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 Ahmad Fawzi, who, until he was appointed Spokesman for Lakhdar Brahimi, was Director of the United Nations Information Centre in London.  He’ll be taking any questions you might have about the talks.

**Afghanistan

Yesterday -– I am now starting with Afghanistan --, a team of seven international United Nations personnel went into Mazar-i-Sharif to assess the security situation there, which the team said was fragile, but improving.  Since all United Nations offices in that city –- except for one belonging to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) –- are non-functional because of looting, and since all United Nations vehicles there have also been taken, the return of United Nations staff will be difficult, but the team held talks with General Abdurrashid Dostum of the Northern Alliance and other officials there on the progressive return of United Nations personnel.

The United Nations officials in Kabul and Islamabad today also expressed their deep concern at the situation in Kunduz involving Northern Alliance and Taliban forces.  They stressed that a negotiated arrangement for the surrender of the Taliban forces, if they wish to do so, will not only save both sides from further bloodletting, but also allow the United Nations and its partners to revive much-needed humanitarian assistance efforts in that area.

In that connection, they emphasized that under international humanitarian law and United Nations human rights conventions, members of armed forces who lay down their arms are entitled to be treated humanely, without any adverse distinctions based on race, color, religion or other such criteria.

In humanitarian news, the World Food Programme (WFP) today launched an air bridge into Afghanistan from neighboring Tajikistan, to help feed more than 274,000 people in remote locations in the north-east.  A WFP aircraft carrying some 17 tonnes of wheat flour left southern Tajikistan’s Kolyiab airport today, flying into Faizabad in the northeast.  The WFP plans to fly food in four times a day, weather permitting, until 2,000 tonnes have been sent to Faizabad, from where it will be trucked to remote parts of that area.

The World Health Organization (WHO) is preparing to send emergency health supplies to Spinboldak, in the south, following concerns that displaced people living in three camps in that area are vulnerable to respiratory diseases, diarrhoea, tuberculosis and malnutrition.

The WHO also warned today about the staggering health crisis facing Afghan women, with 45 women dying each day of pregnancy-related causes in a country where health care for most women is rudimentary or non-existent.

We have more details in the briefing notes from Islamabad.

**United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

The Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Carol Bellamy, will leave this weekend on a trip that will take her to Afghanistan and Pakistan.  She will stop off in London, Dublin and Geneva on her way, and arrive in the region on Friday.  She will attend the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo on her way back from the region.  And we have a press release on that from UNICEF.

**International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Yesterday in The Hague, Judge Richard May of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, confirmed an indictment against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, charging him with genocide and other crimes committed between 1992 and 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The indictment says that Milosevic participated in a criminal enterprise for the “forcible and permanent removal of the majority of non-Serbs” from large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats and the imprisonment of thousands more, in more than

50 detention facilities.

Milosevic is also charged with crimes against humanity, war crimes and grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions in connection with Bosnia.  The full indictment against him is available on the Tribunal’s Web site, and we have more information upstairs in a press release.

**Security Council

The Security Council has no meetings today.

On Monday, at 3:00 in the afternoon, the Council has scheduled consultations to deal with the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights and the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), both of whose mandates expire at the end of this month.

It also has scheduled consultations on the Secretary-General’s report on Phase X of the “oil-for-food” programme for Iraq, which expires on 1 December.

**UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission

The College of Commissioners of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission for Iraq (UNMOVIC) will hold its seventh meeting on

26 and 27 November here at United Nations Headquarters.

Under the terms of paragraph 5 of Security Council resolution 1284, the UNMOVIC College of Commissioners is to meet regularly to review the implementation of the resolution and other relevant resolutions, and provide professional advice and guidance to the Executive Chairman, including on significant policy decisions and on written reports to be submitted to the Council through the Secretary-General. 

Since the Security Council requires quarterly reports from the Executive Chairman on the work of UNMOVIC, the College of Commissioners meets at least four times a year.

Following the resignation of two of the original Commissioners, we have two new members -- John S. Wolf of the United States and Li Junhua of China -- who will be attending for the first time.

**Myanmar

Razali Ismail, the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Myanmar, will visit Yangon from 27 November to 4 December to help facilitate the talks between the Government and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi for democratization and national reconciliation in Myanmar.

During his visit, Mr. Razali is expected to meet with Government leaders, including Lieutenant-General Khin Nyunt, Secretary 1 of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).  He is also expected to meet with senior members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.  This will be Mr. Razali’s sixth mission to Myanmar since he was appointed as Special Envoy in April 2000.

**Kosovo

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Kosovo, Hans Haekkerup, plans to announce the official results of last Saturday’s elections tomorrow.  The inaugural session of the Assembly, whose members were elected last week, can then be held at the end of next week, if all complaints about the elections have been resolved and all Assembly members are properly registered by then.

Haekkerup plans to open the first session of the Assembly, and the three parties which obtained the most votes in the election, as well as a representative of the Kosovo Serb community and one from the parties representing other non-Albanian communities, will nominate the seven members of the Presidency.

We have a briefing note from Pristina with more details.

