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

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

Following is a near-verbatim transcript of today’s noon briefing by Fred Eckhard, Spokesman for the Secretary-General, and Richard Sydenham, Spokesman for the General Assembly President.

Good afternoon.

**Iraq

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says that a group of 180 Iranian refugees returned home yesterday in the first repatriation from Iraq in nearly a year.  This first group of returnees were refugees who had fled their settlements in eastern Iraq in early April because of insecurity and tensions with the local population. 

Hundreds of other refugees refused to cross back into Iran when border authorities said that their livestock would not be allowed into the country, a standard practice stemming from veterinary health concerns.  Iranian authorities also refused other refugees the permission to cross with their trucks and tractors.  UNHCR is trying to work out these problems with the authorities in Tehran.

With the arrival of 60 United Nations staff on a Boeing 737 passenger jet in Erbil this week, a humanitarian air service for the Iraq crisis run by the World Food Programme has entered into full swing, according to WFP officials.  The Boeing 737 -- making the first of what will be a thrice-weekly run between Erbil (in northern Iraq), Amman (Jordan), Basra and Kuwait -- is the largest in a fleet of five passenger and cargo planes dedicated to the needs of aid workers deployed in Iraq and surrounding countries.  The air service is scheduled to run for six months at a cost of US$23 million.

More information on these items is available upstairs.

The UN Mine Action Service advises all media organizations that playing or tampering with ammunition and any type of unexploded ordinance is dangerous, not only to those who do it, but to others in the vicinity.  Filming children in Iraq playing with or tampering with these items must therefore be strongly discouraged.  The message to everybody must be, “Don’t touch”.

**DRC

The situation in the north-eastern part of the Democratic of Republic of the Congo remains critical.  Additional humanitarian personnel have arrived in Bunia.  Assistance to internally displaced persons remains restricted to Bunia and the airport, due to lack of access to other areas in Ituri.  We have available in my office a press release with more information on the humanitarian situation in that province.

The Ugandan military commander, Brigadier Kayihura, has written to the UN Mission and complained about continued fighting in Ituri and declared that Uganda would re-enter the DRC if elements threatening Ugandan security remain in control close to the Ugandan border.

The French reconnaissance team that visited Bunia is now in Kinshasa for de-briefings with the UN.  The UN is providing full information on the situation to Member States interested in participating in the multinational force recommended for Bunia by the Secretary-General last week.

The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Marie Guéhenno, arrived in the DRC yesterday, and has met with President Joseph Kabila.  He will be travelling to Bunia to assess the situation there.

**Security Council

There are no meetings or consultations of the Security Council scheduled for today.  The next scheduled consultations will be Tuesday, and they will be on Burundi following the long weekend.  The consultations on Western Sahara have moved to Wednesday of next week, and the report of the Secretary-General is expected to be available later today.

**Refugees

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is distributing relief supplies to some of an estimated 15,000 new Liberian refugees who arrived this week in south-western Côte d'Ivoire following fighting across the border in southern Liberia.

Meanwhile, UNHCR says it is extremely concerned about the impact that the internal conflict in Colombia is having on the indigenous peoples of that country.

We have more information in the UNHCR briefing notes. 

**UNDP/Palestinians

A pioneering cancer care facility has opened in Beit Jala Government Hospital in the West Bank, in a 2.2 million dollar project implemented by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and supported by the Government of Italy.  We have a note from UNDP with more information on that.

**Sierra Leone

The Chief of Investigations of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, Alan White, yesterday accused the Liberian authorities of failing to comply with an official request for the transfer of the alleged body of an indicted war criminal, Sam Bockarie, to the Court.  We have a press release with more details.

**ICTY

The Statute that established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will be 10 years old on Sunday, and, in a message that we have upstairs, Tribunal President Theodore Meron says the Tribunal can be justly proud of its important achievements in recording the crimes that scarred the Balkans in the 1990s.

**SARS

The World Health Organization today removed its recommendation that people should postpone all but essential travel to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Guangdong province.  We have press releases available on procedures for prevention and management of SARS on international cargo vessels and air travel.

**Press Conference

Press conference this afternoon at 1:15.  The Chairman of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Cases, Ole Henrik Magga, and others will be here to brief you on the outcome of the Permanent Forum’s second session, which ends today.

**Peacekeeping

Next Thursday, 29 May, will be the first International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers.  The day is intended to pay tribute to all those who served in peacekeeping missions since the establishment of the first one, which was the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, established on 29 May 1948.

In that connection, The Department of Public Information has produced an information kit which highlights the variety of skills and responsibilities of UN peacekeepers today.  And you can get that at the Documents Centre on the 3rd Floor.

And we have the Week Ahead for you, to help you plan your coverage of the UN for next week.  That’s all I have.

      **Questions and Answers

Question:  The UNCA briefing that wasn’t allowed to go ahead this morning.  I have three specific questions.  The last time that something like this occurred in 1994, it led to negotiations between UNCA and the Secretariat, and we got a specific assurance from Samir Sanbar, who was here at the time, that this situation would never be allowed to occur again, that UNCA would be permitted to invite whomever they wanted to speak at briefings in the UNCA club.  I’m wondering when and why that policy was changed.  That’s the first one.  And secondly, I’m told that the decision was made on the basis of some legal interpretation by Hans Corell.  His office hasn’t returned my phone calls today.  I’m wondering what the legal basis was for this decision.  And the third question is:  this is an organization that, amongst other things, is dedicated to the concept of press freedom.  The United Nations invented World Press Freedom Day which we celebrated just a month ago.  I’m wondering why a principle which the United Nations normally defends so stoutly was overridden in this situation.

