DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL

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

Welcome to our guests, the visiting journalists, who are sponsored by Freedom Forum.

**Security Council

We'll start with the Security Council, which held consultations this morning to discuss the United States-sponsored draft resolution that calls for the lifting of an arms embargo against Ethiopia and Eritrea.  They agreed to resume consultations at a later date.  A formal meeting to vote on that draft resolution, which had been scheduled for today, has been postponed.

Council members are having their monthly luncheon with the Secretary-General today.

**ICTY

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia announced that Biljana Plavšic, former President of the Republika Srpska, surrendered voluntarily to the Tribunal in The Hague today, after she was advised of an indictment against her and an outstanding warrant for her arrest.

She flew to the Netherlands from Banja Luka and is now in the Tribunal’s custody, having been indicted for genocide, crimes against humanity, violations of the laws and customs of war, and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions. That took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1991 and 1992.  The indictment was issued under seal against her and another Bosnian Serb leader, Momcilo Krajisnik, on April 7, 2000.

Plavsic is expected to appear before the Trial Chamber tomorrow, and, after that, the Tribunal's Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, intends to try Plavsic and Krajisnik jointly.

In a statement issued today, which is available upstairs, del Ponte says that Plavsic's surrender is "the best possible outcome" for her, and she calls upon Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and other indictees to do the same.

**Secretary-General/World Affairs Councils

Today is the first day of a three-day series of meetings at United Nations Headquarters of the members of the World Affairs Councils of America, the largest international affairs non-profit organization in the United States.  The meetings will provide an opportunity for the members of the Councils to hear from United Nations officials about United Nations efforts on a wide range of issues, from AIDS to peacekeeping to joint efforts with the private sector and civil society.

The Secretary-General will attend a reception of the World Affairs Councils this evening in the Delegates Dining Room, and will deliver some remarks on the future of United States-United Nations relations.  We have copies of those remarks, embargoed until 6:45 tonight, available in my Office.

**East Timor

Today in East Timor, the first preliminary hearings involving people suspected of committing serious crimes, took place at Dili's District Court, in two different murder cases -- one in which a pro-Indonesia militia member was accused, and one in which a pro-independence activist was accused.

In the first case, concerning a murder that took place on September

8, 1999, in the district of Bobonaro, a former member of the pro-Indonesia Red and White Tornado militia pleaded guilty to charges of killing a village chief.  The court will convene again on January 16 for his sentencing.

In the second case, a pro-independence activist pleaded not guilty to charges of murdering a militia member in the village of Gleno on September

26, 1999, and a trial in that case has now been scheduled to begin on February 6.

**OCHA

Carolyn McAskie, who is the Emergency Relief Coordinator ad interim for the United Nations, will leave tomorrow for the Far East.  Her travels will take her to:  Tokyo, Japan; Beijing, China; Ulan Bator, Mongolia; and Pyongyang, in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

While on this trip, she will visit two natural disaster areas.  In North Korea she will assess the international efforts to address the famine there, and in Mongolia, her efforts will be aimed at increasing awareness of the repeat, this year, of last years' disaster.  For two years in a row now, Mongolia has suffered summer droughts followed by heavy winter snows.  This has had a devastating impact on the livestock population, which represents 80 per cent of the economy of this largely nomadic population.

**Volunteers

Among the documents out on the racks today is a report of the Secretary-General on the participation of United Nations Volunteers in peacekeeping operations, which notes that almost 2,000 volunteers were mobilized last year to meet the operational requirements of United Nations peacekeeping missions and to complement those missions' civilian components.

**Press Releases

And finally, the World Health Organization has launched a year-long campaign, “Stop Exclusion - Dare to Care”, aimed at focusing attention on the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental health.  It is estimated that

400 million people suffer from some sort of mental or neurological disorder worldwide and few are correctly diagnosed.  We have more information on the campaign in a press release available in my Office.

**Questions and Answers:

Question:  There are some reports that Biljana Plavšic will be treated separately from other prisoners.  What can you tell us about this?

Spokesman:  That is not the information that we have.  Apparently, she is now being held in the Tribunal's detention center awaiting her trial appearance tomorrow.  So there is nothing special about her accommodation at this time.

Question:  [Follow-up] Does the call from Carla del Ponte for Radovan Karadzic, Ratko Mladic and even [Slobodan] Milosevic to surrender themselves voluntarily to The Hague reflect somehow a policy of the Tribunal to strike a deal by lessening the future sentences of indictees should they choose to cooperate?

Spokesman:  A spokesman this morning for the Tribunal said that in the case of Ms. Plavsic, there was no deal.  Plea bargaining naturally takes place in the course of a trial, but I think that what you are referring to are some kind of assurances, prior to the trial, of the outcome.  That is not the case.

Question:  There was word this morning that there was a bomb threat in the Building.  Is there anything to that?

Spokesman:  There was something that happened this morning in the mail section downstairs in the third basement.  There was a suspicious looking package.  The New York City police bomb squad was brought in.  The area was cordoned off.  Staff was evacuated.  They looked in the package and they found cell phones and batteries.  So, false alarm.

Question:  Obviously there is some disagreement over whether it is time to lift the arms embargo on Ethiopia and Eritrea.  Does the Secretary-General believe that it should be lifted now?

Spokesman:  The Secretary-General has indicated in the past that the signing of this agreement "silenced the guns" but that this alone did not mean peace.  He has gone on to say that "the two countries face hard work ahead.  They will need vision, patience and resources".  I think he signaled his concern that the job is not done as far as achieving the permanent peace that is envisaged in the Security Council resolution.  That said, the resolution is the Council's.  They can take any action that they might and he is not going to interfere in that process.

Question:  Regarding the Serbian leaders who have been indicted in The Hague, do you have any specific information on them, such as where they are held and a list of who is there?

Spokesman:  Well, we couldn't give you a complete list because there are still some that are under sealed indictment so their identities are not known. We could try to get from the Tribunal a list of the indictees who are public.

Question:  Any comment from the Secretary-General as far as the United States and the back dues payment?

Spokesman:  We saw press reports that the U.S. Congress is taking steps to implement the Helms-Biden legislation, recognizing that the reform called for in that legislation has indeed taken place, at least for the second tranche of payments, which is almost $600 million; $585 million or so.  This amount of money will be very welcome to us.  Every dollar of it will go to back payments owed to contributors of peacekeeping troops and equipment.

I think that we all feel that the year 2000 ended well.  This was a big step forward because in order to achieve this there had to be agreement on a new scale of assessments.  The new scale, as far as peacekeeping is concerned, is a self-adjusting scale, self-correcting scale, so we will not have to go through [another] 27 years of a static scale during which time country's economies shift and things get all twisted out of shape.  So the solution agreed upon is a good one.  I think that it releases or relieves a significant amount of tension that had built up between the United Nations and the United States on the subject of payments.  We hope that we are now on the path to full normalization of relations.

Question:  Are there any expectations in the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague?  Ms. Plavsic's appearance in The Hague could be instrumental for taking yet another indictment of Milosevic, this time regarding Bosnia.

Spokesman:  Well, I do not want to anticipate what is going to come out of the trial.  I think everyone is very interested in what she might testify to, because she was at the highest levels of the Bosnian Serb leadership, but I do not want to speculate as to what that might lead to concerning other indictees. In fact, in the case of Bosnia, I don't think that Mr. Milosevic has been indicted yet.  Or has he?  I would have to double check that.  [He has not been.]

Question:  [Follow-up] That is why I am asking if she is going to be very instrumental.

Spokesman:  We will have to see.

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