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

                                                      17 April 2001

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE 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.

Good afternoon.

**Middle East

Following the events last night and this morning in Israel and the Gaza Strip, Terje-Roed Larsen, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process, said:  “Security measures alone do not produce durable security.  At the worst, the opposite may result:  they may produce neither peace nor security.”

He went on to add:  “Neither occupation nor reoccupation will bring peace or security.”

**Secretary-General Statement on Middle East

After a round of phone calls yesterday to leaders in the Middle East, the Secretary-General issued a statement just before 7 p.m., saying he was deeply disturbed by the escalation of military operations across the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon, and calling on the parties to respect that line.

He also called for political negotiations to resume without delay, in order to prevent the situation from deteriorating further.

He is resuming his telephone contacts on the Middle East today.

**Security Council

The Security Council began consultations this morning with an update on the disruption of deployment of the United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Hédi Annabi, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, briefed Council members.

The Council then went into discussions on the report of the Secretary-General to the Security Council on the protection of civilians in armed conflict, which Carolyn McAskie, deputy to the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, briefed you on last week.  A public debate on the same subject is scheduled for Monday, 23 April.

Also on the Council programme, the report by the Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will now be discussed tomorrow in closed consultations.

The report on the UN mission in the Congo, originally scheduled for tomorrow, is now set for discussion on Friday.  That report should be out in the next day or two.

**Democratic Republic of the Congo

As we reported to you, the rebel group Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) had blocked on Sunday the deployment of 120 Moroccan troops to Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The Moroccan contingent remains in Bangui, in the Central African Republic, pending resolution of this matter.

The Secretary-General's Special Representative for the Congo, Kamel Morjane, has been in contact with the ambassadors of Security Council permanent members in Kinshasa.  Mr. Morjane is scheduled to accompany a group of ambassadors tomorrow to Goma, in the eastern part of the country, to make a démarche to the rebel group leadership.  [After the briefing, it was announced that it would be the Force Commander, General Mountaga Diallo, rather than Mr. Morjane, who would accompany the ambassadors to Goma tomorrow.]

Despite media reports that the RCD may have moderated their position, as of 11:30 a.m. today the UN mission says it has had no official communication from the rebel leadership.

**Sierra Leone Court

The Secretary-General's Legal Counsel, Hans Corell, this morning convened a meeting of interested Member States to discuss the special court proposed for Sierra Leone to try war crimes committed in that country since 30 November 1996.

They reviewed the budget, as well as the practical planning for the court, and agreed to set up a management committee to be composed of major donors to the special court and members of the United Nations Secretariat who would interact as the court gets established.

The Office of Legal Affairs will draw up the terms of reference for this committee, and will meet again with Member States by the end of this month to get it up and running.

**Sierra Leone

The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) today began deploying to Makeni and Magburaka as part of its push into territory held by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).  The operation is expected to take about a week.

Also on Sierra Leone, the Deputy Secretary-General is now scheduled to brief the Security Council tomorrow on her recently concluded mission to that country to review operations there.

**Slave Ship

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says its offices in West Africa are trying to gather information on the fate of children who have been reported to have been aboard a slave ship.  The suspected ship docked in Benin last night, but the 145 passengers were mainly adults accompanied by about 28 children.  UNICEF country offices in Benin, Cameroon and Gabon are working with local authorities to try to establish the facts.

The UNICEF has taken the occasion to emphasize that, every year, some 200,000 children are trafficked across the national borders of about 20 countries in West and Central Africa.  These children end up working in agriculture, fishing, domestic labour, urban sweatshops and the sex trade.

There's a report from UNICEF in Geneva with more details.

**Kosovo

The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) reports that, for the past two days, Kosovo Serbs have been protesting the establishment of tax collection centres in northern Kosovo, and have been blocking roads around Leposevac and Zubin Potok.  The demonstrations have been peaceful, and the Mission reports that one protest held in northern Mitrovica dispersed without incident earlier today.

The UN Mission notes that the tax collection points have been established in accordance with the revenue arrangements that apply in Kosovo.  The centres are set up to collect excise and sales taxes, and are not new to Kosovo; the first such tax collection point was set up on the administrative boundary line in February 2000.

The UN Mission in Kosovo said today that it expects those who wish to raise questions about the tax collection centres to do so through proper channels, not by committing illegal acts or blocking access.

