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 Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Susan Markham, Spokeswoman for the President of the General Assembly.

Briefing by Spokesman for Secretary-General

**Guinea

Sapeu Laurence Djeya, the staff member from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) who was abducted nearly two weeks ago from Guinea, has been freed and arrived in Monrovia today. She is now being transported to Abidjan, the capital of Côte d'Ivoire.

UNHCR said Djeya was unable to give an account of her 11-day ordeal. The refugee agency had no details except to say that she was rescued by Liberian troops after walking for five days.

Meanwhile, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Kieran Prendergast, is briefing the Security Council today on the humanitarian and security situation on Guinea's borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia following the recent spate of attacks in the region. He is expected to review the responses of the international community, particularly the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

As you know the Security Council will be visiting the region next week. Its terms of reference include looking into the regional dimension of the crisis and exploring what further steps the Council might consider. The composition of the 10-member Council mission to the region was issued as a document today.

**Security Council

The Security Council began consultations this morning with a briefing by Mr. Prendergast on the situation in Burundi. After the item on Guinea, the last topic on today’s work programme was Bougainville. Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Danilo Turk, will update the Council on that peace process.

**United Nations Compensation Commission

The UN Compensation Commission concluded its 37th session today in Geneva. During that session, it awarded over $16.2 billion in claims for damages and lost property as a result of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. Included in that amount is $15.9 billion awarded to the Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation for oil destroyed by Iraqi troops. The decision was reached by consensus by members of the Commission.

As you’ll recall, yesterday the representatives of the five permanent members of the Security Council reached an agreement to break

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Daily Press Briefing 28 September 2000

the deadlock concerning this claim. They agreed to settle the claim and to reduce the percentage of funds received by the Commission from the sale of Iraqi oil from 30 per cent to 25 per cent during the next phase of the “oil-for-food” programme, which starts in early December.

To date, the Commission has awarded compensation of over $31.9 billion, of which $8.1 billion has been made available for disbursement.

**Lebanon

In Beirut this morning, the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative for Southern Lebanon, Rolf Knutsson, addressed the opening session of a conference of non-governmental organizations involved in development efforts in southern Lebanon.

In his remarks to the conference, Mr. Knutsson said that, as an indispensable condition for peace, Security Council resolutions 425 and 426 must be fully respected and implemented. He added, “It is of vital importance for the Government of Lebanon to reassert its effective authority in the whole of the South in order to provide an environment in which its people can build their future in conditions of genuine and durable peace and tranquility, and with the full and unreserved support of the international donor community.”

More than 200 people are participating in this three-day conference, which is organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Italian Foreign Ministry in conjunction with the Lebanese Government.

A press release and the full text of Mr. Knutsson’s remarks are available in my office.

**Bosnia and Herzegovina

Today, the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) announced that arrangements have been finalized for establishing a Joint Entity Task Force on Illegal Immigration and Organized Crime. The Task Force would allow the Bosnian Federation and the Republika Srpska to share intelligence on a broad range of criminal activities, including prostitution, human trafficking and drug trafficking, as well as on immigration issues.

The United Nations Mission said that illegal migration through Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly of Turkish and Iranian citizens, has been a growing problem. We have further details in a press release available upstairs.

**Burundi

Concerning the Security Council's open session on Burundi tomorrow, former South African President Nelson Mandela will be available for a few questions from reporters at the Council stake-out, following his appearance in front of the Council. We expect that to happen at around 11 a.m.

**Secretary-General Requests Extension of Mandates

Available on the racks today are an exchange of letters between the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council concerning the extension of the appointment of two senior United Nations officials dealing with African affairs.

The Secretary-General said he would like the mandates of his Special Representative for the Great Lakes Region, Berhanu Dinka, and his Special Adviser dealing with African affairs, Mohamed Sahnoun, to be extended until the end of December 2001. The Council took note of both requests.

Dinka has been particularly involved in the Arusha peace process in Burundi and efforts to deal with the regional dimensions of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Sahnoun supported the Organization of African Unity's (OAU) mediation efforts in resolving the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict, and has also followed developments in the Sudan and Somalia.

**Secretary-General to Address Harvard Law School

This evening, starting at about 7:30 in the Delegates Dining Room, the Secretary-General will hold a working dinner with the Advisory Board of the Harvard Law School, which is hosted by Ambassador Jeno Staehelin of Switzerland's Observer Mission.

We have copies of his address to that dinner available in my office. The text is embargoed until 8 p.m. His speech focuses on the progress the United Nations has made over the past decade in ensuring that international law -- and particularly criminal law -- is applied concretely and effectively. It also highlights the importance of creating a permanent International Criminal Court.

**International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

We have a very limited number of press kits for the year 2000 campaign of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. They'll be available on a first-come first-served basis. I think we have five of them.

**Press Releases

There are a number of press releases out today. I'll mention only three. From the World Food Programme (WFP), there's one expressing concern that severe drought in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, along with recent typhoons there, could affect this year’s harvest.

Second, there's the weekly update on humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.

And thirdly, from the World Health Organization (WHO), news of the campaign to avert the outbreak of yellow fever in northern Liberia.

