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,

**Sudan - Commission of Inquiry

The Secretary-General today announced the establishment of an international commission of inquiry which would determine whether or not acts of genocide have occurred in Darfur, Sudan.  The commission is also to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law in Darfur.

The five-member commission will be chaired by Judge Antonio Cassese of Italy, who was the first President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.  The other four members are Mohammed Fayek of Egypt, Diego García-Sayán of Peru, Hina Jilani of Pakistan and Thérèse Striggner Scott of Ghana.

The commission will also have an Executive Director, Dumisa Ntsebeza of South Africa, who will head the technical team supporting the commission.

Three of the members of the Commission, as well as the Executive Director, will meet the Secretary-General this afternoon at 3:00.

**Sudan

Also on the Sudan, Jan Pronk, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Sudan, arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, today to attend the resumption of peace talks between the Government of the Sudan and the rebel People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

Sudan’s First Vice-President Ali Othman Taha and the Chairman of the SPLM/A, John Garang, are expected to meet later this afternoon in Nairobi.

Pronk was invited by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development or IGAD, the regional organization mediating the North-South peace talks.

In Khartoum, Pronk’s Deputy for Humanitarian Affairs, Manuel Aranda da Silva, met yesterday with Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The discussions focused on the Darfur crisis and the North-South peace process.  The UN official emphasized the need for sustained support for humanitarian operations in Darfur and the need for ensuring that rapid support is available for Sudan immediately following the signing of a peace agreement.

**Sudan - Women’s Rights Expert

In a statement issued at the end of her visit to Sudan, Yakin Ertürk, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, detailed the multiple forms of violence suffered by women and girls during attacks on villages in Darfur.

She also makes a series of recommendations to the Sudanese authorities including a strong appeal to the Government to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Such a move would commence a dialogue for the improvement of the legal protection of women’s rights in Sudan, and also implement current obligations under international law, she says.

**SG - Travels

The Secretary-General will leave this weekend on official visits to China, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

In Beijing he will meet with the President and senior government officials; he will visit an eco-village and an HIV/AIDS testing centre, and he will tour the Chinese peacekeeping training centre at Langfang.  China currently provides close to 1,000 military and police personnel to 12 different UN peacekeeping operations.  A speech and question-and-answer session with students at TsinghuaUniversity is also included on his programme for China, as is the opening celebrations for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the UN-China partnership.

In Ireland, which he visited once before as Secretary-General, in 1999, he will meet with President Mary McAleese; the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern; the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dermot Ahern; and the Minister of Defence, Willie O’Dea.

The Secretary-General will address the National Forum on Europe on the issue of EU-UN Cooperation, and will meet with Irish military personnel who have served in UN peacekeeping operations.

In the United Kingdom he will deliver the Tip O’Neill Lecture at the University of Ulster on the topic of peace-building, before travelling to London, where he will meet with Queen Elizabeth II, the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for International Development.  He is expected to attend an All Party Parliamentary Committee Meeting, and will also meet with members of non-governmental organizations.

He’ll return to New York in the week of 18 October.

**Secretary-General’s Statement for Guinea-Bissau

“The Secretary-General deplores the action by a group of mutinous soldiers that led to the death of the Chief of Staff of Guinea-Bissau’s armed forces on 6 October 2004.  He has asked his Representative in Guinea-Bissau, Mr. Joao Bernardo Honwana, to continue to lend the necessary support to help all parties resolve the crisis peacefully and quickly.”

**Security Council

On the Security Council:  this morning they began closed consultations on sanctions placed on Liberia, in particular on diamonds and timber.  A press statement is expected to be read out on these measures by the Security Council President, British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry.

Also on the agenda is a discussion on threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist attacks, with a view to a possible subsequent vote on a draft resolution on the subject.

Then in consultations at 3:00 p.m., Terje Roed-Larsen the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, will brief the Security Council.  A briefing on Guinea-Bissau is expected as well.

Also today, the Security Council will hold its regular monthly lunch with the Secretary-General.

**Lebanon

On Lebanon, out as a document today, is the Secretary-General’s report on resolution 1559 which Roed-Larsen will be reporting on.  The report called, among other things, for all foreign troops to withdraw from Lebanon.  It also called for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militia.

In his report, the Secretary-General says that, to the best of his ability to ascertain, the only significant foreign forces deployed in Lebanon are Syrian, about 14,000.  It’s not clear whether the recently announced redeployment of Syrian troops is confined to regular troops or includes non-uniformed military intelligence, and whether they have all returned to Syria.

The Secretary-General also notes that while the Government of Lebanon has made great strides in significantly reducing the number of militias present in Lebanon, several armed elements remain in the south, the most significant of which is Hezbollah.

In conclusion he says, fourteen years after the end of Lebanon’s civil war and four years after the withdrawal of Israeli troops, the withdrawal of foreign forces and the disbandment and disarmament of militia would, with finality, end that sad chapter of Lebanese history.

