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.  The International Conference on Illicit Tobacco Trade was held here this morning.  The illicit trade in tobacco was one of the topics being discussed as part of the ongoing global negotiations conducted by the World Health Organization on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

To my right is Dr. Derek Yach, the Executive Director of the World Health Organization's Cluster on Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health.  And

he's here to discuss the effects of illicit tobacco trade.  We have copies of

Dr. Yach's remarks to the Conference this morning and a press release available upstairs.

**Democratic Republic of Congo-Rwanda

We have the following statement attributable to the Spokesman concerning the agreements reached and signed today on the Democratic Republic of the Congo:

“The Secretary-General welcomes the renewed commitment of the Governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda to a mutually agreed settlement process, including a cessation of hostilities, aimed at making concrete progress towards peace in the region.  The Secretary-General also extends his appreciation to the Government of South Africa, and President Thabo Mbeki in particular, for their role in bringing the two Governments together.

“The United Nations stands ready to support the implementation of the agreement and looks forward to discussing the practical modalities with the parties concerned.”

The Office of the  United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today also welcomed this agreement.  In a statement issued in Geneva, they said that the UNHCR heralded the signing in Pretoria of an agreement between the two Governments as a milestone that could pave the way to peace and the return of tens of thousands of refugees.  The UNHCR says the humanitarian cost of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been enormous, with up to 3 million dead and an estimated 2 million people displaced internally.  An estimated 16 million people are currently in need of food aid, they say, and 40 per cent of children are illiterate and two out of five die in infancy.

Since the conflicts in the Great Lakes region are so deeply interlinked, this statement goes on, the UNHCR is also hoping that the implementation of the agreement could spur the Burundi peace process and lead to an improvement in the general security and political situation in Rwanda.

**Afghanistan

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan today said that its fact-finding report on the United States bombing of Uruzgan on 1 July was in the hands of the Afghan Government, as well as of the United States authorities in Kabul.  Those two Governments are conducting an in-depth investigation of the incident, in which a number of civilians were killed.

The United Nations Special Representative in Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, decided not to go public with this internal United Nations document, as the Afghan authorities and the Americans had already launched their investigation before the fact-finding report had been completed.  He hopes it will be of help to them as they work to establish the facts.

Asked about this as he entered the Building this morning, the Secretary-General said, "I hope the work the United Nations has done will help them move forward with the investigations speedily."

In a statement issued from Kabul today, the United Nations Mission called for an in-depth investigation to be carried out and added that the protection of civilian lives should become a primary concern in the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan.

**Kosovo

This morning, the Security Council heard in an open meeting from the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Kosovo, Michael Steiner, about recent developments there, and Steiner informed the Council that, although Kosovo has not yet achieved the standards demanded by its people or the international community, “we can see progress”.

He said that Kosovo finally has in place a multi-ethnic government with Serb participation.  The United Nations Mission and the Kosovo police have been cracking down on organized crime, by conducting several successful anti-smuggling operations.  The United Nations Mission has also been trying to establish its authority in northern Mitrovica, with the core of its strategy for that city based on effective policing.

On the economic front, Steiner warned, Kosovo took a serious hit 10 days ago with a disastrous fire, caused by a bolt of lightning, which hit one of the two main power plants –- ensuring power shortages in the months ahead.  He noted that the number of minority returns to Kosovo now exceeds the outflow from it, although he cautioned that the returns process has been too slow.

Mr. Steiner added that it was difficult to say right now what Kosovo’s future status would be, but added, “There will be no partition, no cantonization and no return to the status quo ante of 1999.”

We have copies of his speech upstairs.  There are 21 speakers signed up to make statements.  And also once the open meeting on Kosovo is done, Michael Steiner said he would come out to the stakeout to talk to you.  And we’ll squawk when that happens.

**Security Council

Following the open meeting on Kosovo, consultations are scheduled to continue with Western Sahara.  Today’s Council programme leaves open the possibility of the consultations to be continued in the afternoon at 3:30.  We'll let you know.

British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock (United Kingdom), this month’s Council President, told you yesterday that if necessary members will take up the Middle East draft resolution in informal consultations today.

The Security Council will have to vote by the end of the day tomorrow on the United Nations Mission in Lebanon and the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara when their mandates expire.

The Council yesterday extended the mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) by six months, until the end of January 2003.

**Iraq

The Office of the Iraq Programme in their weekly update notes that the first batch of 14 humanitarian supply contracts, worth over $7.62 million, that had been previously placed on hold by the Security Council’s 661 Sanctions Committee, were approved last week following their reassessment under the new procedures detailed in Security Council resolution 1409.  The full implementation of the new procedures began on 15 July.

