REGULAR PRESS BRIEFING BY THE INFORMATION SERVICE

Marie Heuzé, the Director of the United Nations Information Service in Geneva, chaired the biweekly press briefing, which provided information on the programme of the Secretary-General’s upcoming visit to Geneva, statements of the Secretary-General on the death of Pope John Paul II and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, the appointment of four Envoys of the Secretary-General for the September Summit, a meeting of the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Georgia, the annual session of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, a panel discussion on the Secretary-General’s report on violence against children, the activities of humanitarian agencies following the earthquake in Indonesia, the launch of the World Health Report, and an update on the outbreak of Marburg disease in Angola, among other issues.

Spokespersons of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the Geneva Forum participated in the briefing. A spokesperson from the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also attended but had no announcements to make.

Statements and programme of the Secretary-General

Ms. Heuzé opened the briefing by informing journalists that the Secretary-General’s statement on the death of Pope John Paul II, issued on Sunday evening, was available in the Press Room. In the statement, the Secretary-General said of the Pope that “quite apart from this role as a spiritual guide to more than a billion men, women and children, he was a tireless advocate of peace, a true pioneer in interfaith dialogue and a strong force for critical self-evaluation by the Church itself. I had the privilege to meet him several times in recent years. I was always struck by his commitment to having the United Nations become, as he said during his address to the General Assembly in 1995, ‘a moral centre where all the nations of the world feel at home and develop a shared awareness of being, as it were, a ‘family of nations’’.

Ms. Heuzé said that the Secretary-General would attend the Pope’s funeral in Rome on Friday, 8 April. As a result, the Secretary-General’s programme in Geneva on Thursday, 7 April, was yet to be finalized. He would be arriving in Geneva tomorrow, Wednesday, 6 April. On Thursday, 7 April, he would address the Commission on Human Rights at 12:30 p.m., in Room XVII. Prior to that, he was scheduled to visit Palais Wilson, where he would be received by Louise Arbour, High Commissioner for Human Rights, and where he would address the staff. Due to time constraints, no press conference was envisaged in the programme but journalists might have an opportunity to pose questions to the Secretary-General at door 4, at around 1:00-1:15 p.m., immediately following his statement to the Commission on Human Rights.

Also on the agenda of the Secretary-General’s visit was a meeting of the United Nations system Chief Executives Board (CEB) for Coordination, taking place on 8 and 9 April, attended by the heads of the UN specialized agencies, the Bretton Woods Institutions, the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and UN funds and programmes. The CEB met twice a year and was chaired by the Secretary-General.

Ms. Heuzé then informed journalists of the following statement attributable to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General on the withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence agents from Lebanon: “The Secretary-General welcomes the agreement reached in Damascus on Sunday between his Special Envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, and the Government of Syria regarding the full and complete withdrawal by 30 April 2005 of Syrian troops, military assets and intelligence apparatus, consistent with the requirements of Security Council resolution 1559.”

Ms. Heuzé said that the Secretary-General had yesterday announced the appointment of four Envoys for the high-level plenary meeting of the sixtieth session of the General Assembly, taking place from 14 to 16 September in New York: their Excellencies Mr. Dermot Ahern, Foreign Minister of Ireland; Mr. Ali Alatas, former Foreign Minister of Indonesia; Mr. Joaquin Chissano, former President of Mozambique; and Mr. Ernesto Zedillo, former President of Mexico. The Secretary-General had requested the good offices of these four prominent world leaders, to help promote agenda laid out by the Secretary-General in his report “In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all” in the run-up to the September Summit. The Envoys would present the Secretary-General’s proposals to political leaders, civil society representatives, academics and the media, and would seek support for decisions that needed to be taken by heads of States and government at the Summit. The Secretary-General was scheduled to meet today with three of the Envoys – Mr. Ahern, Mr. Alatas and Mr. Zedillo.

Ms. Heuzé added that a private meeting of the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General on Georgia would take place in Geneva on 7 and 8 April at the Palais des Nations. Representatives of the Georgian Government and Abkhazia would have an exchange during the course of the meeting. The Group of Friends included Germany, the United States, the Russian Federation, France and the United Kingdom. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, would also attend the meeting. Ms. Heuzé said she would see whether he would be available to meet the press.

Human Rights

Commission on Human Rights:

David Chikvaidze, Media Liaison Officer for the 61st session of the Commission on Human Rights, informed journalists that the Expanded Bureau of the Commission on Human Rights had met this morning with the Chairperson of the NGO Committee of ECOSOC, Ms. Hanifa Mezoui, who had briefed the Bureau on the work of the Committee and given some statistics on its work. The Extended Bureau had also confirmed its weekly meeting with NGOs, which would have a slightly different format this week. The Bureau meeting would be the first part of a three-hour discussion on the Millennium Development Goals and human rights.