The UN’s Special Coordinator, Terje Roed-Larsen, will present this report to the Council this afternoon in closed consultations, as we’ve already said.

**Duelfer

Asked by a journalist in the corridor yesterday what he thinks of the report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction presented yesterday to the US Congress, the Secretary-General said, “You may recall that before Hans Blix left here, he indicated that they had not found any evidence.  So I am not surprised by that report.”

When the journalist asked if the report gives the UN more credibility, he replied, “I think it indicates that the inspectors had an impact.  The UN inspection did what it was supposed to do.”

**UNRWA

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East -- or UNRWA -- today delivered food and water to half of the six hundred families trapped in their homes near the northern Gaza Strip’s Jabalyia camp.

UNRWA says that some 3,300 people have been completely unable to leave their homes since the beginning of the Israeli military operation on September 29.  But, following a dialogue with Israeli military liaison officers, the agency was able to give food parcels to some three hundred families.  It hopes to reach the remaining families tomorrow.

And there’s more details on that in a press release.

**Iraq

The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, has returned to Baghdad this week, and he’s meeting with a wide spectrum of Iraqi political leaders and actors to see how the United Nations can best help the transitional process.

Among his meetings, Qazi yesterday saw the visiting Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Jack Straw.  He also had one of his regular meetings this morning with US Ambassador John Negroponte.

**DR Congo/Rwanda

The first meeting of the Joint Verification Commission launched by the Governments of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda was held in Kigali this week.

A confidence-building measure, which aims to address DRC-Rwanda border security issues and normalize bilateral relations, the mechanism was agreed upon at a meeting hosted by the Secretary-General in New York on 22 September.

At its first session on Tuesday, which was chaired by Rwanda on a rotational basis, the two Governments agreed to deploy permanent joint verification teams to the border towns of Goma and Bukavu on 15 October.  These teams will comprise military experts to undertake investigations on the ground and each team will be led by a UN military officer.  The next meeting of the Commission will be held in Kinshasa in early December.  The UN Mission in the DRC serves as the secretariat of this mechanism. 

**Haiti

Three weeks after Tropical Storm Jeanne ravaged Haiti, UN humanitarian agencies continue to distribute relief supplies to people around the hard-hit city of Gonaïves. 

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, after initial problems due to security constraints, several food distribution points have been opened, and food aid has been distributed to more than 54,000 families since 22 September.  Water distribution is proceeding well.  International organizations have provided 11 trucks for delivering water and local authorities are working on repairing Gonaïves’ local water system.

Nonetheless, the people of Gonaïves still face a range of problems.  Humanitarian groups are helping in the clean-up of the mud, which clogs roads and leaves homes uninhabitable.  In order to prevent future disasters, relief agencies are stressing the risks of long-term damage to agriculture and the marine ecosystem, because of land erosion and mud flows into the sea.   

We have more information on that in a press release.

**IAEA

The Spokesman was asked yesterday about the comments made by the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, on North Korea.

The IAEA Director-General made those comments at the Pugwash Conference in Seoul, where he said that one lesson from North Korea is that “we cannot afford not to act in cases of non-compliance.”  He said that examples of North Korean non-compliance were repeatedly referred by the IAEA to the Security Council, and again I quote, “but with little to no response”.

By contrast, he said, verification and diplomacy have been part of the success so far in Iran and Libya.  He hopes that the continuation of the six-party talks in North Korea will yield results that will include full IAEA verification.

And we received that guidance from the IAEA, and, if you have any further questions, I suggest you follow up with them.

**UNHCR - Feller

Finally, the UN refugee agency’s top protection official today warned States that politicizing the asylum debate will only compromise refugee protection without solving migration concerns.

She called instead for multilateral cooperation to share responsibilities and better manage the movement of people.

Erika Feller, UNHCR's Director of International Protection, made the comments while addressing the agency’s annual Executive Committee meeting in Geneva.

And we have her full comments available upstairs.

**Questions and Answers

Spokesman:  I’ll take Evelyn first.

Question:  On the weapons programme, I think there’s a bit of rewriting of history, both by the SG, by Hans Blix, and by Charlie Duelfer himself.  The fact the UN for years said there was no evidence, they also in all the reports said we can’t account for A, B and C -- both United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) -- and, therefore, these weapons might still be there.  After the invasion, the picture changed that we can’t account for it and there’s a whole story now that only, in my knowledge, [inaudible] has articulated only once ten years ago that Saddam doesn’t ever want to stand up and say, “I’m disarmed” and, therefore, he made up a lot of stuff.  That story did not come out of this building before that report yesterday and I, it’s not that the UN was acting in bad faith, but I don’t think anyone can say, “I told you so.”  I think there was a lot of doubt whether they had weapons or not.  I don’t think we should be rewriting history.  Charlie shouldn’t be doing it either.

Spokesman:  I’m just reporting the Secretary-General’s comments of yesterday.  I never spoke for the UN inspectors and I can’t do so now.

