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

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

Good afternoon.

**Guest at Noon

I’d like to welcome to the briefing Sandra Peisley, the Police Commissioner of the UN Mission of Support in East Timor (UNMISET) and she will be here to talk to you about her mission.  We’ll get to you in just a few minutes.

**Iraq —- Attack

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, strongly condemned today’s attack on the Jordanian diplomatic mission in Baghdad, which resulted in the deaths of numerous innocent people, saying that he was appalled by this heinous act.

The people of Iraq –- the people of Baghdad –- have suffered enough from senseless violence, he said.  New terror must not be allowed to take root in this country.  There can be no justification whatsoever for such actions.  We have the Special Representative’s statement, which expresses condolences to the families of the victims and to the people of Iraq and of Jordan.

We also have today’s press briefing notes from Baghdad, in which Ghassan Salame, Vieira de Mello’s Senior Political Adviser, expressed the hope that the Security Council can come up with a presidential statement to deal with the issues of the Governing Council and the proposal for a full-fledged UN Assistance Mission in Iraq.

**Liberia

Here at UN headquarters, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Liberia, Jacques Klein, is scheduled to meet with potential troop contributors for Liberia this afternoon at 3 p.m. in Conference Room 3.

In the field, the number of Nigerian soldiers in Liberia neared 500 as the UN Mission in Sierra Leone airlifted in 40 soldiers, two armoured personnel carriers, seven landrovers, one ambulance, 61 tents and ammunition.

The World Food Programme (WFP) reports that its supply ship arrived off the coast of Monrovia today, carrying three tons of high protein biscuits and some humanitarian workers -– five from WFP and one from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.  WFP, which is continuing to airlift biscuits to the airport until it regains access to its storage facilities, says it has scheduled a distribution to war victims near the airport tomorrow.

Meanwhile, out on the racks is the Secretary-General’s report on the humanitarian or socio-economic impact of a ban on Liberian timber that took effect on 7 July, in accordance with a Security Council resolution that decided to take those measures.

**SRSG – Western Sahara

The Secretary-General, in a letter dated 5 August, informed the Security Council of his intention to appoint Alvaro de Soto, of Peru, as his Special Representative for Western Sahara, at the rank of Under-Secretary-General.  He replaces William Swing of the United States, who has gone on to head the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  Mr. de Soto has been the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Cyprus since 1999.  The Security Council’s response is expected by midday tomorrow.  We have copies of Mr. de Soto’s bio in my office.

**Democratic Republic of Congo

In our briefing yesterday, we mentioned that the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo had sent investigation teams to look at allegations of killings in Nyanda, which is north-east of Bunia.  Now the team has confirmed that a Lendu attack on the village did take place in which nine people, including women and children, were killed.

In a press release, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), William Swing, strongly condemns the killing of civilians, which he refers to as a serious setback for the peace and reconciliation process in the DRC.

The Mission also confirmed that 11 Congolese taken hostage in South Kivu were killed on 24 July by the Front for the Defence of Democracy and ex-FAR soldiers.  The victims were employees of a humanitarian organization, Tearfund.  The UN Mission condemns these acts of violence on humanitarian personnel and calls for an investigation into the killings.  We have the press releases with more details upstairs.

**Security Council

The Security Council has no meetings or consultations scheduled for today.

Tomorrow, the Council has scheduled a private meeting on the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.  The Prosecutor for those tribunals, Carla Del Ponte, will be present for that meeting.

Closed consultations among Council members on the same subject will follow the private meeting.

In a related matter, there is a letter from the Permanent Representative of Rwanda to the United Nations to the Security Council President transmitting a statement on the proposal for the appointment of a separate Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

**Afghanistan

The UN Mission in Afghanistan has completed public consultations on the Afghan constitution with Afghan refugees living in Pakistan, after holding such consultations in three Pakistani cities:  Peshawar, Islamabad and Quetta.  During those meetings, the Mission met with more than 14,000 refugees, including more than 2,000 women, and handed out 39,500 questionnaires concerning the shape of the Constitution.  We have more details in today’s briefing notes from Kabul.