As far as Iraq’s weekly oil exports are concerned, last week the volume reached 8 million barrels, down from the previous week’s total of 9.8 million barrels.  The week’s exports netted an estimated $189 million in revenue.  You can get the full report upstairs.

**United Nations Industrial Development Organization

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) today launched its first Industrial Development Report, which shows the wide gap that still exists in levels of industrial development worldwide.

The report includes an index to measure the competitive performance by industries -– that is, the ability of countries to produce and export manufactured goods that are competitive.  Under its rankings, Singapore is first in its competitive industrial performance among 87 countries studied, followed by Switzerland, Ireland, Japan and Germany.  East Asia leads all developing regions in its competitive industrial performance.

Major improvements have been made since 1985 among several middle-income developing economies, including China, Costa Rica, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines and Thailand.  But developing economies also face a key challenge in meeting intense global competitive pressures while avoiding the "low road" of reduced wages, depreciated exchange rates and low labour and environmental standards.

We have a press release from UNIDO with an overview of the report.

**UNHCR

Today’s briefing notes from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that, beginning Thursday, the UNHCR will conduct a registration for voluntary repatriation of Eritreans living in urban centres in the Sudan, whose refugee status will expire at year's end.  Estimates of the number of Eritreans living in Sudan's towns and cities outside of refugee camps are believed to be several hundred thousand.

The UNHCR also reports that nearly 8,000 Angolans have spontaneously returned to their homeland from the Democratic Republic of the Congo since the beginning of the year.  Another 4,500 have returned from Zambia.  The absorption capacity in Angola for the return of an estimated 4 million internally displaced persons and some 470,000 refugees is extremely weak, says the UNHCR.

And the refugee agency says it has distributed food, water and blankets to 56 passengers of a Sri Lankan boat, which docked last Sunday at Dili harbour in East Timor.  The UNHCR says it is ready to assess possible asylum claims from the group, should they be allowed to disembark and if they wished to seek asylum.  Most of the boat's passengers appeared to be male Sri Lankan Sinhalese.

**Polio in Burkina Faso-Niger

The World Health Organization has organized a “mop up” campaign of polio vaccination along the Burkina Faso-Niger border following a reported case of the disease in Burkina Faso.

A family from the Niger brought a sick child to the nearest clinic, which happened to be in Burkina Faso.  As a result of this case and as part of the standard procedure for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, the mop up campaign was planned, targeting 294,000 children in the Niger and 218,000 in Burkina Faso.

Wild poliovirus cases are rare, just 483 cases worldwide in 2001, and mop up campaigns are an important part of the campaign to eliminate polio.

**East Timor

In a letter which is out on the racks today, the Secretary-General informed the President of the Security Council of his intention to appoint Major General Tan Huck Gim of Singapore to the post of Force Commander of the United Nations Mission of Support in East Timor, with effect from 31 August 2002.

We have his biography in my Office.

**People with Disabilities

An ad hoc committee dealing with the protection and promotion of rights for people with disabilities began yesterday at United Nations Headquarters, and Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Nitin Desai told that committee that the protection of disabled persons perhaps should be reflected in a new international convention.

He said that work on proposals for a treaty had witnessed a shift in focus from care, social welfare and medical support to an emphasis on the human rights framework necessary for disabled persons to participate fully in economic, social and political life.

The two-week session of the ad hoc committee is continuing, and we have a press release with more details of yesterday’s proceedings upstairs.

**Budget

Budget news today.  Mexico became the 89th Member State to pay its 2002 regular budget contribution in full.  And that's with a payment of more than

$12 million.  This time last year, there were 100 Member States paid in full.

**Football Match

And finally, the real news for you today is about football.  Many of you have been asking about media arrangements for next week’s soccer match between Real Madrid and Roma.  And we now have a press release on the racks upstairs.  You will need special credentials issued by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority and forms are available in the Media Accreditation and Liaison Unit.  The press release has all the contact telephone numbers.

That's all I have for you.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  On the report and Mr. Brahimi's decision not to make it public but to give it to the two parties after the reports of both the United States and Afghanistan are completed, will the United Nations report then be made available?

Spokesman:  I didn't discuss that with him today.  I assume that the Americans and the Afghans have the option of appending that report to their report should they wish to do.  But you would have to ask them whether that was their intention.  I'll have to check with Mr. Brahimi, but I don't think it's his intention to go public with the report at any time.  He just hopes that it will now help these two Governments conclude their own report.

Question:  On Kosovo, you mentioned that there would be no return to status quo prior to 1999 and no partition.  How would the Government operate there?