Question:  [Inaudible] saying the same thing they are and it’s just not true.  I mean it is in a narrow sense but not in the wider sense.

Spokesman:  Well the inspectors’ reports to the Council, I think, speak for themselves.

Question:  Exactly, and that’s not what they said.

Spokesman:  Gentleman in the back.

Question:  Mr. Annan yesterday said that he’s not surprised by the results of the report.  You can apply these same things to the part linked to the Oil-for-Food programme?

Spokesman:  What, the allegations of corruption?  No, that’s a relatively minor part of this report yesterday, which focused primarily on weapons of mass destruction.  But, concerning the allegations against UN officials, we have nothing new to say.  That matter is clearly in the hands of Paul Volcker.  We are cooperating with him, as are the UN officials named in this case, specifically Benon Sevan.  Yes?

Question:  On the Commission of Inquiry, can you give us any more details?  When do these guys plan on going to Sudan?  Where will they be operating out of?  Where will their base of operation be?  Do they have any time frame as to when they have to report to the SG?  And are they going to talk to us before they head off?

Spokesman:  Let’s let them have their consultation with the Secretary-General first.  We’ll relay all of your questions upstairs to see if we can get answers for you after that meeting.  And we’ll also see whether one or more of the members will be willing to talk to you at the stakeout on their way out of that meeting.  Yes? 

Question:  We know that it’s National Election Day in Afghanistan this upcoming Saturday, so I just wondered:  Do you know if they’re ready for the national elections in Afghanistan?  Could you give us more details for that?

Spokesman:  I would refer you to the remarks by Jean Arnault that I gave in yesterday’s briefing where he indicated that everything was ready and he felt that a free and fair election could take place.  If you want anymore than that we’ll give you the phone number of the Spokesman for Mr. Arnault, who can give you nuts and bolts details from the ground.  Richard?

Question:  Why are you calling the Oil-for-Food programme in the Duelfer Report a relatively minor part?  And I know it’s in the Volcker hands but should Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, again today on the campaign trail talking about the Oil-for-Food report…Can’t the UN respond and say whether corruption was on such a grand scale that Member States here, if they wanted to act could have acted?  How significant are the Duelfer findings? 

Spokesman:  I said what I said about the Duelfer report because the report was on weapons of mass destruction, and that was the overwhelming focus of the report.  Although Mr. Duelfer did touch on the corruption of the Oil-for-Food scheme, that matter is clearly in the hands of Mr. Volcker.  Why should I pre-judge what a serious investigation, by a man of stature, would come up with?  You just have to be patient and let this investigation come to a close. Louis?

Question:  About the Volcker report?  Do we have any ideas when his final report will be finished?  Or will be handed to the SG or to whomever?

Spokesman:  I don’t know; you would have to ask him.  Call his staff on that.  David?

Question:  How definitive an answer as to whether or not genocide has taken place in Darfur do you expect as a result…

Spokesman:  Someone’s got a cell phone that ringing silently that’s going up the sound system.

Question:  How definitive an answer do you expect from the Committee of Inquiry looking into Darfur, as to whether or not genocide has been committed or whether or not it’s being committed currently?

Spokesman:  They just started their work, David.  Let them finish their work.

Question:  What are the expectations of what they’re going to come out of from their reporting in going to Darfur?  Do you expect them to say definitively, “Yes or No”, whether or not these sorts of crimes have been committed? 

Spokesman:  We just expect them to look at the issues that were laid out as part of their mandate and to report back.  We’ll see how definitive a judgement they make once they’ve made it.  I’m not going to pre-judge what they come up with.

Question:  There have been a number of groups that have gone there and we’ve all been a little bit confused, more or less, on mandates.  I guess that’s part of the problem.  Do you expect, without pre-judging what the answer’s going to be, do you expect a “yes” or a “no” answer from this commission?

Spokesman:  I answered your question, David.  I’m not going to say what it is they’re going to come up with before they get into the field.  Let them do their report, and then we’ll see what kind of an answer they have, whether they have a simple “Yes” “No” answer or a more nuanced answer.  We won’t know until they complete their work.

Question:  For what purpose Mr. Qazi went to Baghdad?  Is that to inspect the situation again?

Spokesman: It’s his job, it’s his job.  His office is there.  He’s going to spend as much time there to carry out his responsibilities as Special Representative.  Yes?

Question:  Is it possible for Mr. Qazi on his return to New York can talk to us?

Spokesman:  We’ll ask him that, yes.

If we’re almost finished, I think I have one more thing here, a statement attributable to the Spokesman on the subject of Pakistan.

“The Secretary-General strongly condemns the bomb attack that was carried out today in the Pakistani city of Multan, in which reportedly dozens of people were killed and many more wounded.

“Yet again, the Secretary-General reiterates that all terrorist acts are utterly unacceptable, and expresses his serious concern about the dangers of sectarian violence.  He urges the authorities to take effective action against such acts and hopes that community and religious leaders will exercise their influence by calling for restraint and calm.”

Thank you very much.

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