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 Manoel de Almeida e Silva, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

**Noon Guest

Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. Our special guest today will be Ambassador Philip Kirsch of Canada, who will be here in his capacity as Chairman for the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court. We’ll proceed with the briefing as we normally do. Towards the end, the Ambassador will join us up here.

**Secretary-General’s Travels

We’ll start with the Secretary-General’s activities during his trip to Europe. Today he began the final day of his official visit to Hungary with a visit to Wallenberg Park, established as a tribute to Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from Nazi persecution during World War II. “Raoul highlighted a vital role of the by-stander”, the Secretary-General commented, “of the third party amidst conflict and suffering. It was here in the face of despair that his intervention gave hope to victims and encouraged them to fight and resist, hang on and bear witness. We’ll have the text available in our office once we receive it. Nane Annan, Wallenberg’s niece, described her uncle as “anti-hero”, a man who did what he could to save innocent lives.

The Secretary-General then returned to the Parliament building to meet with members of the Parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee. He wished Hungary well with its membership in the European Union, but urged the lawmakers to also remember those further behind. “It would be sad”, he said, “if European unity would lead to a new division in Europe between a prosperous west and central region, and a war-torn, impoverished east and south-east”. At midday, he met with the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban. The Secretary-General and the Prime Minister interrupted their conversation for a press encounter. They then continued their discussion over lunch.

In the afternoon, the Secretary-General went to the Club of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, where he met Ferenc Madl, Hungary’s President elect, who will begin his five-year term on 4 August. Returning to the Government House, where he was staying, the Secretary-General met with representatives of Hungary’s Roman Community, who were accompanied by the Minister of Justice, Ibolya David. As we speak, the Secretary-General is holding a press conference. In the evening he’ll be the guest at an official dinner hosted by the Foreign Minister.

**Sierra Leone

Today, the 21 Indian peacekeepers who were released yesterday to Liberia from detention in Sierra Leone are scheduled to be transported back by plane from Monrovia this afternoon to Freetown, Sierra Leone. [It was later announced that they had arrived in Freetown from Monrovia.] Medical facilities will be provided to those who might need them in Freetown, although all 21 are described as being in reasonable health. In a statement issued yesterday afternoon, the Secretary-

Daily Press Briefing - 2 - 30 June 2000

General welcomed their release with the assistance of President Charles Taylor of Liberia. He said he hoped it would be followed by "immediate and unconditional freedom of movement" for the 222 Indian peacekeepers and 11 United Nations military observers who are surrounded at Kailahun.

Also in Sierra Leone, Nigerian troops of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) are moving to reinforce Mile 91, where humanitarian workers estimate that some 49,000 internally displaced Sierra Leoneans have gathered. The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) has been reported to have burned and looted villages in the Mile 91 area, and UNAMSIL has been reinforcing the area to protect the displaced persons from RUF combatants, who seem to be searching for food. We have just received information, as I was coming down to the briefing, that Jordanian troops escorting a convoy may have been ambushed near Mile 91 today, but we are awaiting further details and will provide them as we receive them.

**Security Council on Sierra Leone

The Security Council is currently discussing Sierra Leone, on which it is being briefed by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Oluyemi Adeniji, who will speak to you in this room once the Council consultations are concluded. After the Council briefing ends, the Council is expected to hold further consultations on a draft resolution, which was put into blue yesterday, concerning steps to ban trade in rough diamonds from Sierra Leone. The Council is expecting to put the draft resolution to a vote once consultations end.

**General Assembly Special Session on Social Development

Today is the fifth and final day of the General Assembly’s twenty-fourth special session on Social Development, which is being held in Geneva. The discussions are expected to go on late into the night. By the session’s end we expect the delegations present to adopt an “outcome document” designed to strengthen and further the commitments agreed upon at the 1995 Copenhagen World Summit on Social Development. As of now, 75 per cent of the document has been agreed upon and fewer than 20 paragraphs remain to be cleared. Agreements have already been reached on numerous subjects, including setting date-sensitive poverty reduction targets, as well the need to strengthen the participation of developing countries in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

**Ethiopia/Eritrea

The Secretary-General is dispatching a reconnaissance mission next week to Ethiopia and Eritrea to assess the United Nations role in helping to implement the agreement signed by those Governments earlier this month under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Algiers. We expect to announce further details next week once the mission is underway.

**Guinea-Bissau Report

Available on the racks today is the Secretary-General’s report on developments in Guinea-Bissau and on the activities of the United Nations Peace- building Support Office in that country. For those interested, the document number is S/2000/632. The Secretary-General notes that many challenges remain as Guinea-Bissau seeks to restore peace, stability and sustainable development and to improve the critically low living standards of its people. They include consolidation of democratic institutions and the restructuring of the armed forces, which remains one of the Government’s post-electoral priorities. Further, he states that given the serious shortage of the national resources and infrastructure, the sustained help of the international community is crucial for the consolidation of the progress achieved so far.

