DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
20000724The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General:
**Briefing Guest -- Olara Otunnu
Good afternoon. Our guest at the briefing today will be Olara Otunnu, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. And he will speak on the Secretary-General's report on that subject.
**Lebanon
Concerning Lebanon, on arriving this morning at Headquarters, the Secretary- General said that all the violations had now been cleared up on the line of withdrawal along the border between Lebanon and Israel. The Secretary-General added he hopes that in the next few days we will see our troops on the border".
He's expected to send a letter to the Security Council today to inform them of these latest developments.
In Lebanon itself, officers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are meeting today and tomorrow with their counterparts from the Lebanese Army in order to work out the operational details of the deployment of both forces along the line.
Also, available today on the racks is the Secretary-Generals report on the United Nations peacekeeping mission in that country, covering the first six months of this year.
In it, the Secretary-General states that both sides have undertaken to respect the line of withdrawal but he adds: It is crucial that they adhere scrupulously to this commitment and continue to act responsibly and with restraint, to avoid any incidents that could lead to an escalation of tensions in this sensitive area.
The Secretary-General also requests that the mandate for UNIFIL be extended another six months, until 31 January 2001.
**Sierra Leone
Over the weekend, the United Nations mission in Sierra Leone launched "Operation Thunderbolt" northeast of Freetown, aimed at dislodging a rebel faction called the "West Side Boys" from the roads there and clearing their roadblocks around Masiaka.
The Secretary-General, on entering the building this morning, described the operation on Saturday as a preemptive strike against a group of rebels who were
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planning to attack the United Nations force in Sierra Leone. He said, "Basically, we are going to remain vigilant... Anyone who attempts to attack the peacekeepers would know that they will defend themselves and that there will be a price to pay."
The West Side Boys had been formerly aligned with the Government but their defiance had reached a point recently where they were harassing civilians, obstructing the security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel and the local population, as well as blocking delivery of humanitarian assistance.
There were no reports of United Nations casualties from this operation, in which the United Nations regained control of the town of Masiaka.
An ambush by suspected members of the West Side Boys following the operation resulted in the injury of one Guinean soldier who was today reported in Freetown for medical treatment.
Meanwhile, the United Nations mission in Sierra Leone reported that 16 combatants of the Revolutionary United Front presented themselves for disarmament. More are reported to be coming in.
**Democratic Republic of the Congo
On the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the United Nations has put on hold the deployment of the Tunisian headquarters support unit that was to have arrived in Kinshasa this week. The unit would have been the first armed unit to deploy as part of the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Over the weekend, President Laurent Kabila of the Democratic Republic of the Congo publicly stated that the United Nations mission had been asked not to deploy armed troops in Kinshasa and Mbandaka, both Government-held areas.
The deployment of the Tunisian unit cannot take place unless the Government provides the necessary guarantees of cooperation with it.
**Peacekeeper Killed in East Timor
Today in East Timor, a soldier from the New Zealand battalion of the United Nations peacekeeping force was killed following an exchange of gunfire with an armed group near the border with West Timor. This was the first combat-related death of a United Nations peacekeeper in East Timor.
The soldier, Private Leonard William Manning, died of gunshot wounds after a New Zealand tracking team, which was investigating reports of activity by an armed group north-west of the town of Suai, encountered a group of armed men, who have yet to be identified, about eight kilometres west of Fahorem. That area is close to the border between East and West Timor.
At around 10:45 a.m. local time, the United Nations troops and the armed group exchanged fire, and the United Nations patrol withdrew. The United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) is investigating the incident.
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The United Nations Force Commander, Lieutenant-General Boonsrang Niumprodit, said today that "this is a tragic loss, and, on behalf of all members of the UNTAET peacekeeping force, I would like to extend my condolences".
Private Manning's body will be flown back to New Zealand within the next few days.
Also today, a team from the Indonesian Attorney General's office traveled to Suai to interview witnesses to last September's Suai church massacre. The team was accompanied by investigators from the United Nations Mission's Human Rights Unit. The team also visited massacre sites in Dili and Liquica yesterday.
Welcome, Olara. We'll get to you in just a minute.
**Brahimi Report
The so-called Brahimi panel -- named for Lakhdar Brahimi, who heads it looking into United Nations peace operations will meet this afternoon at 3 p.m. to finalize its report, which is now expected to be made public during the week of 21 August.
This afternoon's meeting of the panel will be a closed one.
**Security Council
The Security Council has not scheduled any meeting this morning. An open meeting which had been planned for today to consider a draft resolution on the extension of the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was postponed. Work is continuing on the language of a draft resolution concerning the peacekeeping mission, which is set to end its present mandate next Monday, 31 July.
The Council is expected to hold consultations tomorrow to consider two recent reports by the Secretary-General, on the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon.