Mr. Chikvaidze said that yesterday morning, the Commission had observed a minute of silence to honour the memory of Pope John Paul II. Statements of condolences had been made by the Chairperson of the Commission, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Poland and the Holy See, and by many speakers as they took the floor.
The Commission had then turned to its consideration of agenda item 11 (civil and political rights), which was expected to conclude this afternoon. Consideration of agenda item 12, “Integration of the human rights of women and the gender perspective”, would begin around 4:30 p.m. with the following persons addressing the Commission:
§ Ms. Yakin Ertürk, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences;
§ Ms. Sigma Huda, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children;
§ Ms. Rachel Mayanja, Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on Gender Issues and Advancement of Women; and
§ Ms. C. M. Gallardo H., Chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women

Interactive dialogues would be held with Ms. Ertürk and Ms. Huda.

Mr. Chikvaidze went on to say that the deadline for the submission of resolutions under items 4 and 5 had expired on Monday afternoon at 13:00. In addition to those draft resolutions already on the extranet, one additional draft resolution had been received yesterday, under item 5, on "The use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination" (E/CN.4/2005/L.6). Cuba was the main sponsor of the resolution. A resolution of the same name was adopted by a recorded vote at last year's Commission. Of particular interest, the draft resolution proposed the termination of the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the use of mercenaries as a means of impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination two years prior to the normal termination of her mandate (the mandate was renewed in 2004 for a period of three years) and its replacement with a Working Group comprised of five experts. The resolution was available on the extranet and at the back of the room.

A question was posed on the new draft resolution, inquiring whether the proposed text included private security companies working in Iraq. Mr. Chikvaidze replied that the text did mention private companies, but his first cursory read had not indicated the presence in the text of any specific geographic context. However, since the text was available, journalists could study the text in detail.

Turning to upcoming events, Mr. Chikvaidze said that there would be a panel discussion today, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in room XXIII, entitled “Confronting violence against children: the Secretary-General’s study”. The panel would be chaired by the Deputy United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Tomorrow, 6 April, there would be a panel entitled “Reflecting on Beijing + 10: Future Challenges for Women's Human Rights”, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in Room XVIII. The event, which was organized by OHCHR and the Office of the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, would be opened by the High Commissioner and Chaired by the Deputy High Commissioner.

On Thursday, 7 April, there would be a panel discussion entitled “The Special Rapporteur on Torture: 20 Years of Monitoring Torture Retrospectives – Future Prospects”, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in Room XVIII. The event was organized by OHCHR and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Austria.

On Friday, 8 April, there would be a panel on “Trafficking, Migration and Human Rights”, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in Room XXVII. The event was sponsored by the Interagency Contact Group on Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling (Geneva).

Mr. Chikvaidze reminded journalists of the following press conference planned in Press Room 1:
§ Mr. Manfred Nowak, Special Rapporteur on torture, today at 12 noon;
§ Mr. Leonard Despouy, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, today at 3:00 p.m.;
§ Mr. Miloon Kothari, Special Rapporteur on adequate housing, Wednesday, 6 April, at 3:00 p.m.;
§ Ms. Yakin Erturk, Special Rapporteur on violence against women, Thursday, 7 April, at 11:00 a.m.;
§ Mr. Philip Alston, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Friday, 8 April, at 12 noon.

High Commissioner for Human Rights:

Jose Luis Diaz, Spokesperson for the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), informed journalists that the material collected during the course of the work of the International Inquiry on Darfur, amounting to 9 boxes of materials and 11 CD-ROMS of materials collected over a period of three months, had yesterday been sent from the Office of the High Commission for Human Rights to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Mr. Diaz then introduced Prof. Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the Independent Expert appointed by the Secretary-General to lead a joint OHCHR, UNICEF and WHO study on violence against children worldwide. A background press release had been issued yesterday announcing the panel discussion mentioned by Mr. Chikvaidze, which would take place today, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. in room XXIII, to explore possible action against the problem. The panel would be chaired by the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Mehr Khan Williams, and would include, in addition to Prof. Pinheiro, three other experts.

Prof. Pinheiro said that the report on violence against children, which had been mandated by the General Assembly, would be presented by the Secretary-General to the Assembly in 2006. A regional approach had been adopted in the preparation of the report. Nine regional consultations would be held, pulling together regional information on violence against children in four settings: the home, the community, schools and state institutions. The consultations would help articulate the agenda for action and contribute recommendations to the study. Prof. Pinheiro highlighted several issues dealt with by the report, including the rate of homicides of children and adolescents, which was particularly high in certain South American countries – as high as 200 homicides per population of 100,000, as compared to, for instance, 11 per 100,000 in the United States.

Health

Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the press conference to launch World Health Day and the World Health Report 2005: Make every women and child count, had been moved up from Thursday, 7 April, to today. It would take place at 2:00 p.m. in Room III.