**Ralph Bunche

As we speak, a ceremony is taking place to mark the centenary of the birth of Ralph Bunche, the US diplomat who was one of the co-authors of the UN Charter and one of the leading architects of UN peacekeeping.

The Secretary-General is just speaking now to introduce the stamp that the UN Postal Administration is launching today in honour of Ralph Bunche, whom the Secretary-General calls “one of the heroes of my lifetime, but one who is too little remembered today”.

Bunche, he adds, would be satisfied with what the United Nations is doing to improve its peacekeeping and other responses to conflict, but he would be deeply dismayed that it has taken so long to take such modest steps and truly appalled that genocide had to occur before those changes were set in motion.  We have copies of the full remarks upstairs.

**WHO

The World Health Organization today warned that projected deaths from tobacco use worldwide, which at present kills 4.9 million people every year, could rise considerably in light of a new report showing that young girls are smoking cigarettes almost as much as young boys in many regions of the world.

The findings in the report, which was released today at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Helsinki, Finland, are based on the largest global survey on adolescents and tobacco ever.

WHO has called on national governments to address the problem now on the basis of the new findings through gender-specific programmes and it also urged governments to include smoking cessation and treatment services as part of their tobacco control programmes.  You can get more details in the press release.

**Press Conference tomorrow

Finally, a press conference tomorrow at 11 a.m. in this room, Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, the President of the Economic and Social Council, Guy Lopez of the Association of American Indian Affairs and others will brief you on indigenous issues.

That’s all I have.  Anything before we go to Sandra Peisley?  Yes?

Questions and Answers

Question:   Fred, does de Soto have any responsibilities still in Cyprus, or is that appointment in Western Sahara a new job?

Spokesman:  It’s a new job, but I’m going to give you a carefully formulated response to your question, given the sensitivity on this issue.

“As the Secretary-General said once again last week, he is ready to exercise good offices to help the parties achieve a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem when both parties and both motherlands show a genuine commitment to come to terms.  This was spelled out in the Secretary-General’s report to the Security Council in April following the failure to reach agreement at The Hague.  As he has amply demonstrated, the Secretary-General attributes a high priority to the settlement of the Cyprus problem and believes that it is possible to achieve this if the political will is there.  He, therefore, awaits a firm commitment by all concerned to finalize negotiations with UN assistance on the basis of the plan he put to the parties on 26 February and to submit it shortly thereafter to separate simultaneous referenda.

“The Secretary-General will make arrangements as appropriate, regarding the handling of the Cyprus good offices, when Mr. de Soto takes on his new duties.”

Sorry for that lengthy response but I think you’ll understand why it was necessary.  Richard?

Question:   I know it’s for the Security Council and that’s their ball game, but is there any timing for the Security Council response to the Secretary-General’s recommendation on splitting the war crimes post?  Is there an answer expected tomorrow at all?

Spokesman:  I can’t answer that; you’d have to ask the Council President what his take is on the mood of the Council on this matter.  But the Secretary-General said this morning, to your correspondent as a matter of fact, when he came into the building, that his recommendation to split the Prosecutor’s duties into two separate jobs remains firm.  Yes, Bernard?

Question:      Indonesian General Adam Damiri had been condemned to three years in prison early this week.  After this last judgment, the UN was supposed to start thinking if they were going to ask to put together an international tribunal to judge the crimes that were committed in East Timor.  Could you tell us if such a move has started?

Spokesman:  I don’t have guidance on that point.  I’d say that in this house there was relief that the judgment against the General came through. How that judgement might have affected the UN’s thinking regarding a separate tribunal, though, I’d have to ask and get back to you on.

[He later said that the United Nations has been following the conduct of the trials very closely and the Secretary-General is considering his options.]

Sandra Peisley, welcome to the briefing.  I think you have some opening remarks and we’ll see if there are any questions.

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