DAILY BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

Press Briefing

DAILY BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today's noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General.

Before I begin the briefing, I would like to introduce Teddy Keya, the newest addition to our staff. He will be the first face you see when you go into the Spokesman’s Office and he should be the first voice you hear when you call there. Teddy welcome, welcome aboard. All right, thank you.

We also have a full house, not because we have journalists here, but students from Old Dominion University model United Nations. Welcome to the room. Serge is here, Robert is here -– okay, maybe we'll get a question or two.

**Middle East

The first thing on the agenda for today is a statement attributable to the Spokesman on the situation in the Middle East.

“The Secretary-General condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the violence that took place in the Gaza strip yesterday. He appeals to the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority to cease all escalatory actions and do the utmost to stop the violence which has cost so many lives and caused so much tragedy.

“Yesterday's attacks can only further complicate the prospects for dialogue, which is the only way forward to a just and peaceful solution.”

**Security Council reviews work of International Tribunals

The Security Council this morning is holding a formal session to hear a summary of the past year’s work by the two international criminal tribunals from the tribunals' senior officials.

This is the first time that the Presidents of the two tribunals and the Prosecutor have all appeared at the same time before the Council to review their work.

Judge Claude Jorda, the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, told the Council that the creation of a pool of temporary or “ad litem” judges, who could be called to rule upon specific cases, could help to expedite the Yugoslavia Tribunal's work. Meanwhile, he said, 38 of 65 suspects accused by the Tribunal are now in detention in The Hague.

Judge Navenatham Pillay, the President of the Rwanda Tribunal, said that the Tribunal's performance had improved over the past year, but noted that some trial proceedings had been delayed because court documents or support documents

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Daily Press Briefing - - 21 November 2000

had not been translated or disclosed in time. By the way, we expect that Judge Pillay will give a press conference in this room at 2:30 this afternoon.

Then the Council heard from the Tribunals’ Prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, who is also scheduled to speak to you in this room at 1:30 today. Del Ponte emphasized that former Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, must be brought to trial before the Tribunal, saying that “it would be inconceivable to allow Milosevic to walk away from the consequences of his actions.”

She added that she intends to raise the question personally with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who has invited her to visit Belgrade.

We have several documents available in the Spokesman's Office related to the annual summary of the Tribunals, work, including the texts of Jorda's and Del Ponte's speeches, as well as the speeches made by Judge Jorda and Judge Pillay at the General Assembly yesterday.

Judge Jorda is scheduled to be the guest at the noon briefing tomorrow. This afternoon at 3:30 the Council will hold consultations and hear a briefing by the Secretariat on the situation in Burundi.

**Conference on East Timor Defence Force

An international conference for countries willing to help develop the future East Timor Defence Force opened today in Dili, the East Timor capital.

"The establishment of the defence force is part of our broader effort in East Timor to build enduring institutions that will prepare the Timorese for self-government", Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello said in his opening speech.

The hope is that international contributions and support will allow the first batch of recruits to begin training by January 2001.

Representatives from 12 countries are attending the three-day conference. More details are in the briefing note from Dili, which you can pick up in my office.

**East Timor Civil Servants return Home

Meanwhie, a boatload of 410 East Timorese, comprising civil servants and soldiers previously employed by the Indonesian Government and their families, left the West Timor port of Kupang today for East Timor.

Assisted by the representatives of the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor, a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) team screened the returnees to determine if the process was voluntary.

The vessel left Kupang at 4:00 p.m. local time for the eastern port of Com in East Timor, where it is expected to arrive on Wednesday. They will then be transported to their original homes in Los Palos and Viqueque.

For the record and still on East Timor, yesterday afternoon, in a private meeting with the Security Council, Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia presented the report of the Council mission that went to East Timor and Indonesia between the 9th and the 17th of this month.

In the document, the seven-member mission, led by Andjaba, makes recommendations regarding the transition process in East Timor and the future United Nations presence there, which will follow the current United Nations Transitional Administration (UNTAET).

It acknowledged, "there will be a need for a strong international commitment to East Timor after independence, if the aspirations of the Timorese are to be fully realized.”

They considered "truly depressing" the refugee living conditions in West Timor, and said that they were struck by the "extent of misinformation inside the camps and the clear potential for intimidation."

The mission made several recommendations regarding the refugee situation, reconciliation, justice and security.

On this last item, they recommended the dispatch of United Nations staff security experts to determine, in cooperation with the Indonesian authorities, whether security conditions permit the return to West Timor of UNHCR and other agencies.

