DAILY PRESS BRIEFING BY THE OFFICE OF THE SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
| Press Briefing |
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
Our guest today is Ibrahim Gambari, the UN’s Special Adviser on Africa, who is here to talk to you about the appointment of the Secretary-General’s Advisory Panel on International Support for the New Partnership on Africa. And he’ll be coming up here once I’m done.
**SG Press Conference
Tomorrow at 11:30 a.m. in this room the Secretary-General will hold a press conference. As is the usual practice when the Secretary-General gives a press conference, we will not have a normal noon briefing, but we will do the usual highlights on the Spokesman's web site.
**Security Council
On the Security Council, regional organizations can be on the ground much faster than the United Nations, although the legitimacy that flows from UN operations is often needed for longer-term sustainability.
That was the message the Secretary-General gave this morning when he opened the Security Council’s meeting on cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations in many countries’ stabilization processes.
He mentioned many examples of UN cooperation with regional organizations, from Liberia and Sudan to Kosovo and Afghanistan. He added that more needs to be done to move towards the creation of strategic partnerships that meet current and future challenges. We have copies of his remarks upstairs.
Today’s open meeting is chaired by Romanian Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, and includes participation from several major regional organizations.
At the end of yesterday’s public meeting, the Security Council adopted a Presidential Statement welcoming the work done by its Counter-Terrorism Committee and expressing its confidence in the efforts of its new Chairman and Bureau in the global fight against terrorism.
**Sudan
In response to questions, I would like to tell you that the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan, Jan Pronk, will take your questions at the Security Council stakeout microphone tomorrow following his briefing.
Also on Sudan, the Secretary-General, when asked yesterday afternoon about the importance of a Security Council resolution on the issue, said, “The important thing is that the international community should make clear that they do expect the Sudanese Government to honor the commitments it made.”
According to field reports compiled by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, meanwhile, the Sudanese Government has informed agencies in El Fasher, north Darfur, that it has made a plan for the return of 200,000 internally displaced persons, known as IDPs, to between six and eight urban locales.
The agencies are insisting that the humanitarian community should be consulted prior to any return or relocation so that they can ensure the voluntary nature of any moves and provide adequate assistance. Most IDPs are not willing to relocate to other sites or return to their villages because of security and protection concerns.
OCHA also reports that in west Darfur, some 200 policemen have been sent to one camp. A further 1,000 have been posted in camps in and around a town where the number of IDPs is increasing. Heavy rains are complicating the aid effort both in Darfur and in Chad.
**IDPS
In Geneva today, Dennis McNamara, Special Adviser to the Emergency Relief Coordinator and Director of the Inter-Agency Internal Displacement Division, briefed correspondents on the creation of the new Division.
McNamara said its mandate would be to focus on the six to eight major countries of displacement -- Sudan, Uganda, Somalia, Liberia, Burundi, and Colombia. Access was being negotiated for Congo and Sri Lanka -- for the next year to eighteen months.
The effort is aimed at “filling in the gaps of the failures of the collaborative approach” in addressing massive humanitarian problems of war and human rights abuses. And you can read more about this in the Geneva briefing notes.
**Statement Attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General
The following statement concerns Venezuela:
“Diego Cordovez, the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Latin American Issues, will be leaving for a five-day mission to Venezuela this afternoon. The purpose of his visit is to keep the Secretary-General abreast of the latest developments regarding the referendum scheduled for 15 August. Mr. Cordovez will be meeting with representatives from the Government, the opposition, the media, civil society, and international players, such as the Organization of American States, the CarterCenter and the Group of Friends.
“The Secretary-General has been closely monitoring developments in Venezuela, and met with Mr. Cordovez yesterday to discuss the details of his mission.”
**SG Comments
Speaking to reporters yesterday, the Secretary-General was asked about the situation in the Gaza Strip, and he said it was “a serious crisis” and called on the Palestinians to take steps to bring the situation under control.
He said it was important for the Palestinian Authority to begin to reform, “particularly bringing the security forces under one command”, he said. He also called on Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to work with the Egyptians and Jordanians, and the international community at large, on reforming his security apparatus.
**Palestinians
Some 100 summer camps supported by the UN Children’s Fund are now underway throughout the West Bank and Gaza. The programme aims to bring recreational and play activities to some 17,000 boys and girls. The camps were conceived as safe havens where children can escape the ongoing conflict and learn about non-violent conflict resolution and peace-building activities.
**Lebanon
According to preliminary reports from UN peacekeeping troops in Lebanon, earlier today a Hizbollah sniper fired across the western part of the Blue Line, at an Israeli army position. As a result, two Israeli soldiers were mortally wounded. Israeli units retaliated with missiles and tank rounds fired back across the Blue Line killing a Hizbollah fighter. The situation surrounding the Blue Line remains tense.
