HIGHLIGHTS OF THE SPOKESMAN'S NOON BRIEFING
BY FRED ECKHARD
SPOKESMAN FOR THE
SECRETARY-GENERAL
OF THE UNITED NATIONS
UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK
Thursday,
October 7, 2004
Secretary-General
Kofi Annan 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 Security Council, in
resolution 1564, asked Secretary-General to establish the commission.
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 Thérese 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,
are scheduled
to meet the
Secretary-General today at 3:00 p.m.
Asked for
specific details of the commission’s work, the Spokesman noted that they
would first meet with the Secretary-General; more details would be provided
following that meeting.
Asked
whether the commission would provide a definitive answer on whether genocide
was taking place in Darfur, the Spokesman said he would refrain from
prejudging their work before it has even begun.
U.N.
ENVOY ATTENDS
SUDAN’S NORTH-SOUTH PEACE TALKS
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
Mohamed Taha and the Chairman of the SPLM/A, John Garang,
are expected to meet this later this afternoon in Nairobi.
Pronk
was invited by the Intergovernmental
Authority on Development (IGAD), the regional organization mediating the
North-South peace talks.
In
Khartoum, Pronk’s Deputy
for Humanitarian Affairs in Sudan, Manuel Aranda da Silva, met
on Wednesday with Prime Minister Tony Blair. Discussion focused on the
Darfur crisis and the North-South peace process.
Aranda
da Silva 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.
UN
EXPERT URGES SUDAN TO RATIFY DISCRIMINATION CONVENTION
In a statement
issued at the end of her visit to Sudan,
Yakin Ertürk, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women detailed the
multiple forms of violence suffered by women and girls during attacks on
villages in Darfur.
She
also made 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
And the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights
on the rights of women in Africa.
Such a
move would start a dialogue for the improvement of the legal protection of
women’s rights in Sudan, and also implement current obligations under
international law, she said.
ANNAN
TO TRAVEL TO CHINA, IRELAND AND UNITED KINGDOM
The Secretary-General
will depart this weekend on official visits to China, Ireland and the United
Kingdom.
In Beijing,
he will meet with President Hu Jintao and senior Government officials. He
will visit an eco-village and HIV/AIDS testing center, and he will tour the
Chinese peacekeeping training center at Langfang. China currently provides
close to 1,000 military and police personnel to 12 peacekeeping operations.
A speech
and question and answer session with students of Tsinghua University is also
included on his program in China, as are the opening celebrations of the 25th
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, Foreign Minister
Dermot Ahern and Defense
Minister 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 on 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 traveling to London, where
he will meet with Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Tony Blair, Foreign
Secretary Jack Straw, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown 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.
The
Secretary-General will return to New York in the week of October 18.
Asked by a
journalist on Wednesday what he thinks of the report on Iraq’s
weapons of mass destruction presented to the U.S. 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 United
Nations more credibility,
he replied, “I think it indicates that the inspectors had an impact. The UN
inspection did what it was supposed to do.”
One
reporter commented to the Spokesman that the United Nations was in no
position to say, “I told you so,” since earlier UN reports indicated
that there was no evidence that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction had been
destroyed. The Spokesman said in response that he had never spoken for the UN
weapons inspectors, whose reports speak for themselves.
Asked about
the Duelfer report’s information about alleged corruption in the oil-for-food
program, the Spokesman said that the report was focused on weapons of
mass destruction, with allegations of corruption featuring as a
“relatively minor” part of the report.
As for the
issue of corruption, Eckhard said, the matter is in the hands of the independent
inquiry headed by Paul Volcker. The United Nations is cooperating with
him, as are UN officials, including Benon Sevan.
He added
that there needed to be patience to allow that investigation to come to a
conclusion. He was not aware, in response to a further question, of when the
Volcker panel would finish its work.
ANNAN
DEPLORES ACTION OF MUTINOUS SOLDIERS IN 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 October 6, 2004.
He has
asked his Representative in Guinea-Bissau, Joao Bernardo Honwana, to
continue to lend the necessary support to help all parties resolve the
crisis peacefully and quickly.
A briefing on Guinea Bissau is scheduled in the
Security Council this afternoon.
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.
At
10:00 a.m., the Security Council
began closed consultations on sanctions
placed on Liberia,
in particular on diamonds and timber.
[Members
of the Council concluded that the conditions for lifting the sanctions on
diamond and timber were not yet fully met, the Council President, U.K.
Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, told the press after the consultations had
ended. Council members noted progress towards meeting the conditions.]
Also
on the agenda is a discussion on threats to international peace and security
caused by terrorist attacks.
[Ambassador
Jones Parry said the
Council is to hold an open meeting, followed by a vote, on
a
resolution on that subject
on Friday morning at 10:00.]
Also
today, the Security Council will hold its regular monthly lunch with the Secretary-General.
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
on the Secretary-General's
report
on resolution
1559, which 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 militias.
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.
Those
troops currently number, according to the Government of Syria, about 14,000.
It is 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 militias would, with
finality, end that sad chapter of Lebanese history.
The UN
Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)
today delivered
food and water to half of the 600 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 300 families. It hopes to reach the
remaining families on Friday.
The
Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq,
Ashraf
Jehangir Qazi, has returned to Baghdad this week, and is 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 on Wednesday saw the visiting Foreign Secretary of the United
Kingdom, Jack Straw. He also had one of his regular meetings this morning
with U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte.
In response
to press requests, the Spokesman said he would try to make Qazi available to
the press the next time he is in New York.
Three weeks after Tropical Storm Jeanne ravaged Haiti,
UN humanitarian agencies continue to distribute relief supplies to people
around the hard-hit city of Gonaives.
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 September
22.
Water distribution is proceeding well. International organizations have
provided 11 trucks for delivering water and local authorities are working on
repairing Gonaives’ local water system.
Nonetheless, the people of Gonaives 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.
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 September
22.
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 in
the DRC on October 15.
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.
The
Spokesman was asked on Wednesday about the comments made by the head of the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 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,
“but will 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 on North Korea will yield results that will include full IAEA
verification.
OFFICIALS
SAY UNITED NATIONS
IS READY FOR AFGHAN ELECTIONS: Asked whether the United Nations is ready for the elections in Afghanistan,
the Spokesman noted that the Secretary-General’s Special Representative, Jean
Arnault, said on Wednesday that everything is ready for free and fair elections
to take place.
UN REFUGEE AGENCY
WARNS AGAINST POLITICIZING ASYLUM: The top protection official of the Office
of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today warned
states that politicising 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.
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