**International Court of Justice Ruling Expected

The International Court of Justice will give its decision tomorrow on a request by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) for provisional measures in its case against Uganda. The Court will deliver its decision at 11 a.m. in the Peace Palace at The Hague, following hearings held this Monday and Wednesday involving the parties to the dispute. In those hearings, the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo asked the Court for provisional measures that the Government of Uganda must order its army to withdraw immediately and completely from Kisangani and cease forthwith all military activity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, among other measures. The Ugandan Government responded that the circumstances of the case should not require the exercise of the Court's powers. Further details are available in a press release we have in our office upstairs.

**East Timor

And now, news from East Timor. Today, two international prosecutors were sworn in for the special panel handling so-called “serious crimes”. Timorese prosecutors to the panel will be sworn in next week. Michael Keegan, a former trial attorney and legal advisor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, was appointed Deputy-General Prosecutor for Serious Crimes. He gave a press conference in Dili today and the transcript is available in our office.

Also from Dili comes information that the National Consultative Council today adopted a draft regulation that will lay the foundation for a new tax system in East Timor. The regulation creates the East Timor Revenue Service as the new collection agency for taxes, and introduces a new comprehensive set of taxation procedures for support of the new tax system.

And, in other good news from Dili, the Investment Promotion Unit of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) has received several million dollar investment proposals over the last weeks. Possible investors are from Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Australia, Portugal, Indonesia and the United States. Some of the areas of interest are hotels, prefabricated housing plants, mechanized fishing projects, large-scale poultry farms and waste management plants. You can have more details in the briefing notes UNTAET prepared.

**UNHCR Appeal for Timor

Also on East Timor, we have the news that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has issued an appeal today to donors for $21 million for the remaining six months of this year. The new funding will be used to promote the continuing voluntary repatriation of East Timorese refugees, mainly in West Timor, to East Timor; assistance to refugees; and resettlement and reintegration projects in the two territories. More details are available in the note from UNHCR in Geneva.

**UNHCR in Chechnya

UNHCR also has details that some 170,000 internally displaced Chechens hosted by Ingushetia have come under direct pressure to leave. There are also reports of the displaced being under pressure to leave privately owned abandoned buildings, factories and farms. UNHCR has informed Russian authorities that despite various constraints, all efforts should be made to maintain Ingushetia as a safe haven. More details, as I said, are in their note upstairs.

**Global Biodiversity Centre

This coming Monday, the United Nations flag will be raised in Cambridge, United Kingdom, at a public ceremony to celebrate the opening of the first new United Nations institute in Great Britain in 50 years. The World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) joins the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as its global biodiversity information and assessment centre. As an integral part of UNEP, the Centre will assess the health of species and ecosystems, and threats to their survival.

**Announcements

Getting close to the end of the briefing, there are a couple of announcements. The United Nations Overview of World Economic Prospects for the Year 2000 and Beyond will be made available by the Department of Public Information early this afternoon, along with a summary press release. The material in both the report and the release is under embargo until Monday, 3 July, 11 a.m.

Available upstairs is the regular Friday feature, the Week Ahead. And, there are a limited number of passes available for journalists who would like to bring guests to Headquarters to watch the fireworks display on 4 July, the host country’s day of independence. The passes will be distributed on a first-come- first-served basis. Those interested should contact Sonia Lecca, Chief of the Media Accreditation Unit in room S-250.

**Statement on Indonesia

Before I answer any questions or move onto our guests, I have here a statement attributable to the Spokesman. It is on Indonesia:

“The Secretary-General is distressed by the news that an overcrowded boat, carrying the persons fleeing the clashes in northern Maluku province in Indonesia and bound for north Sulawesi, sunk during a violent storm yesterday. He expresses his condolences to the Government of Indonesia and to the families of the victims. The Secretary-General is concerned over the reports of the escalation of violence in the Maluku and north Maluku provinces, and the steady deterioration in the humanitarian situation, and the related reports of large numbers of people killed, and widespread displacement of the population. The Secretary-General appeals to those perpetrating this violence to respect humanitarian law and principles, and to ensure the protection of civilians. They must allow safe and unimpeded access to enable humanitarian workers to provide assistance to the population in need.

Are there any questions before we move to our guests:

**Questions and Answers

Question: In the case of the Security Council and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, do we have a situation where one organ of the United Nations is having to make a decision against another? The Security Council is seized of the situation and yet the Court is being asked to decide on the situation.

Deputy Spokesman: The Court will have to decide whether or not they are the ones to make a judgment on an issue where a Member State has approached it. The Security Council and the International Court of Justice have different responsibilities. They don’t get in each other’s way, it’s just that the Court was approached. A Member State can approach whichever main bodies of the Organization to which they want to appeal. It is then up to that body to take the actions it deems appropriate within its mandate, which differs from one main body to another.

Question: Does the United Nations have any reaction to the recent measures adopted by the Turkish-Cyprus Government?

Deputy Spokesman: Of course we are disappointed with the measures taken, but the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) is evaluating the impact of these measures.

Question: In Sierra Leone, where is this place where the ambush took place.

Deputy Spokesman: As I said, it’s on a map location named Mile 91. We’ve been referring to it continually.

And if there are no other questions, I’m happy to welcome Ambassador Philip Kirsch of Canada, Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court.

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