**Miscellaneous

Our guest at the briefing tomorrow will be Kul Gautam, Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), who will talk about what has been achieved in the last 10 years and what remains to be done. Saturday, 30 September, is the tenth anniversary of the 1990 World Summit for Children.

The Department of Public Information has asked me to tell you that the World Chronicle TV programme featuring Angela King, the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women, will be shown today on in-house television, channel 26 or 30 at 3:30 p.m.

**Question and Answer

Question: Concerning the dispensation of compensation, how will it be paid, through "oil-for-food" or some other way?

Spokesman: Out of the oil revenues a certain percentage goes into the Compensation Fund. That's been 30 per cent until now. Yesterday, they voted to reduce it to 25 per cent for the next phase. That's the money that then gets dispersed to the claimants.

Follow-up Question: That means Iraq is going to get less food or less medicine?

Spokesman: No, if you take out 25 per cent instead of 30 per cent from the oil revenues for the purpose of compensation, you've got 5 per cent more for “oil-for-food”. It's a way of putting more money into relief and less into compensation.

Question: On the woman from UNHCR who was released, where actually did she get released? Was she actually in Liberia, since she was found by the Liberians?

Spokesman: I have to assume so because they said she was found by Liberian troops, who took her to Monrovia, the Liberian capital, and from there she was being transported to Côte d'Ivoire. So I have to assume it was in Liberia. If you like, we can double check with UNHCR after the briefing.

Question: Is Sergio Vieira de Mello going to be here tomorrow?

Spokesman: He's arriving this afternoon. We'll be asking him to talk to you, maybe on an embargoed basis, depending on the timing of his appearance in the Council.

**Briefing by Spokeswoman for the Assembly President

This morning, as I mentioned yesterday, the President and the Chairpersons of the Main Committees briefed the non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The President's statement is available on the web site and in the Spokesman's Office. He reiterated the importance of follow-up to the Millennium Summit and Declaration and also of NGO participation, as he said, “the United Nations and governments can't do the work alone”.

I thought I'd quickly run through the highlights of what each of the Chairs said just to give you an idea of what their thinking was in terms of the main issues. The First Committee Chairman said elimination of nuclear weapons, outer space issues, illicit traffic in small arms and preservation of the Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) were four issues he felt would be at the top of the agenda.

The Second Committee Chairman talked about preparations for four major upcoming conferences – the Third Conference on Least Developed Countries, which will happen next year, the Financing for Development Process, the HABITAT II Review Conference and the Rio+10 Conference, which is not till 2002.

The Chairperson of the Third Committee said that, under the social development issues, Turkey had offered to host a world conference on youth and Spain had offered to host one on ageing. Neither of them to take place this year, fortunately for us, because they would be so difficult to do so quickly. On 31 October, she said, they would take up the Copenhagen+5 results. On the issue of crime, she mentioned the Palermo Conference in Italy from 12 to 15 December, which is on the signing of the new treaty on international organized crime.

On drugs and women, she said that there would be follow-up to the Tenth Crime Congress and the General Assembly Special Session on Beijing+5. On the issue of refugees, she mentioned that Mrs. Ogata would be giving her last address to the Third Committee as the High Commissioner for Refugees. She also mentioned the Children's Summit follow-up, which would be next September in New York, as well as the recent Economic and Social Council decision to create an Indigenous People's Forum at the United Nations. The Third Committee would be looking into how to implement that decision.

She mentioned that the special rapporteurs on racism and religious intolerance would be here. Of course, there would be discussions on the preparations for the Conference against Racism next year. She also said that more than 12 special rapporteurs on country and thematic issues related to human rights would be here.

The Fifth Committee Chairman said they had 45 items on their agenda this year, many of them recurrent. The new or contentious ones would be the scale of assessments, which would include both the general and peacekeeping budgets, the reforms on human resources management and the medium-term plan for 2002 to 2005. Although this is not a budget year, there will be a budget outline presented. He talked briefly about the capital master plan for the six-year renovation of the Headquarters building and the budgetary implications for human rights, the two criminal tribunals and the Brahimi Report.

I missed reporting the Fourth Committee because, unfortunately, its Chairman couldn't make it. The Sixth Committee Chairman mentioned their focus on human rights and international humanitarian law,

particularly the establishment of the International Criminal Court and the need to have the operational plan up and running by the time the Convention comes into force. At the moment, we have 113 signatories and 21 ratifications. As you know, it takes 60 ratifications before that Treaty comes into force.

He mentioned international terrorism, on which they are currently working on a convention, as well as the Charter Committee, which is looking at the issue of sanctions. In answer to a question later, he did say that the report of the Security Council's working group on sanctions was due on 30 November. He also mentioned the importance of the International Law Commission's report and the discussions they would have on the Law of the Sea. The International Court of Justice and the two ad hoc tribunals will also be on their agenda.

Mr. Eckhard: I would just like to comment that the personnel reform item is a big plank in the Secretary-General's reform programme. It's been more than two years in preparation and we'll see to it that you get briefed in detail when they're ready to present it to the Assembly.

Thank you.

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