Spokesman:  The final status of Kosovo was not determined.  It was left to be worked out, and I think probably the best thing to do concerning Mr. Steiner's comments of this morning if you have a question about that would be for you to ask him when he comes to the stakeout.

Question:  On the Afghanistan report, if the United Nations wasn't going to publish the report, why did the guys go there in the first place?

Spokesman:  The mission has an obligation to look into humanitarian needs wherever they arise.  And in this case, by sending United Nations mission personnel from Kandahar, they were among the first to arrive in the area from outside.  They were all humanitarian personnel, so it was United Nations mission people -- I think it was 16 vehicles -- 12 of them, four of them were Afghan authorities and among the 12 were people from the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and so on.  And there were non-governmental organizations -- Médecins sans frontières and Islamic Relief and so on.  So it was a large posse of humanitarian workers who arrived, assessed the needs, but also gathered the facts as best they could.

As I said to you yesterday, one of the problems was that they didn't have ballistics expertise, they didn't have a forensic expertise, they didn't have military expertise, they didn't have police expertise, they didn't even have human rights expertise.  And, therefore, some of the conclusions that they fired back in their preliminary report Mr. Brahimi rejected, saying please substantiate some of these things that you've said.  So they then did that.  That second report, with some things dropped, some things beefed up from the first report, has now been given to the two Governments who are conducting a joint investigation.  Our people weren't qualified to do an investigation.  They were fact-finders.

Question:  Does that second report drop the characterization of blood and shell casings being cleaned up from the scene?

Spokesman:  I'm sorry.  I can't get into the details of what was dropped and what was kept in.  I'm sorry.

Question:  The characterization in the news accounts is that the shell casings and the blood were cleaned up.  The Pentagon says that that can be explained by them collecting evidence for their investigation.  Is that possible?

Spokesman:  I don't want to speculate about how one government or the other that's conducting the investigation would look at these facts.  The utility I think in terms of the information gathered was that it was fresh.  So in a sense, you had humanitarian workers talking to people, writing down what they told them, that they had seen and that happened.  And this was within hours of the incident actually taking place.  So we feel that this should have value to those who are carrying out the actual investigations.  Both the Americans and the Afghans would have the military expertise to answer your question.  We did not.  We reported what people told us.

Question:  Is the United Nations going to stop writing these kind of reports since it's not qualified to do it, or are they going to make sure that in future they send people who are qualified to do it?

Spokesman:  Well, they have the option at any time to carry out reports -- investigations even -- using qualified personnel.  They do have a human rights office.  In this case, the people closest to the scene were humanitarians.  The immediate concern was humanitarian, and so they dispatched those people to the scene.

In the process of gathering the humanitarian information, they also picked up information that would be of use in an investigation. 

Question:  Are the human rights people going there now?

Spokesman:  In this case, because as I said in my opening statement,      Mr. Brahimi decided that since the Americans and the Afghans had already decided to conduct a formal investigation and to do so jointly and have done that before his report was even finished, he would turn it over to them and let them carry out.

Question:  You said the people who did the report were unqualified.  So that begs the question if there are qualified people there, why don't they go and do a proper job?  And if they aren't going to do that, why aren't they going to do it?

Spokesman:  I just answered that question.  He sent humanitarian people there -- they were closest to the event -- and he initially wanted humanitarian information.  They picked up information that would be of use in an investigation.  Before he issued his report, the Afghan and United States Governments said they were going to jointly investigate.  He, therefore, rather than send a team of his own and investigators who might have competence in these areas, that might give the appearance of competing with these two Governments' investigations, he turned over what he had to them that he hopes will be helpful in their investigation.

Question:  Could you characterize this as the first fact-finding team of any type to have been at the site subsequent to the attack?

Spokesman:  I would have to double-check with Kabul.  It was my impression as they arrived there hours after the event, I think the event took place between midnight and 4 a.m., and they were dispatched at 8 a.m. and arrived midday.  I think it's probably safe to assume they were the first fact-finding team to arrive, but I'd have to double-check with Kabul.

Question:  On one hand, you say they weren't qualified and then, on other hand, you said they picked up information that could be quite helpful to an investigation.  In what areas did they pick up information that was helpful to an investigation?

Spokesman:  I don't want to get into the details of the report, but one of the things when it comes to investigations that you find said over and over again is the more time that passes, the less validity witnesses’ recollections have.  When you get them fresh and you hear their accounts of what they saw and what they heard, it has more validity than if you interviewed them a week later.  So in that sense, I would think, and you'd have to ask the Americans and the Afghans what they think, but I would think that this information gathered by humanitarian workers, not experts as I've already said, would still have validity for an investigation.