**Cyprus
The Secretary-Generals Special Envoy for the situation in Cyprus, Alvaro de Soto, is back in Geneva today for the resumption of the Cyprus talks. This morning he met separately with the Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot delegations.
This round of talks is scheduled to end on Friday, 4 August.
**Secretary-General's Statement on Meeting of G-7 and Russia
On Friday night -- I think it must have been around 9 p.m., I don't know how many of you were here -- but as the meeting of the Group of Seven nations and Russia ended in Okinawa, Japan, the Spokesman's Office issued a statement in which the Secretary-General through his Spokesman voiced his disappointment that the G-7 states had failed to provide debt relief, as promised, to poor countries.
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The Secretary-General said, "For four years, we have had too many promises and too little action", and noted that so far, only nine out of 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries have qualified for some $15 billion of debt relief.
The Secretary-General said more has to be done, and he urged all parties to resolve their differences on this issue urgently.
We still have copies of that statement in my office. We also have available upstairs an information sheet from the World Health Organization (WHO) about ways in which the G-7 states and Russia could help fight infectious diseases in poor countries, by spending about $5 billion per year.
Also available is a statement by the World Food Programme (WFP), praising the United States' $300 million contribution to help launch a universal school feeding programme. The initiative was announced by United States President Bill Clinton following the Okinawa Summit.
**Iraq Programme
We also have the latest figures from the Office of the Iraq Programme, which show that in the week ending 21 July, Iraq exported 13.5 million barrels of oil with an estimated value of $296 million.
You can pick up the details in my office.
**Kosovo Briefing Notes
Today's briefing notes from Pristina, Kosovo, include extensive comments by Daan Everts, the head of the United Nations Mission's pillar on democratization and institution-building, and that's on the completion of voter registration in Kosovo. He calls the registration process a success although he warns that the non-participation by the Kosovar Serb community remains a matter of concern.
**Press Releases
Among the press releases today, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations along with the World Food Programme (WFP) has published a special report on the food situation North in Korea.
The report says that although there are encouraging signs that the relaxation of sanctions against North Korea will have a positive impact on food security in that country, the short-term situation still remains precarious. North Korea is currently in its sixth year of food shortages.
The full press release is available upstairs and the report is available on the Web.
We also have upstairs another press release from FAO on a new interim technical report entitled Agriculture: Towards 2015/2030 --that's really long- term -- which states that the food supply is set to grow faster than the worlds population, but undernourishment will still remain widespread.
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**Press Conferences Tomorrow
Press conferences tomorrow, at 11:15 a.m., Rubens Ricupero, the Secretary- General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) will speak about preparations underway for the third United Nations conference on least-developed countries, that's scheduled for next May 2001 in Brussels, and about arrangements being made for the preparatory committee meeting in New York from 24 to 28 July.
And our guest at the noon briefing tomorrow will be Joseph Connor, the Under-Secretary-General for Management here at the United Nations, and his assistant, Toshiyuki Niwa, and they will speak about the Capital Master Plan for United Nations Headquarters.
That's all I have for you. Any questions before we go to Olara?
**Questions and Answers
Question: On Lebanon, when the Security Council was drafting the resolution, Special Envoy Terje Roed Larsen said that some of the UNIFIL people were already moving into the area, redeploying, or at least conducting some sort of patrols in that area. What does it mean that they are going to be redeploying in the next couple of days? Will they be moving the permanent posts?
Spokesman: Yes. It's the difference between patrolling and then moving in as a permanent presence. And the plan now that the border incidents -- the border violations -- have cleared up, is for the United Nations to support the Government of Lebanon in establishing a permanent presence in Southern Lebanon, right up to the border with Israel.
Question: Is the Government now willing to redeploy substantially its army in that area?
Spokesman: My understanding is that they have deployed approximately 1,000 security personnel, that they will increase this number of security personnel perhaps by another 1,000 and that their military will be kept in reserve for deployment to the South should it be necessary.
Question: The Secretary-General has expressed his disappointment at the failure of the G-7 to provide debt relief to poor countries, and he has urged them to resolve their differences urgently. Does he intend to make concrete, formal or informal suggestions or recommendations to that effect?
Spokesman: I'm not aware of anything beyond this statement. I think he sees the problem as in the hands of the governments who control the money and on whose authority the debts can be forgiven. So he's urging them to be as flexible as possible on the guidelines for this debt forgiveness so that more countries on the indebted side can benefit.
Question: On Sierra Leone, whats the status of the Eisele report? Will that come out? On Congo, what's the status of the deployment of the Pakistanis to Kisangani? Is that also on hold?
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Spokesman: [The Spokesman later announced that elements of the Eisele report will be included in the Secretary-General's report to the Security Council on Sierra Leone, which will be out later this week.] Concerning the deployment to Kisangani, I'll have to get back to you. [He later said deployment to Kisangani remained a priority for the Mission, and the United Nations was discussing deployment with troop-contributing countries.]
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