary-General's trip to the Middle East?
Spokesman: We are waiting for the situation on the ground in Lebanon to be resolved; the verification to be completed; and the confirmation of Israel's withdrawal to be announced. There is some contingency planning for a trip, but we are not in a position to announce it officially yet.
Question: Does the Secretary-General have a comment on the Korean Summit?
Spokesman: Yes. I think we might have a statement on that in the next hour or so. There is something in the pipeline that we had hoped to get for the briefing, but it did not come out the other end of the pipe on time. But, in the course of this afternoon, I think we will have that statement.
Question: On a housekeeping matter, are the no smoking signs in the Security Council lounge being enforced?
Spokesman: If someone lights up the best we can do is politely ask them to respect the signs. The Secretariat is searching for a place in the building where smokers could go. We feel that if there is such a place we will be in a stronger position to ask people not to smoke in the no smoking areas because there is a designated smoking area. Right now, we have a situation where the General Assembly has not authorized us to declare the building a smoke-free one, therefore, we just have to rely on signs and imploring people to respect them.
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