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.

**Secretary-General Back at Headquarters Following Canadian Visit

The Secretary-General is back in his office in New York today, after returning last night from Ottawa, where he met with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin and other senior officials.

At a press conference following their meeting, the Secretary-General was asked about international involvement in Haiti, and he said that the commitment to Haiti would take a lot of time, and could be needed “for 10 years or more.”  Asked about President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s ouster, he said the Security Council had acted on the basis of a letter of resignation and the transfer of power to the Chief Justice, and had determined that a multinational force was needed in the country because of the volatile environment.

Asked about reports of a UN plan to broker peace between Israel and Syria, the Secretary-General said “there is no such plan at the moment”, although there have been discussions and working papers on what to do on the Syrian track “when the time comes”.  We have copies of the press encounter upstairs.

That press encounter was followed by a working lunch with the Prime Minister, which included discussions on Iraq, Afghanistan and North Korea, among other issues.

**Haiti Update:  Joint UN Assessment Team Heads to Country

The first wave of a multidisciplinary assessment team left for Haiti this morning.  Subsequent waves will be going in the next several days, and we’ll keep you posted.

An update on the humanitarian situation in Haiti:  Humanitarian assessment missions to Haiti’s provinces are scheduled to resume today.  An inter-agency team, comprising representatives from the World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is scheduled to assess needs in Gonaives and Hinche today –- if security conditions allow.

Meanwhile, the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) warns that farmers face the risk of being unable to sell their harvest and, therefore, get the resources they need to buy essential foodstuffs such as oils, meats and beans.  FAO estimates that 3 million people are facing serious difficulties.  We have more in a press release.

Also, Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, the UN cultural organization, has called for authorities to find and prosecute those responsible for the death of a Spanish journalist in Haiti.  Ricardo Ortega, of Antena 3 television, was one of at least six people apparently killed while covering a demonstration outside the Presidential Palace on Sunday.

Matsuura said it’s essential that journalists be able to carry out their work in conditions of reasonable safety -– even in cases of conflict.  We have more in a press release upstairs.

**Middle East:  UN Envoy Larsen Meets with US Officials in Washington

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East, Terje Roed-Larsen, is in Washington today, where he met with US National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice.  They discussed the situation in the Middle East, including issues related to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposals concerning an Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

They discussed ways in which the international community could assist the parties in this regard.  They also discussed the other tracks of the peace process, including the Syrian and the Lebanese tracks.

This afternoon, Mr. Roed-Larsen will be representing the United Nations at a working-level meeting of the Quartet, which also includes the United States, Russia and the European Union, which is intended to push forward the Middle East peace process.  The meeting will discuss recent developments, including the withdrawal proposals on Gaza.

On the Secretary-General’s instructions, Mr. Roed-Larsen will travel tomorrow to London to have discussions on these issues with UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

**Special Court for Sierra Leone

A short while ago, the Special Court of Sierra Leone announced that a new era of justice officially began in Freetown as members of the national and international community gathered for the official opening of its new courthouse building.

The Secretary-General, in a message delivered by Hans Corell, on his last mission as the UN Legal Counsel, described the court as “a vital part of the healing process following a tragic and devastating period of conflict”.

The ceremony was held in the nearly-completed courthouse that will provide the venue for trials involving those alleged to bear the greatest responsibility for atrocities committed during Sierra Leone’s civil war.

**Lebanon

The Secretary-General’s Personal Representative for Southern Lebanon, Staffan de Mistura, strongly deplored several Israeli overflights today in Lebanon’s airspace.  Those flights were followed by anti-aircraft fire from the Lebanese side, also across the blue line.  Mr. De Mistura called again on the Israeli authorities to stop these air violations, and on Hezbollah to cease its ensuing, and dangerous, anti-aircraft fire.

**Libya Signs Key Weapons Inspection Protocol

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) today confirmed that Libya has signed the additional protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, allowing the Agency to conduct unannounced inspections in that country.  The Agency’s Board of Governors in Vienna today adopted a resolution, welcoming Libya’s cooperation with the IAEA.  We have copies of that resolution upstairs.

