REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE
Elena Ponomareva-Piquier, Chief of the Press and External Relations Section of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the briefing which provided information about the Human Rights Council's fifth session, and other Geneva Activities, including the Conference on Disarmament, the situation in Gaza, the Day of the African Child, and World Refugee Day, among others. Spokespersons for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the UN Refugee Agency, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the International Organization for Migration participated in the briefing.
Death of Former Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that available in the press room was a statement by the Secretary-General which noted with sadness the passing of Kurt Waldheim, the fourth Secretary-General of the United Nations and former President of Austria.
Geneva Activities
Human Rights Council
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said that today the Human Rights Council would continue its informal consultations on questions related to institution-building in the Council, which included such issues as the Universal Periodic Review, a Complaints Procedure, an Expert Advice Body and the Special Procedures. Decisions on those issues would be taken by the Council on Monday, 18 June. Council President Luis Alfonso de Alba would hold a press conference on Monday, in room III, at a time to be announced.
Conference on Disarmament
At the Conference on Disarmament yesterday morning UNOG Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze read out a message from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon telling Member States that the adoption of a Presidential draft decision to start substantive work in the Conference would have a positive impact on the international security atmosphere. If the Conference did not move forward, it would have a devastating impact on multilateral and bilateral disarmament efforts. Later, Conference President, Elisabeth Borsiin Bonnier of Sweden, introduced a complementary Presidential statement to the draft decision to clarify issues and address concerns raised by delegations. The next plenary of the Conference would be held on Tuesday, 19 June, at 10 a.m., Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier said, when it would continue its consideration of draft decision CD/2007/L.1. Press releases of that meeting, in English and French, were available.
Conventional Weapons Convention Meetings
Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier drew attention to two meetings related to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) that would be held at the Palais des Nations next week. The Preparatory Committee for the first Conference of the High Contracting Parties to Protocol V of the CCW, on Explosive Remnants of War, would hold a one-day meeting on Monday, 18 June. The Preparatory Committee was expected to submit a number of substantive recommendations to the First Conference for adoption, essentially regarding the requisites for faithful and effective implementation of the Protocol, including national reporting, the exchange of information, and cooperation and assistance. The Group of Governmental Experts of the States Parties to the CCW would then meet from 19 to 22 June. It had been urgently convoked to consider the application and implementation of existing international humanitarian law to specific munitions that might cause explosive remnants of war, in particular cluster munitions. Press releases on both meetings were available in the press room.
UNOG Director-General
Today, UNOG Director-General, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, would meet with the President of the sixty-second session of the General Assembly, Srgjan Kerim of The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Ms. Ponomareva-Piquier announced.
Human Rights
José-Luis Diaz of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that yesterday High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour had had a very productive meeting with the President of Sri Lanka. At that meeting, the High Commissioner had echoed the concerns of the international community with respect to the situation in Sri Lanka and its effects on the civilian population. Ms. Arbour explained the role that her Office could play, in partnership with national Authorities and local actors, in extending the national human rights protection system in the country. Furthermore, the High Commissioner had stressed to the President the value of accurate and independent reporting of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, as well as the role that the UN could play in Sri Lanka in advising on ways to strengthen the legal protection of human rights, including the human rights of minorities. The President had invited the High Commissioner to visit Sri Lanka as soon as that was feasible. The High Commissioner had signalled in the past her desire to make such a visit, and it remained for OHCHR and the authorities to work out the modalities, the dates and agenda for such a mission.
Asked why the High Commissioner had not been able to go to Sri Lanka in the past, Mr. Diaz said OHCHR had been informed that the reasons were tied to scheduling difficulties.
Responding to a question on the non-appearance of the Special Rapporteur on human trafficking, Sigma Huda, at the Human Rights Council's fifth session, Mr. Diaz said Ms. Huda was reportedly the subject of legal proceedings in Bangladesh and had been prevented from leaving the country. OHCHR had asked for clarification about her situation from the Government of Bangladesh, but was still awaiting an official response.