Question:  Is the United Nations going to concede that there was a mistake here, that people who aren't qualified shouldn't be making conclusions in an incredibly sensitive area?

Spokesman:  I think it might have been a mistake had we published this thing with the United Nations seal on it saying, here are the findings of the United Nations fact-finding team.  I think it’s a recognition that some of the things they were pronouncing themselves on were things they weren't professionally qualified to make judgements on.  But at the same time, to the extent that they can be accurate in reporting what people said to them, they can be gathering information that can be of help to professional investigators. 

Question:  So you suggest that they had more information that was of use to investigation.  On what basis has Mr. Brahimi told them to rewrite it and on what basis has he decided that it isn't serious enough (what they did write) that it doesn't warrant further United Nations investigation?  It only requires investigation by the people who were under investigation, which were Americans who were bombing this place.

Spokesman:  There were, in some cases, sweeping statements made in the first report.  And, in fact, some of these had been reported by the media because the first report did, in fact, leak.  When Mr. Brahimi and his people looked at these, and realizing that they were coming from humanitarian workers and not human rights experts or ballistics experts, he said, please substantiate for me some of the things you said in your first report.  So the second report includes the substantiation to the extent that they could provide it.

Question:  When did Mr. Brahimi first see the first report?

Spokesman:  Well, his people would have seen it as soon as it had been forwarded to Headquarters.  I don't know what the date of that report was.  And I don't know how long it took them to write it.  It was submitted from Kandahar to Kabul.  As soon as it arrived in Kabul, I don't know whether he personally saw it right away.  I would assume that his staff reviewed it first, then passed it up to him for his attention.

Question:  When was it that he asked the team to go out and substantiate that?

Spokesman:  I think that probably was almost immediately, the next day.  I'm just guessing now because the difference in dates between the two reports is something like two or three days.

Question:  Did they actually go back to investigate again?

Spokesman:  To my knowledge, no.  It was, on what basis do you say this, on what basis do you say that.  The first report was quite telegraphic in format.  The kind of thing that someone would bang out quickly and send to Headquarters -- we saw this, we saw this, people told us this.  Then Mr. Brahimi said, no, wait a minute.  If you're going to say that, tell me in more detail on what basis you say that.  And then the second report came back with more detail.

Question:  Regarding the role of the United Nations human rights people in Afghanistan, does Mr. Brahimi have the power to tell them not to investigate them, or are they directly under the High Commissioner for Human Rights?  If they are content to let the Afghan and American Governments investigate anything about human rights, what are they doing there?

Spokesman:  On your first question, for a number of years now, it's been standard practice to have a human rights office as part of the peacekeeping mission.  So that office would, however, report to the Special Representative. 

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, of course, has an independent mandate.  And you'd have to ask Mary Robinson what if anything she would want to do with that.  And Mr. Brahimi would not control what she has to say or do.  He would, being the Chief Executive Officer of the Mission, control what his own human rights office would investigate.  In his judgement, I mean, first he did call for an in-depth investigation.  You do have a party, namely, the Afghan Government, that presumably would want to know all the facts.  The Americans say that they want to know all the facts as well.  But the fact that both of them were involved in it, I think, gives the exercise credibility.  He decided he wanted to help them rather than compete with them. 

Question:  Do you know if Mr. Brahimi has spoken with Ms. Robinson on the issue?

Spokesman:  I don't know.  I'd have to check.

Question:  Can I just get a clarification of the sequence of events before this team went out?  The call came from Mr. Brahimi's office in Kabul to Kandahar.  Why would he send the WFP to something like this?  You mentioned humanitarian assessment, but they went far beyond that. 

Spokesman:  The initial idea was to gather information on what was needed in the way of humanitarian assistance.  There were press reports of a large number of people killed and injured.  So it was primarily a humanitarian fact-finding mission.  But, the Mission also has a political side.  I asked him this morning, was your intent just to get humanitarian information or to find out as much as you could?  He said, both.  But, of course, he had humanitarians finding out as best they could what had happened on the political and military side.  And that has its drawbacks.  And when he got the initial answers, as I said, he said please substantiate.  And once that had been substantiated he decided this could be a value to those conducting a proper investigation, and because that investigation by the two Governments was already under way, he decided not to launch one of his own.

Question:  Does UNAMA have the mandate or the authority to actually investigate military strikes or military accidents?  Yesterday, everyone was very careful not to call it an investigation.  It was just a fact-finding mission.  Today, you're using the word investigation. 

Spokesman:  I can't say about military, but I did look up the mandate and the mandate does say that the Mission may investigate human rights violations and, where necessary, recommend corrective action.  So that is an integral part of its mandate. 