**Security Council

On the work programme of the Security Council, today is a meeting with the troop-contributing countries to the UN mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE).

**WFP, UNICEF Launch Namibia Emergency Appeal

The World Food Programme (WFP), and UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, today launched emergency appeals totalling $5.8 million to help more than 600,000 orphans, vulnerable children and women in Namibia –- that’s a third of the country’s population.

Erratic weather and the worsening HIV/AIDS epidemic have compounded the food shortage there, and it’s hoped that a swift response to contain the crisis will give the Government time to build up its capacity.

WFP is aiming for $5.2 million to fund its emergency operation for the next six months -– it plans to provide 8,000 tons of food to 111,000 rural children and their families in the six northern districts.

UNICEF is seeking $616,000 to fund its emergency operation for the coming half year –- to help around 500,000 people in areas such as expanded immunization campaigns and improved nutrition.  We have more on that upstairs.

**UN Development Programme Chief in Southern Africa

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator, Mark Malloch Brown, is in Lusaka, Zambia today, the second stop on a three-country mission to southern Africa, which focuses on the impact of the HIV/AIDS crisis.  He will discuss the Southern Africa Capacity Initiative, a regional project developed by UNDP to help nine African countries with high HIV/AIDS prevalence rates to deal with the effects the epidemic has had in reducing national capacity in education, health and other key sectors.

Today, Mr. Malloch Brown is expected to meet Zambia’s President, Levy Mwanawasa, and visit an AIDS clinic supported by former President Kenneth Kaunda.  He will be in Botswana tomorrow and Friday, where, among other things, he will visit a Gaborone school where UNDP is supporting an interactive television programme aimed at informing teachers and students about AIDS.

Mr. Malloch Brown kicked off his mission with a visit to Malawi earlier this week.

**World Chronicle

Finally, the Information Department (DPI) has asked me to announce World Chronicle TV programme #930, a special edition on the Role of Men and Boys in Achieving Gender Equality.  You can see that at 3:30 p.m. today on in-house TV channels 3 and 31.

That’s all I have for you.

**Questions and Answers

Question:  I’d like to ask you two questions about the story being reported in France now about the [6 April 1994 plan crash near Kigali, the Rwandan capital, in which then Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed].  I know you answered some questions on this yesterday.  One report extensively quotes an Australian investigator working for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), who says that in 1997, as he was researching the crash, he was confronted by a special envoy of the Secretary-General and told to stop his work and return to The Hague.  Back in the Netherlands, this investigator says he was again asked to stop his work.  Can you comment on this?  Did this happen?  Is this person lying?

Spokesman:  Let me answer that right away.  I asked the Secretary-General about this yesterday, and he categorically denies that he sent anyone to talk to this person or anyone else about these events.  Your second question?

Question:  Yes.  The day after the ‘94 crash, I think the Security Council issued a statement asking the Secretary-General at the time [Boutros Boutros-Ghali] to do whatever he could to try to investigate the circumstances surrounding the crash.  But as far as I know, no report on the incident was ever published.  Did the United Nations every carry out an investigation on the incident?

Spokesman:  We’ve been looking into that.  I haven’t yet been able to talk to anyone that worked with Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali on it.  You may not recall –- and neither did I until I asked around yesterday – but Gen. [Romeo] Dallaire tried to send UN troops to the crash site.  They were blocked by Rwandan army, so we didn’t get to the site.  We couldn’t have conducted an investigation.  It may be then -– and I’m just speculating here -– that we had nothing useful to share with the Security Council, so nothing was submitted.  But I would need to talk to someone who worked very closely with Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali before giving you a definitive response to that question.

Question:  On the same issue Fred, from the point of the United Nations, has the investigation [into the crash] ended or is it ongoing?

Spokesman:  We had no investigation:  we were unable to get to the plane crash sight.  So it wouldn’t be for us to investigate.