Situation in Gaza
Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme (WFP) said WFP was very, very concerned about the current situation of the population in the Gaza Strip. WFP feared that the situation could further deteriorate, impacting most negatively on women, children, the sick and the elderly. WFP called on the parties to the conflict to allow humanitarian access to affected civilians. The current security atmosphere was hampering the movement of WFP and UN staff, and humanitarian access to victims was difficult. Despite those obstacles, WFP was carrying on as best it could, and continued to distribute bread to Gaza hospitals. The crossing points from Gaza into Israel had all been closed, and WFP estimated that there was enough food supplies in the markets to last a week. Fortunately, before the onset of the hostilities WFP had been able to complete the distribution of a month's food rations to the 275,000 in Gaza that it regularly aided.
Veronique Taveau of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reiterated WFP's concerns regarding the ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip, where the escalating violence had been blocking access by humanitarian organizations to those affected. According to their latest figures, there had been 12 children among the victims of the violence of the past days. According to Palestinian hospital sources, four of those victims were adolescents less than 18 years old who had been killed yesterday by Israeli tank fire outside of Rafah, near the Egyptian border. The Israeli Authorities had denied that action. Two other students had been killed, one as he was on the way home from his secondary school completion examinations. The Minister of Education had had to close nine examination centres in Gaza, and three in Khan Younis camps, owing to the violence. In all, some 200 secondary school students had not been able to take the exam. Shortages of many supplies were beginning to be felt, and there had been numerous electricity outages.
Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the escalation of violence in Gaza over the past week had posed particular problems for health workers and patients. Many health workers were not able to leave their homes to go to work, and many patients experienced the same problems. At least four hospitals in Gaza had been fired upon, and there had also been firing in the surrounding areas. Moreover, owing to the increased number of patients flooding emergency wards with grave injuries, including gunshot wounds, hospitals were having trouble dealing with the overflow. WHO had made available medicines and laboratory supplies to the affected hospitals. WHO called for all parties to respect health workers and to allow them access to continue with their work.
WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights
Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said WIPO's Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights would meet in Geneva next week, from 18 to 22 June, to continue work on a treaty to update the protection of broadcasting organizations on a signal-based approach. The aim was to establish a stable legal framework for the activities of broadcasting organizations against piracy and provide protection against unfair exploitation.
The fourth session of the Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda, which was looking at ways to enhance the development dimension in WIPO's work, would wrap up its work this evening, Ms. Shamoon said.
International Labour Conference
Corinne Perthuis of the International Labour Organization (ILO) noted that today was the last day of the International Labour Conference, which would be hearing an address by President Rajapaska of Sri Lanka, and holding an award ceremony in which Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, and Professor Emeritus Carmelo Mesa-Lago, of the University of Pittsburgh, who would be presented with the ILO Decent Work Research Prize, before closing its ninety-sixth session.
Situation in Darfur
Louis Vigneault, of the Paris bureau of WFP, said he had just returned from a weeklong mission to northern Darfur, where he had visited the three camps for displaced persons and refugees around the town of El Fasher, each sheltering some 50,000 individuals. There was no shortage of humanitarian assistance on the ground in Darfur. But as waves of displaced and refugees had been arriving for three or four years now, and the situation in the camps had remained unchanged, the inhabitants of the camps were very dependent on that aid. Until there was an end to the conflict, the people in the camps were unable to go home and take up their former lives. WFP fed to between 2 and 3 million people – refugees, internally displaced persons, and local inhabitants – depending on the season. That represented some 25,000 tons of food aid each month, shipped in through Port Sudan on the Red Sea. WFP was able to get those supplies to those in need without undue delay, and was able to access 95 per cent of the individuals targeted for assistance. However, some 60,000 needy persons were trapped in pockets of insecurity and could not be reached by WFP aid. Circulation within Darfur itself remained difficult.
Responding to a query about transport within Sudan, Mr. Vigneault noted that access of assistance to Darfur was not the greatest worry at this stage. Accessing aid to the bordering areas in Chad was much more problematic concern.
Day of the African Child
The Day of the African Child was originally proclaimed by the Organization of African Unity (now the African Union) on 16 June 1999, to mark the date in 1976 when thousands of black schoolchildren had marched in the streets of Soweto to claim their right to a better education, sparking a two-week revolt in which thousands had been wounded. Ms. Taveau of UNICEF said that, this year, the African Union was dedicating the day to the issue of child trafficking. In Senegal, the UNICEF office for West and Central Africa was calling on regional Governments to make good their commitments to end child trafficking. Although it was difficult to provide accurate figures on this shadowy practice, according to ILO reports from 2003, of the 1.2 million children trafficked worldwide annually, 32 per cent came from West and Central Africa. In New York, Ann Veneman, Director-General of UNICEF recalled that trafficking exposed children to violence, sexual abuse, severe neglect, and HIV infection. Trafficking violated children's right to be protected, to grow up in a family environment and to have access to education. Two media notes and a press release were available at the back of the room.