Spokesman:  All I can do is offer to take those questions to the Secretary-General.  The standing policy, as I understood it, was that the Secretary-General supported the longstanding practice in the United Nations of not interfering with UNCA’s use of its facilities here in the Secretariat.  That’s not an absolute right.  This building belongs to the Member States.  But it has been a longstanding practice.  And it was his intention to respect that.  As to a change in policy, I don’t know that there was a change in policy.  My understanding was that the decision was made on the basis of the details of this particular case.  Hans Corell did not return your phone call because his advice to the Secretary-General is personal and confidential, and he doesn’t discuss it in public.  And otherwise, I’ll really have to pass your questions on to the Secretary-General himself.

Question:  Who was supposed to speak?

Spokesman:  You should ask Tony that question.

Question:  Would you mind if he said?

Spokesman:  I’d prefer this not turn into a conversation.  If you have a question to me, I would refer that question to the President of UNCA.

Question:  Earlier, Fred, you made a comment about the filming of children.  And you said that the filming is discouraged.  Isn’t the United Nations position, or do they have any kind of generalist category that enables them to discourage the filming of anything by any media anywhere?  What qualifies the United Nations to make that kind of a statement?

Spokesman:  I don’t know the details, but if I were to guess, I suspect that the reason why they felt it necessary to make this announcement was there must have been an incident where filming was going on, in the circumstances, in which case they then warned you, who are doing the filming, as well as the children who might be playing with potentially dangerous items, to don’t touch, be careful.  I think it was just a warning, and I suspect it was prompted by some incident, but I don’t know for that for a fact.

Question:  The President of Ecuador asked the Secretary-General a few weeks ago -- he requested an immediate ceasefire from the FARC in Colombia to begin negotiations.  Today in Cuzco, 19 Latin American countries have gathered and have backed up this declaration from the President of Ecuador.  What is the position today of the United Nations regarding a possible ceasefire in the conflict in Colombia?

Spokesman:  The Secretary-General would obviously support any effort to a peaceful reconciliation of the situation in Colombia, but I have nothing really to add to what I said most recently, that he supports the efforts of the Special Envoy James LeMoyne, that the good offices mission does not imply support for any side.  It is an impartial effort, and I think the High Commissioner for Human Rights also continues to express his strong support for the work being done by the United Nations Human Rights office in Bogota.  All these efforts are aimed at finding a peaceful solution.

Question:  Will these 19 countries take this problem or issue to another level?

Spokesman:  I can’t comment further than what I’ve already said. I’m sorry.

Question:  On the Special Representative.  Any announcement?

Spokesman:  I think we’re very close.  I can’t give you a firm prediction, but I couldn’t, I would not exclude that the Secretary-General would send a letter to the Security Council in the course of today.

Question:  Will there be any provision for us to talk to Mr. Vieira de Mello or the Secretary-General?  I’m making an assumption.

Spokesman:  I don’t know why you mentioned Mr. Vieira de Mello.  I think the next step would be for the Secretary-General to hear back from the Members of the Council that they had taken note of his letter expressing his intention to appoint someone.  And that probably won’t happen until the end of the long weekend.  So I don’t think there would be any press opportunities for the new Special Representative until that process had been complete.  So I hope you’ll have a long, quiet weekend.

Question:  When it does happen, do you expect that it would happen in New York?

Spokesman:  I think so.  We’ve been talking to the Secretary-General about possibly doing a press conference, introducing the Special Representative.  We’ll see if that happens. 

Question:  I don’t want to belabour the point, but following up on Tony’s question, why would the President negotiate with Samir Sanbar?  And you said this was the property of the Member States, which is true, but would a request from, say, Nauru or Tonga to bar a speaker receive the same attention as a request from the PRC?  I understand there are supposed to be equal Member States.

Spokesman:  In this case, the fact that the General Assembly has a firm position on a one-China policy, and the person coming in represented himself as an ambassador, as if from a sovereign State.  I believe that triggered a protest by the Chinese mission that the Secretary-General felt was worth responding to.  And it was his decision.

Question:  But we also have had an ambassador from the Taliban here several times.  A very unsavoury character, I agree, but there were no protests.  Nobody attempted to object to this very objectionable character, who believed in executions and stonings.

Spokesman:  I’ve gone as far as I can go.  I suggest that you try to raise this issue at higher levels and see if we can’t come to some understanding.

Richard.

Spokesman for General Assembly President

Good afternoon.

Today the Fifth Committee continues in informal consultations and the open-ended working group for the fourth special session on Disarmament meets in closed session.

On the week ahead, the ad hoc working group on integrated follow up to major UN conferences in the economic and social fields will hold its 11^th formal meeting next Tuesday, and continue its work through next Friday 30 May.

Also next Tuesday, we have the Sixth Non-stop Reading Marathon under the sponsorship of President of the General Assembly, President Kavan.  The theme this year is “Life in Truth -- Homage to Václav Havel” and the event is part of a four day worldwide reading marathon to be carried on the Internet.  Members of the UN community will read works by authors, whose writings have helped raise awareness in support of the cause of human rights, freedom and free speech.  The event will be held in the West Terrace, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.  Correspondents are invited to attend, and the event will also be Web cast and carried on in-house channel 67 or 16.

Any questions?

Thank you and have a good holiday weekend.

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