I don't mean to confuse the investigation versus fact-finding issue.  I hope that when describing what we did with the humanitarian workers from Kandahar, I only said fact-finding.  This was not an investigation.  These people who carried this out did not have the competence to do an investigation.

Question:  You know how the perception is -- was there a phone call or pressure from the United States military of State Department to Secretary-General Annan or Mr. Brahimi to make sure this report was revised and never saw the light of day?

Spokesman:  For the Secretary-General, I can say no.  And I'd have to check with Mr. Brahimi.

Question:  Has there been communication between Mr. Brahimi and the United States military in terms of coordinating an investigation or deciding who should do what?

Spokesman:  No, to my knowledge, his decision to hand over the fact-finding mission's report was followed up by his handing it to the United States diplomatic authorities in Kabul, I assume, and to the Afghan Government.

Question:  On what basis did he make the decision that proceeding ahead on his own track would be detrimental to the other processes?

Spokesman:  On what basis?  As I've already said, that these two Governments had already said they would carry out an investigation.  So he decided that he would assist that investigation rather than compete with it.

      Question:  Without them having communicated their displeasure with his action?

Spokesman:  I don't know.  Really you're asking me questions that should be asked in Kabul.  People who know the daily programme and phone log of Mr. Brahimi.  I can't get into that detail.

Question:  If there's a potential cover-up, it's important that the United Nations hierarchy here in New York would know if there were a cover-up by a mission of the United Nations.  Aren't you able to find out if there was a   cover-up under United States pressure?

Spokesman:  I'm happy to ask.  I have seen no evidence of communication between either the United States Government or the Afghan Government trying to influence our conduct of this fact-finding mission or of what we do with the results.  But I can't answer that same thing for Mr. Brahimi.  You'll have to ask him or his spokesman in Kabul.  But there's no sign, there's no suspicion on our part of any cover-up.

Question:  Has the preliminary report made it to New York?

Spokesman:  Yes.  Both reports were sent as part of routine cable traffic to Headquarters.

Question:  Do you know if in that report that when they talk about cleansing and removing of evidence, was it purely because the UN team got there first ahead of the United States military?  In what context did they talk about the moving of evidence?

Spokesman:  I can't get into that detail.

Question:  Did the United States say yes, we were moving evidence because that was part of their investigation?

Spokesman:  Then that will come out in their report and they are competent, and the Afghan authorities are competent, to counter-judge if that's necessary what the United States military would say about these things.  What's standard procedure, what's not.  But clearly we are not in a position to make that judgement.  We reported what people told us they saw.

Question:  Was there overlap between United States officials being on the scene and this fact-finding group?

Spokesman:  That I don't know.

Question:  Has the Secretary-General or anyone talked about a new system or intensive training regarding how to react with reports and videotaping after events, which is what happened in southern Lebanon with the Indian contingent?

Spokesman:  There's no comparison to be made between the Afghanistan case where the Special Representative asked humanitarian personnel working under him to go from point A to point B, gather information on humanitarian needs and find out whatever they can about what has happened, and Lebanon, where you had a soldier with a personal camcorder filming things.  I think in terms of the Lebanon case, they have issued guidelines on the use of cameras on missions, but that had no application in the case of Afghanistan.

Question:  Were any cameras brought to the site by this team?

Spokesman:  I'm not aware.  I didn’t see reference to photographs, but I'd have to double-check.

Question:  The Special Representative would not want incompetent people to judge a scene and have it get into print?

Spokesman:  He wanted to know how many blankets to bring in.  We sent humanitarian people there to assess humanitarian needs.  In the process, they spoke to people and picked up information that we judged would be valuable to someone conducting an investigation.  But we also realize the limitations of the value of that evidence.  Its value was that it was fresh.  Reports of what people said they saw.  But their competence to judge its relevance to an in-depth professional investigation was in question.

Question:  Do we know the nationalities of the United Nations humanitarian team that went into the site?

Spokesman:  I've already mentioned that in addition to our people who would have been from very different nationalities -- I don't have them here -- there were half a dozen non-governmental organizations and United Nations agency representatives.  It was probably the full spectrum of the United Nations in terms of nationality.

Question:  Was there any consultation with Mr. Brahimi prior to the humanitarian team going into the area?

Spokesman:  I don't know that.  That's a question you'd have to ask in Kabul.

Question:  if the fact-finding team interviewed individuals who observed some sort of a clean-up taking place, wouldn't that imply that United States personnel were on the ground doing something prior to the fact-finding team getting there?

Spokesman:  I'm not able to say discuss the specifics of either report.

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