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

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.

The guest at today's briefing is Margaret Novicki, who is the Chief of Public Information of our Mission in Sierra Leone, here in New York on some home leave.  I thought you might like a report fresh from the field, if you like, on some of the progress that's been made in that Mission.

Margaret, we'll get to you in just a minute.

**Security Council

There are no meetings of the Security Council scheduled for today.

Tomorrow, the Council will have a private meeting on East Timor, during which they will be briefed by Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Hedi Annabi on the United Nations Mission there.  Of course any member, on request, can attend those private meetings -- any member of the United Nations, not just members of the Council itself.

**Afghanistan Report

The Secretary-General’s latest report to the General Assembly and the Security Council on Afghanistan, covering the events since mid-April, is out on the racks today, and notes that no talks have been held between the two sides in recent months, with the Taliban refusing to start a process of dialogue with the United Front.

Since the beginning of May, fighting between those two parties has intensified, but neither party has yet scored any meaningful territorial gains, the Secretary-General says.

Meanwhile, he notes the worsening humanitarian situation, with the current caseload of internally displaced persons estimated to be in excess of 700,000.  A worrying feature of the current humanitarian crisis is the lack of significant action by the authorities in Afghanistan to provide assistance for their own people, with the parties pointing to a lack of budgetary resources as a reason for their inactivity.

Noting some coercive treatment of United Nations staff and arrests of national humanitarian workers, the Secretary-General says, “It is imperative that the Taliban cease the harassment of humanitarian workers.”

The Secretary-General has no progress to report on the Taliban’s position regarding Osama bin Laden or the closure of terrorist training camps.

He concludes by calling for the Security Council and other United Nations bodies to consider adopting a comprehensive approach to Afghanistan, starting from the premise that the conditions there have prevented its people from freely

deciding how they are governed.  “I am convinced,” he writes, “that a political solution based on the twin pillars of enabling the Afghan people to freely determine their own future and securing the legitimate national interests of Afghanistan’s neighbours through mutually binding commitments offers the best guarantee for a lasting peace in Afghanistan.”

**World Food Programme News

The World Food Programme (WFP) today called on Taliban authorities to stop making baseless allegations against WFP and its staff in Afghanistan.  WFP reiterated that it provides help solely on the basis of need and without religious, political or ethnic bias and has never been involved in propagating any religious persuasion anywhere it operates.

In other news, WFP warns that more than a half a million Somalis face serious food crisis due to the failure of the main rains in southern Somalia.  The worst affected areas, which border Ethiopia and Kenya, produce 70 to 75 per cent of the annual sorghum crop, but this year’s harvest is not expected to yield more than 10 per cent.  WFP is appealing to donors to respond urgently to the appeal for 20,000 metric tonnes of food assistance.

We have a press release on that if you're interested.

**East Timor

Today in East Timor, the Deputy Prosecutor General for the Special Panel for Serious Crimes, Jean-Louis Gilissen, said his office had evidence in 674 cases of killings related to the violence connected to the 1999 popular consultation, and have already investigated 300 of those cases.

He said the Serious Crimes Unit had carried out considerable work despite its small size, with 31 investigators in the Unit.  Among its successes, he pointed to East Timor's first trial for crimes against humanity, concerning allegations that 10 defendants took part in orchestrated killings in the district of Lautem.  That trial, which began in July, will adjourn for a brief recess at the end of this week before resuming on 12 September.

There are more details in today's briefing notes from Dili.

**Kosovo

Today in Pristina, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Kosovo, Hans Haekkerup, briefed the Kosovo Transitional Council on his meeting last week with Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Nebojsa Covic, in which he underlined that no parallel structures would be accepted in Kosovo.

He told the Council that Covic had agreed, and had been supportive in urging Kosovo Serbs to register for upcoming elections.

A large number of members of the Kosovo Transitional Council supported Haekkerup's initiative to hold talks with Covic to resolve problems in Kosovo and to get Kosovo Serbs to participate in its institutions.

**Sudan Floods

Recent floods in northern Sudan have affected more than 61,000 persons and aggravated the already precarious food supply situation.  More than 2,000 houses have been completely destroyed and another 2,700 damaged in 56 villages.  The worst affected areas are along the Nile, including areas around the capital, Khartoum.

The Government of Sudan has requested United Nations assistance, and two assessment missions have been carried out, one on Monday and the other today.  The Government has already indicated the need for tents, plastic sheets, medicines, water pumps, sanitation equipment and food.  The assessments will pinpoint exact needs.

We have more information in a situation report from OCHA (the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) and a press release from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

**Signings

We have one signing.  This morning, Viet Nam became the tenth country to sign the 2001 International Coffee Agreement.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  Does the Secretary-General have any reaction to a report issued yesterday in Washington about documents revealing that the United States knew full well about the genocide in Rwanda, knew what was going on and that the ambassador made an attempt to stop it?

Spokesman:  We've only seen press reports, we haven't seen the actual documents.  I think you'll recall that the Secretary-General has been saying all along that there was no intervention in Rwanda, and not because of lack of information, but because of a lack of political will.

Question:  Is there a feeling upstairs that the United States was less than frank about its role?

Spokesman:  We have nothing more to say about Rwanda since the Carlsson Report, which looked at the whole situation in depth.  The Secretary-General accepted fully the conclusions of that report and I don't have anything to add to that.

Question:  Any reaction to a letter dated today to the Secretary-General making the case for equating the United States drug policy with racism and asking for the Secretary-General's help in getting that issue placed on the agenda on the upcoming racism conference in Durban?

Spokesman:  That was brought to my attention this morning and I checked with the thirty-eighth floor.  That letter has not yet been officially received by us.

We did check with Geneva and the Human Rights Commission there and the issue of race and the rates of incarceration in the United States was discussed at a recently-concluded meeting in Geneva of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

So the issue is on the United Nations agenda.  It tends to be focused in the Human Rights Committee and the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, but until we've officially received this letter and the Secretary-General had a chance to look at it, I can't tell you what his response will be.

Question:  Unless I'm mistaken, judging from the papers and information I've seen concerning the draft declaration and agenda for the racism conference, there isn't any inclusion of drug policy in there.

Spokesman:  The Secretary-General isn't writing that document, Member States are, so let him take a look at this letter and see what his reaction will be.

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