We have more details in today's briefing notes from Pristina, in which the Kosovo Force (KFOR) also notes the release early this morning of five Serb men who had been held by ethnic Albanian extremists in the Presevo Valley.

**Yugoslavia Tribunal

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will hold the initial appearance of Bosnian Serb suspect Dragan Obrenovic tomorrow at 3 p.m. in The Hague.  Obrenovic, who was seized by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)'s Stabilization Force (SFOR) and transferred to the Tribunal on Sunday, is accused of complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity in connection with the massacre of at least 5,000 Bosnian Muslims in the Srebrenica enclave of Bosnia in 1995.

**Ethiopia-Eritrea

A three-member reconnaissance team for the recently established Ethiopia-Eritrea Neutral Boundary Commission arrived in Asmara, Eritrea, late last night.

The purpose of the team’s visit is to collect information to draw a plan of action for technical on-site activities required for the Commission’s mandate, which is to delimit and to demarcate the border between the two countries based on pertinent colonial treaties and applicable international law.

**Iraq Oil Update

According to the weekly update from the Office of the Iraq Programme, the Iraqi oil exports under the United Nations “oil-for-food” programme continued to rise this week to an average of 2.48 million barrels a day in the week leading to 13 April 2001.  The sale of 17.4 million barrels of oil generated an estimated €418 million (euros) in revenue at current prices.

The total value of contracts placed on hold by the Security Council’s

661 Sanctions Committee stand at $3.52 billion, of which about $3 billion worth of contracts were for humanitarian supplies, while another $437 million worth were for oil industry spare parts and equipment.

You can get the full report in my Office.

**Human Rights

We have two items from the continuing fifty-seventh session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which is meeting in Geneva.

First, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, presented her report on the situation on human rights in Colombia and the activities of the UN human rights office in that country.

The High Commissioner noted the positive steps the Government had taken in area of the rule of law, including new laws against forced displacement and torture, as well as new military and civilian criminal codes which incorporate human rights and humanitarian law standards.

“Unfortunately”, she went on to add, “the State’s efforts to comply with international recommendations on human rights protection issues have failed to produce tangible results, either because these actions have lacked continuity, have had a limited impact or, as in a number of cases, have not been implemented."

In conclusion, she said that her Office stands ready to assist Colombia in its efforts to achieve full respect for human rights.

Also this afternoon, Hina Jilani, the Secretary-General's Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders, presented her first report to the Commission since her appointment in late August of last year.

“I am deeply concerned by the variety of repressive trends, measures, and practices used to threaten the freedom of action of human rights defenders”, she said in her speech.

She went on to add:  “No region is free of these trends.  The degree of violence used to silence voices in defence of human rights increases every day.”

Copies of both of these speeches are available upstairs.

**UNHCR -- Guinea

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it plans to begin within days an operation to relocate some 80,000 Sierra Leonean refugees from the isolated Parrot’s Beak border area to safer camps in the interior of Guinea. A UNHCR team traveled to the area Monday to make preparations.

You can see the UNHCR briefing note for more details.

**Geneva Demonstration

About 40 Kurdish demonstrators succeeded in entering the grounds of the United Nations offices in Geneva this afternoon.  They were protesting against the treatment of political prisoners in Turkey.

A small delegation was received by the Chairman of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Ambassador Despouy of Argentina.  Following the meeting, the demonstrators left the UN grounds without incident.  The whole event lasted no more than an hour.

**World Press Freedom Day

A joint message from the Secretary-General, the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, on the occasion of World Press Freedom Day, calls upon decision-makers to do what they can to ensure that journalists can pursue their work unhindered and undeterred.  It goes on to say that since the Windhoek Declaration of 1991, the press in many countries has become more independent and pluralistic, and more people have direct access to mass communication through the Internet.

World Press Freedom Day will be observed on 3 May.  The full text of that message is available upstairs.

**Environment Conference

A number of you had asked about the meeting which will take place this weekend in New York concerning the Kyoto Protocol, hosted by Jan Pronk, chairman of the international negotiations on climate change.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has issued a press advisory with all the relevant details, as well as a backgrounder, to bring you up to date on the Kyoto issue.  You can get those things in my Office.

**Press Conferences

At 11 a.m. tomorrow, Joke Waller-Hunter, the Environment Director of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), will present the report "Environmental Outlook", a 20-year projection of OECD environmental problems.