**Press Releases

Two press releases are available from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the ongoing Climate Change talks at The Hague. In them, the UNEP Executive Director, Klaus Toepfer, identifies three issues that need to emerge from the negotiations: details on how to meet the Kyoto Protocol's emission-reduction targets; private sector involvement in solutions; and generosity between developed and developing countries. "Eradicating poverty, he said, "must go hand-in-hand with stabilizing climate and protecting the environment."

Refugee news, today the briefing notes from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees includes a statement on the situation five years after the Dayton peace accord that ended the war in Bosnia, which updates also the refugee situations in Timor, Guinea and Kenya.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced a donation by the Government of Norway of $21.2 million, and that ain't chicken feed, to support education programmes for girls in Africa. The donation will help to expand access to education, strengthen education systems and improve the quality of education. Norway has also announced a donation of $22 million to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, to assist its work in providing immunization for children in the 74 poorest countries in the world.

And from the World Health Organization (WHO), we have news that the Global Water Supply and Sanitation Assessment 2000 -- that's a report -- will be launched tomorrow in Brazil. The report is a joint effort of WHO, UNICEF and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council. It finds that despite great efforts to improve water and sanitation services over the last two decades, 2.4 billion people worldwide still do not have acceptable means of sanitation and 1.1 billion do not have an improved water supply. We have the press release on that.

**Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme

And, according to the latest figures from the Office of the Iraq Programme, Iraq exported another 17.2 million barrels of oil under the United Nations "Oil-for-Food" Programme during the week of 11 to 17 November, and that raised an estimated $493 million in revenue.

In the current phase, which is phase eight, which began on 9 June and ends on 5 December, Iraq has exported 343.8 million barrels of oil for an estimated revenue, so far, of almost $8.9 billion.

You can get the full Oil-for-Food Programme update in my office. That's all I have for you. Any questions today?

Question: Judging by the public statements from the Israelis and Palestinians, there doesn't seem to be much of a meeting of minds on this proposal for an observer group. When does the Secretary-General intend to meet with Ambassadors Lancry and Al-Kidwa again, and does he have any other proposals to discuss with them?

Spokesman: Well, I think his view is that this is a process that just got under-way. He had initial contacts with the two sides yesterday. I can't give you any dates for the next meetings, but he is talking quite widely with other players, and we'll just have to see whether he can make progress. It's not something he can force, it's just something he is trying to facilitate. We'll see if anything comes of it.

Question: Is the trial of Milosevic going to be held before he is captured or after he is captured?

Spokesman: I think the assumption is that he should be turned over to The Hague for trial. His trial would begin once he had been turned over.

Question: The figures on Iraq are still in dollars, are they going to be changed to Euros at some point?

Spokesman: That's a good point. I don't know when that will totally change our way of reporting, but for now we are still talking in dollars. Of course, all of our figures at the United Nations are based on dollars.

Question: On that subject, the Iraqis have advised their customers they would have to pay two premiums, one of which seemed to be consistent with the sanctions regime and the other not, is there any development on that?

Spokesman: I haven't heard, but I said at the time, and I stick to that -- it's really for the Sanctions Commission to address these proposals by Iraq and to say whether they are consistent with the existing regime or not.

Question: (inaudible)

Spokesman: We only have media reports that the Syria -- Iraq pipeline has been reopened. We haven't received anything officially from either Syria or Iraq. Benon Sevan, the Executive Director of the Iraq Programme, is checking with both parties now concerning the reported export of oil by this route. As you know, under the "Oil-for- Food" Programme, there are only two authorized points of exit for oil from Iraq, one is Zakho and the other is Mina al-Bakr. So through Benon Sevan, we'll be contacting both parties to find out what we can about what's going on with this third export route, and whether the cost of this oil will be filtered through the United Nations Iraq Programme as it's supposed to be.

Question: Will Mr. Sevan also be looking into this demand from Iraq to add a 50-cent surcharge to each barrel of oil?

Spokesman: No, he did not mention that to me. Again, I think we are leaving that in the hands of the Sanctions Committee.

Question: Yesterday, the question of James Baker as a Special Envoy of the Secretary-General was raised here. I would like to know what are the duties and attributions of a Special Envoy? Is he a civil servant who is bound by the same regulations?

Spokesman: No, he is not a Secretariat member. He is a Special Envoy. I think he gets a dollar a year plus expenses. He has a mandate specifically to review with the parties, in other words, the Polisario and the Moroccan Government, how to move forward on the plans for a referendum for the future of Western Sahara, and if that's not possible, what other alternatives, if any, might be acceptable to the parties. So that's what he does and has been doing for us. It's not a full-time job, and as I said yesterday, I don't think his activities in Florida are having any impact on the pace of the search for a solution in Western Sahara. Alright, thank you very much.

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