World Refugee Day (20 June)
Ron Redmond of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said that UNHCR High Commissioner Antonio Gutteres would spend World Refugee Day on 20 June in Southern Sudan, where tens of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people were returning home after decades of conflict. Their repatriation was one of the few bright spots in a region otherwise known as an epicentre of major displacement. Southern Sudanese were coming home with UN help from refugee camps in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic. Others were returning from exile in Libya and Egypt, as well as from other areas of Sudan itself. As the High Commissioner wished to stress, all of the world's forcibly displaced people – nearly 40 million in all – deserved much more support than they were getting. He also noted that the future was likely to see even more people on the move around the world – whether it be in search of economic opportunity, escaping environmental disasters, or fleeing violence and persecution.
Mr. Guterres would arrive in Uganda on Monday to join a group of Sudanese returning to their home in Southern Sudan. The High Commissioner would then visit UNHCR operations in the area before flying to Nairobi on the afternoon of World Refugee Day, next Wednesday, Mr. Redmond said. Briefing notes were available at the back of the room, and more information on World Refugee Day activities worldwide could be found on the UNHCR website (http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/events?id=3e7f46e04 we).
Other
Elisabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said OCHA lamented the shocking murder of a Radio Okapi journalist, Serge Maheshe, who had been shot by two men on a street in Bukavu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Wednesday night, while he had been about to get into a vehicle marked with the UN logo. Such events recalled the need to protect UN personnel across the world.
Ms. Byrs said the Advisory Group on Environmental Emergencies had concluded its two-day biennial meeting in Stockholm today, announcing the need for a stronger global regime to meet the challenge of environmental emergencies, especially given additional pressure from climate change and related natural disasters. The Advisory Group was a unique forum, bringing together environmental experts and disaster managers around the world to share information and exchange best practices. The Group had focused on the future of emergency response, had considered new tools to assist missions in identifying environmental impacts, and had reviewed and endorsed the future work of the Joint UNEP/OCHA Environment Unit in Geneva, the principal UN mechanism to mobilize and coordinate international assistance to environmental emergencies. A press release was available.
Ms. Byrs also made available a press release on UN interagency support for the Government of Bangladesh in responding to a series of landslides.
Mr. Redmond said UNHCR had issued its Recommendations to the Government of Portugual today for its European Union Presidency in the second half of 2007. The High Commissioner was in Lisbon today to discuss those recommendations, which urged, among others, that Portugual keep refugee protection inside the European Union on its agenda, and that the incoming Presidency work to ensure that measures taken to deter irregular migration did not result in violations of basic rights, including the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution.
Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned that without a massive injection of funds to provide critical humanitarian assistance to millions of internally displaced Iraqis, there would be no let up on the large numbers of people forced to flee Iraq's borders, a situation that was already placing a great strain on the resources of neighbouring countries. Launching an appeal for US$ 85 million, IOM said the human suffering of the more than 2 million internally displaced, as well as the 4 million Iraqis who were desperately short of food, had been increasing on a daily basis. If people could not get help with shelter, food, water, health care, or even ways of earning a living, people would feel they had no choice but to flee Iraq. IOM and its partners had already been providing humanitarian assistance to displaced persons in Iraq since 2003, assisting nearly 5 million beneficiaries. Since February 2006, IOM had also been monitoring and assessing the needs of the more than 820,000 newly displaced. Funds from the appeal were planned to cover a two-year period and would largely be targeted at quick-impact community assistance projects across the country, such as the rehabilitation and construction of water supply, sanitation, health and school facilities. A press release was available.
Mr. Chauzy also noted that next week, Monday and Tuesday, 18 and 19 June, IOM was hosting an inter-sessional workshop on the topic of free movement of persons in regional integration processes. A background paper and a provisional agenda were available at the back of the room.