At 3 p.m. tomorrow, Kjell Larsson, the Swedish Minister of the Environment, will be holding a press conference on behalf of the European Union, to discuss the agenda of the ninth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development, and the UNEP Ministerial Meeting on International Environmental Governance, which is taking place tomorrow.

And at 4 p.m. -– that's three press conferences tomorrow -– Dominique Voynet, the French Minister of the Environment, will be here to talk about the UNEP ministerial meeting, as well.

Edie?

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Where did Terje-Roed Larsen make those comments?

Spokesman:  I believe he was talking to reporters at his headquarters in Gaza.  But double-check with Stephane; we got these quotes just two minutes before I came down here.  But that's my understanding.

Question:  On the Sierra Leone special court and Hans Corell and this committee.  Is it possible to get a list of who's going to be on this committee?

Spokesman:  I think it's envisaged that the management committee would be made up of the donors to the court.  The interested parties who met this morning included any State with an interest in the issue, not necessarily a donor State.  I think the Security Council anticipated that there would be a kind of management committee made up of donors and Secretariat, so that they could interact on the management issues that would come up as the court was established.

Question:  Out of this meeting, was there any firmer idea of when the court might actually be established?

Spokesman:  No, I was told they seemed eager to get this management committee established and get things under way.  The establishment of the court under the Secretary-General's proposal to the Council, which was accepted by the Council, says that he wants the first year's operating expenses in the bank and the second two year's operating expenses fully pledged.  So he wants financial commitment from Member States that they'll see this court through for three full years.  That's why today's discussions focused on the budget, with the Secretariat responding to detailed questions from Member States on how the budget was structured, as well as on more general philosophical issues:  what the court is expected to accomplish and then some practical things on obstacles to getting it actually physically set up in Freetown.  So these are the kinds of issues that were covered this morning.

Question:  Have there been any pledges yet?

Spokesman:  That's a good question.  I forgot to ask the Legal Office that.  I don't know if they got any specific pledges.  I'll ask for you right after the briefing.  [He later said that the United Kingdom had given £500,000.  The Secretary-General’s deadline for pledges and contributions was 23 May.]

Question:  About the disappearance of the children from the slave ship.  Can the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) keep us informed about the investigation?

Spokesman:  Yes, because, as a result of not finding the children on this ship, some of the questions raised were -- was this the wrong ship?  Or, if there were children originally on this ship, could they have been put ashore somewhere else before the ship put in to Cotonou?  So, I think we want to know more about this incident, and UNICEF continues to use this highly publicized incident to focus attention on the broader issue of these -– whatever I said -– 200,000 children a year, in West and Central Africa who are sold into slave-like labour conditions.

Question:  When you say "we want to know more about it", are we removing this question from UNICEF, with the United Nations becoming involved directly because it has more know-how and opportunity than UNICEF?

Spokesman:  I think it's the Government of Benin that wants to know about their children.  So I think they are leading the investigation.  We had our officers all up and down the coast, wherever we have a presence, keeping an eye out for this ship, in the event it put in at any other port.  So we're assisting in any way we can.  Yes?

Question:  The Kurdish demonstration:  Have they presented any papers to the UN office on what their demands are and how they could be met?

Spokesman:  I don't know if they presented their complaints or their concerns in writing or orally; we'd have to call Geneva to get those details.  So if you come to the Office after the briefing, we'll make a phone call for you.  Edie?

Question:  On Kosovo, on the whole issue of tax collection points.  Is there some explanation of why the UN set up tax collection points on the border of Serbia and Kosovo when Kosovo is supposed to be part of Serbia which, in turn, is part of Yugoslavia?

Spokesman:  Well, because the UN is administering Kosovo, we needed a revenue base.  It's not a border between Kosovo and Serbia.  It's a boundary line.  And these are not customs taxes, but sales taxes and excise taxes.  So I think it's merely a way for the administration to generate revenue to provide basic services in Kosovo.  It's not seen as an international tax, but rather an internal one.  Serge?

Question:  I understand that the Government of Haiti is asking for the return of the UN mission.  Was this question discussed?

Spokesman:  I haven't heard that.  I don't know that that's been done formally.  Has it been submitted in writing?  I'm not aware that it has.

Question:  The press report from Headquarters said ...

Spokesman:  Let me check with the Department of Political Affairs to see if we received anything in writing.  [He later said that the UN had received a letter from President Aristide requesting that the Secretary-General appoint a representative for Haiti.]

Thank you very much.

* *** *