Serge, do you have a [phone rings]...Serge needs to take a phone call.  Do you have a question?

Question:  Caribbean heads of State have called for an investigation into the allegations being made by Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide.  Will there be such an investigation?

Spokesman:  I believe that was in a statement issued by the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).  And I’ve already said that if CARICOM formally requests us to do so, we would certainly consider that request.  So we would expect to be...

Question:  In other words, there was no formal request?

Spokesman: A statement issued by a regional group is not the same as a letter to the Secretary-General.  So I think if CARICOM would want us to do something, they should ask us directly.  We would be willing to consider it should we get a letter.

Question:  Also on Haiti.  A South African delegation in the Central African Republic discussing ways to secure political asylum for President Aristide.  What is the Secretary-General’s thinking on that?  And with the Israeli/Palestinian summit set for next week, does the Secretary-General intend to send his Special Envoy or anyone else to that meeting?

Spokesman:  On that summit, I’d have to check with Roed-Larsen.  I don’t know whether the UN has been invited or would expect to participate.  On former President Aristide, the Secretary-General has not been involved in any of these discussions regarding his place of exile.  So I doubt the Secretary-General would have anything to say about South Africa’s moves today in the Central African Republic.  I’m not even sure he’s aware of it.  [He later said there would be no UN participation in the Israeli/Palestinian Summit.]

Question:  To what extent do Roed-Larsen’s meetings in Washington today preview any sort of plan the Secretary-General is said to be working on for the Israeli-Syria and -Lebanon tracks?  How close are we to some sort of plan on that?

Spokesman:  I think his comments this morning sum up our position.  The so-called plan, as reported in an Israeli newspaper, was nothing more than a few ideas committed to paper by Roed-Larsen last October.  So I don’t think it indicates that a fresh initiative on Israel-Syria or Israel-Lebanon from the Secretary-General is imminent.

Of course this is something that, on a planning basis, we’re always looking at.  We were looking at it last fall, as the Secretary-general indicated.  But we are not about to put forward a plan and, as I said from this podium earlier this week, there is no plan.

Question:  Then Roed-Larsen is sharing these old ideas with what in mind?  Just to revive interest in them?

Spokesman:  I’m not going to get into the business of whom he is sharing ideas with.  He has shared ideas with the Secretary-General.  There were some discussions about possible formulae for reviving these two tracks when the time would be right for such an initiative.  How it leaked to this newspaper, I don’t know, but it wasn’t a timely leak.  As I indicated, these thoughts of Roed-Larsen’s date back to last October.

Question:  On the same topic -- I missed what you said earlier –- so could you say a little more about Roed-Larsen’s trip to London.  And have recent events in Gaza perhaps changed the Secretary-General’s mind about whether the Israelis ought to unilaterally pull out of that area?

Spokesman:  I don’t have the Secretary-General’s position on that latter subject.  All I said on the former was that the Secretary-General has asked Roed-Larsen to go to London tomorrow to brief the Foreign Secretary on the same kinds of issues he was discussing in Washington today, which I read out for you.

Question:  So there’s nothing else planned?  Is he going anywhere else while he’s there?

Spokesman:  Roed-Larsen did not mention to me his plans beyond tomorrow -- I don’t know what they are.

Question:  Has Roed-Larsen spoken to governments in the region -– Israel, Syria or Lebanon –- about these ideas lately in an effort to revive interest in them?

Spokesman:  I’m not aware that he has.  We’d have to ask his spokesman, but my impression is that some thoughts were shared with the Syrians and with the Lebanese as part of his ongoing efforts to pursue the peace process in the region as a whole.  Again, the timing of this particular leak is a mystery and shouldn’t be interpreted as some fresh initiative about to come from the Secretary-General.  There is no such initiative.

Question:  Is there a goal in mind of having these ideas turned into something more substantial by the time of the Arab Summit in Tunisia later this month?