**Colombia

Yesterday afternoon in Colombia, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on International Assistance to Colombia, Jan Egeland, met with leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia –- or FARC -– in their demilitarized zone.

Afterwards, Egeland talked to reporters in Bogotá, where he called for both the Colombian Government and the FARC rebels to reactivate the country’s peace process.  He urged the two sides to meet before the current agreement on the demilitarization zone ends, on 20 January 2002.

**Sierra Leone

Yesterday morning in Sierra Leone, the wreckage of the United Nations helicopter that crashed on 7 November with seven people on board was located by a Ukrainian search and recovery team in the sea near Freetown.  Recovery efforts are continuing, and so far, the bodies of only three of the seven victims of the crash have been recovered.

We have a press release from the United Nations Mission with more information, as well as a release on the recent handover of a church built by the United Nations Mission’s Kenyan Battalion for the community of Masiaka.

**2002 Humanitarian Appeals

On Monday, the Secretary-General will launch the 2002 humanitarian appeals.  The appeals will ask donors to provide almost $2.5 billion to cover

18 humanitarian crises affecting 33 million people affected by war and conflict. 

Monday’s launch will be followed by six separate launch events in donor countries on Tuesday.

We have press kits available upstairs, which are embargoed until the beginning of the launch at 11:00 a.m. New York time, Monday.

**Secretary-General’s Message to Holocaust Conference

This Sunday, the Secretary-General will send a message to the International Conference of Survivors of Holocaust and Genocide being held in Kigali, Rwanda. 

In his message, the Secretary-General says that genocide shaped the founding of the United Nations and the international community was belatedly trying to do more to prevent and punish genocide and crimes against humanity.  He says, “Rwanda has much to show the world about confronting the challenge of recovery.”  He adds that Rwanda demonstrated that it was “possible to reach beyond tragedy and rekindle hope”.

We have the full text of the message upstairs, which is not embargoed.

**Committee Against Torture

In Geneva today, the Committee against Torture recommended that the Israeli Government take all necessary steps to prevent abuses in view of numerous allegations of torture and ill-treatment by its law enforcement personnel, including against Palestinian children.

The Committee also concluded its review of Zambia, citing concern over allegations of the widespread use of torture in that country and incidents of violence against women, including those who are in Zambian prisons.

We have a press release upstairs with the Committee’s conclusions and recommendations for the two countries.

**Press Releases

The World Health Organization (WHO) is being joined by many world sports bodies to launch a campaign to free sports from all forms of tobacco advertising.  Tobacco-free events, including the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics and the 2002 FIFA World Cup in the Republic of Korea and Japan, are being organized all over the world.  We have a press release with details on that.

You may have noticed that the flag is flying half-mast out front.  That is in observance of the official mourning for His Majesty Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, the head of State of Malaysia.

The United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA) has asked me to announce that nominations for the 2002 Executive Committee, which opened last Tuesday, will close next Wednesday, 28 November.  The elections will then take place from 4-6 December.  Should you wish to place any name in nomination, please get a form from Sonia Nolasco in Room S-360.

We have the “Week Ahead” for you, which you can pick up in my office.

**Questions and Answers

Any questions before we go to Ahmad?

Question:  How is the situation in Kunduz related to the United Nations?

Spokesman:  We have been reporting pretty regularly on the Secretary-General’s involvement for almost a week now.  We initially saw reports that we had been approached to try to negotiate the surrender of the Taliban forces in Kunduz. We did not get officially approached until several days after those initial reports.  But even after the reports of an approach, the Secretary-General called first the Secretary of State of the United States -- since the United Nations doesn’t have military people in the field -- asking the coalition forces to do whatever they could to facilitate an orderly surrender, if that was what the Taliban forces wanted to do.

And then he has been in touch with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).  Those contacts have continued for almost a week.  The ICRC was talking to the Secretary-General’s office just an hour ago.  You may have seen that the head of the ICRC, Jakob Kellenberger, is in Kabul today and will be there through tomorrow.

So I think everyone is doing what they can to try to prevent the bloodbath that we fear could ensue if these parties don’t respect the Geneva Conventions and humanitarian law as it applies to armed conflict.

Question:  Isn’t it the job of the Secretary-General under the Charter to address questions like this to the Security Council, instead of asking the coalition forces to intervene?

Spokesman:  No, it is really an ICRC matter.  When you come to the surrender of prisoners of war, or the taking of prisoners of war, that is an ICRC matter. The ICRC itself has limited presence on the ground, and that is why there was also an appeal to the coalition forces.

Question:  How can you prevent more bloodshed and revenge, especially in the case of non-Afghan prisoners?

Spokesman:  What can we do?  All we can do is what we have been doing so far:  appealing to the Northern Alliance to respect international law that governs armed conflicts, and encouraging anyone who had a presence on the ground to pressure these parties to come to some kind of peaceful agreement on how to resolve this issue of Kunduz and how it should be turned over to the Alliance.  If there is a fight, there is a significant civilian population that would suffer badly -- not to mention the reprisal killings that could also take place.  We are trying to avoid both of those things.

* *** *