The Force Commander of the UN Mission, General Pellegrini, and the Secretary-General’s Personal Representative for Southern Lebanon, Staffan de Mistura, are actively working with both sides to appeal for calm and avoid any further escalation.
**Haiti – Donors Conference
This morning the Secretary-General urged the international community gathered at a donors’ conference in Washington, D.C. to pledge generously to support peace-building and economic recovery in Haiti. In a message delivered by his Special Representative, Juan Gabriel Valdés, the Secretary-General said that despite some improvements in recent months, none should underestimate how fragile Haiti remains.
Armed groups continue to endanger stability, he said, the rule of law has not yet been restored, political forces remain at loggerheads, basic services need urgent rehabilitation and unemployment is widespread.
The Secretary-General noted that if Haiti’s transition is to be successful, the international community must put its full weight behind the Haitian leadership, and stay engaged during the months, and years, to come.
“We must work to address root causes, and not merely paper over the symptoms,” he said. He also welcomed Prime Minister Latortue’s assurance that his Government will be fully transparent and accountable, including to its citizenry, about the spending of international resources. The full text of his message is available upstairs.
**CAR
The World Food Programme warned today that it would run out of food by the end of this month for 27,000 refugees from the Central African Republic (CAR) who are trapped in Chad, unless substantial contributions were made.
**Burundi
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that the cholera outbreak among Congolese refugees in Burundi has now been controlled, with the last cases being reported last Friday. However, concerns have been raised over possible cases of meningitis among the local population.
On the other side of the border, 500 Burundian refugees living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have said they are ready to return to their country. Meanwhile, some internally displaced persons from the southern suburbs of Bujumbura have already returned to their homes, although others are afraid to do so because of possible revenge attacks.
According to the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), out of a total of 949 internally displaced children who had been separated from their families, just north of Bujumbura, 612 have been reunited, and 251 have been placed with host families.
**Tajikistan
Following the Tajik Government’s appeal for international assistance, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs is allocating $20,000 from its emergency reserve to assist in the flood relief efforts in that country. Heavy rains have polluted the capital Dushanbe’s fresh water supply and destroyed bridges and roads on the country’s main north-south road link. For more information we have a press release upstairs.
**Colombia – Displaced People
In north-west Colombia, the UN refugee agency is concerned about the possible dangers facing more than 1,200 indigenous Embera people who decided to return to their homes in the past few days following their displacement by fighting four months ago.
Precarious security conditions in the region of return are cause for deep concern, because the irregular armed groups whose clashes caused the Embera to flee in the first place remain in the area. The office of the High Commissioner for Refugees continues to monitor these communities and has urged the Colombian authorities to give the utmost attention to their security. We have more information in the briefing notes.
**Press Conferences – This afternoon
Finally, press conferences this afternoon: President Ricardo Lagos of Chile, will be holding a press conference in this room at 12:45.
And then at 4:30, the Prime Minister of Romania, Adrian Nastase, will be here to brief you on the Security Council’s thematic debate taking place today on cooperation between the UN and Regional Organizations in stabilization processes.
**Press Conference - Tomorrow
And tomorrow a press conference at 12:30, four experts monitoring the embargo prohibiting weapons flowing to militias in the Democratic Republic of the Congo will be here to brief you on their report, which is due out tomorrow.
Okay. So, that’s all I have for you. Any questions before we bring up Mr. Gambari? Yes?
**Questions and Answers
Question: Fred, following my question yesterday, what kind of official business is Ambassador Brahimi doing in Cairo?
Spokesman: He is following up with Iraq’s neighbours and other regional players regarding the security situation in the country and the efforts to hold a national conference, as he had recommended as part of the formula for moving from the interim government to elections. So, in Cairo today, he will be attending a meeting chaired or called by the Egyptian Government. And I have a few more details here somewhere. That’s what happens when you have too much stuff in the briefing.
I’m probably going to have to give this to you afterwards. I thought it was right here on top and I can’t seem to find it. Anyway, there are representatives of the neighbouring countries, I believe at the foreign minister level, meeting in Cairo at a meeting for... Oh, here it is! I’m sorry.
The participants include the Foreign Ministers of Iraq, Turkey and Saudi Arabia meeting under the auspices of the Egyptian Government.
Question: (Inaudible)...that the national conference will be held this month?
Spokesman: I believe that that is the hope, to keep to the original time frame. I don’t know whether that will have slipped, and we’d have to ask the Iraqis who are trying to put the meeting together. Edie?
Question: Fred, does the United Nations have any plans to sent observers to the Venezuelan recall election? Was this one of the things that Mr. Cordovez is going to be looking into?
Spokesman: I don’t have the answer to that question. I’ll try to find out for you after the briefing.
[The Spokesman later announced that the UN will not be sending observers to that election. However, both the Organization of American States and the CarterCenter, which had previously monitored elections in Venezuela, would be doing so again].
Okay, Mr. Gambari why don’t you come up?
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