Spokesman:  No.  Its’ on a contingency basis:  should the time be right for such an initiative, these ideas were being formulated last fall.  There’s nothing fresh.  I’m sure Roed-Larsen is always looking for any opening, but, as I said, there is no link between this leak and any fresh initiative being planned by the Secretary-General or Roed-Larsen now.

Question:  When you say “the time should be right”, what would trigger further steps in the instance?  What are the Secretary-General and Roed-Larsen looking for?

Spokesman:  The political conditions in the region would have to be right for such an initiative.  I don’t think he believes they are right now.

Question:  What is the governing law in Haiti now since everything has been done outside the country’s Constitution?

Spokesman:  Nothing is simple or clear about Haiti.  What the Security Council was responding to was the threat of chaos.  The Organization of American States (OAS) and CARICOM have been in the lead on the political front.  The Secretary-General was trying to support their efforts.  I think everyone is trying to come up with a political formula that would calm the situation and allow a return to constitutional law.  We realize that the Parliament has not been functional since January.  We realize that without parliamentary action, there is not pure legality for some of these constitutional measures taken for the succession of President Aristide.  But everyone, I think, is trying to do the best under the circumstances at hand to calm the situation and gradually move back to a constitutional process.

Question:  On Rwanda again, the Secretary-General was quoted this morning as saying that the “United Nations has no interest in obstructing investigations”.  Is he referring to the investigation of French Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere or some other investigation?

Spokesman:  No.  The French Judge yesterday formally accused the United Nations of obstructing justice.  I dismissed that yesterday, and the Secretary-General, in a more formal way this morning, said that the United Nations always tries to cooperate with investigations, particularly in issues where the United Nations has had a role to play as it did in Rwanda in ‘94.

But he said he has no knowledge of any black box retrieved from the ‘94 plane crash that killed the Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi.  We have double-checked through the house, and no one knows anything about that black box coming here.  A former UN employee from the United Nations Mission apparently testified before this Judge that he sent this black box to UN Headquarters by diplomatic pouch.  To this date, we are unable to confirm receiving that black box.  We cannot find anyone in positions of authority at the time who remembers anything about this black box.  That’s why I think you saw the Secretary-General this morning say that he was surprised by press reports of the charges.  I don’t think we have seen any of the legal papers involved.

Question:  Just to follow up, would it be usual procedure for the UN to receive black boxes from plan crashes like this?  Has this sort of thing happened before?

Spokesman:  You judge for yourself.  We might have received a black box where there might have been a plane crash involving our personnel.  For example, the Special Representative for Angola, Alioune Blondin Beye, was killed in a private plane crash while on mission.  But there is an international mechanism for investigating air crashes.  So while I can’t imagine it, I guess hypothetically you could say that a black box could be delivered to UN Headquarters.  As I’ve already told you, in this case, UN personnel were blocked from reaching the crash site.  And this individual says two to three months later, he came into possession of this black box.  He did not say how, but did say that he put it in the pouch.  It’s very curious on the face of it.

Question:  Was President Aristide in contact with the Secretary-General at any time before the recent events that took place?

Spokesman:  Before he left Haiti?  I think I reported to you here that President Aristide had called the Secretary-General two times roughly a week prior to his leaving Haiti.

Question:  Would those be considered privileged conversations or will transcripts be released?

Spokesman:  All these conversations are privileged.  I think I did say that he discussed international support for Haiti.  I think that’s as far as I went on those two conversations.

Question:  Did Aristide mention that he was going to resign?

Spokesman:  I don’t have those details, therefore, I can’t share them with you.

Question:  Has the United Nations receive any communication from the Iraqi Governing Council requesting help or assistance on the electoral and political process?

Spokesman:  No.  And we won’t go in without a formal request on the electoral assistance side.  A formal written request is what we’re waiting for.

Question:  Where is [Special Adviser, Lakhdar] Brahimi right now?

Spokesman:  He is wrapping up a vacation and he intends to return to New York over the weekend, I believe.

Thank you very much.

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