Ms. Chaib then informed journalists that an update on the outbreak of Marburg disease in Angola had been posted on WHO’s website yesterday. As of 2 April, the Ministry of Health in Angola had reported 163 cases of Marburg haemorrhagic fever, of which 150 had been fatal. Cases had been identified in Uige, Luanda, Cabinda, Malange, and Kuanza Norte provinces. Uige remained the epicentre of the outbreak. Five mobile surveillance teams in Uige continued to investigate rumours and search for additional cases. More than 100 contacts were being followed up. WHO was working with the Ministry of Health to finalize a national plan of action for control of the outbreak, including sustained technical and operational support from WHO and international partners in GOARN. WHO anticipated that implementation of this plan would require significant assistance from the international community and that an appeal for funds would be made.

Earthquake in Indonesia

Simon Pluess of the World Food Programme (WFP) said that assessment teams continued to find communities severely affected by the earthquake on Simeulue and Nias islands. It was imperative that these people received food aid quickly. Many people on these islands were on the move. Inhabitants of remote villages were heading towards the cities where they expected to find food. Others, afraid of another earthquake, were either trying to get off the islands or heading to higher ground.

Mr. Pluess said it was difficult to truck in relief to the islands because many roads and bridges had been destroyed. WFP was therefore focusing on airdrops and shipping food into strategic points on the islands. On Nias, 10 tons of food had been dropped at Gunung Sitoli two days ago. Yesterday, 195 tons had been dropped at southern most tip of the island, at Teluk Dalam. An additional 100 tons would be dropped at Simbole today. All three strategic points will have been served by today. Another vessel with a capacity of 400 tons would go to Lakewa in the northeast of the island, where it would offload "substantial" tonnage. WFP estimated that 150,000 inhabitants of the islands were in need of immediate food assistance. They would receive emergency rations for two to four weeks. In total, the emergency phase of the relief operation was expected to last for approximately two months.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) confirmed that many people, in the thousands, were trying to leave Nias due to a fear of another earthquake. This was hampering relief operations, including the return of IOM’s fleet of trucks. Mr. Chauzy referred journalists to an information note at the back of the room for additional details on IOM’s relief operations in Indonesia.

Mr. Chauzy added that in Thailand, at least 7,000 Burmese migrant workers in the southern Thai provinces of Ranong, Phang Nga and Phuket, many of whom worked in fishing, construction and tourism, had been affected by the tsunami in December. IOM was providing them with aid. This afternoon two trucks would leave Bangkok carrying humanitarian aid to them, thanks to funding from Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the World Health Organization and the Ireland.

Other

Mr. Pluess of the World Food Programme (WFP) said that in Rwanda, WFP had had to take the unfortunate decision to cut by 30% food rations refugees due to insufficient funding. WFP had tried everything possible to avoid the situation, having warned in February that this would happen if no new pledges were received. The health of the refugees was in danger. The population of the six refugee and transit centres in Rwanda were dependent on food aid as they were not allowed by the Government of Rwanda to seek work outside the centres. Their prospects looked bleak. The cut in rations was due, as mentioned, in part to insufficient funding but also to the fact that there had been increased demands placed on humanitarian agencies as the number of refugees arriving in Rwanda from DRC and Burundi continued to increase. There were now over 50,000 compared to the original 35,000 that WFP originally had planned for. US$ 2 million were needed immediately to fill the funding gap.

Samar Shamoon of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) reminded journalists of a briefing on Friday, 8 April, at 3:00 p.m. in Room III, where a Deputy Director-General and a WIPO expert on development issues, would brief the press on a series of meetings taking place in April and May, in accordance with a decision of the General Assembly, on the issue of intellectual property and development. The first such meeting would be taking place on 11 to 13 April.

Patrick McCarthy of the Geneva Forum informed journalists of a seminar scheduled for Thursday, 7 April, at 1:30 p.m. in Room IX, to launch a new report entitled “Securing Haiti’s Transition: Reviewing Human Insecurity and the Prospects for Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration”. The report found that following the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004, weapons still posed a significant threat to civilians in Haiti. In fact, 200,000 guns were in circulation in the country, many of them held by predatory gangs. Speakers would include the President of the Haitian National Commission on Disarmament, the Head of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secrertary-General in Haiti and the author of the report.

Jennifer Pagonis of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) briefed journalists on three items, on Colombia, Tanzania/Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She referred journalists to a briefing note available at the back of the room for further details.

Ms. Pagonis said that a very disturbing situation was ongoing in Colombia. A UNHCR team was returning today from a mission to the northwestern town of Bellavista, where hundreds more people had sought refuge over the weekend from fighting between irregular armed groups, bringing the total number displaced in recent weeks in the Bojaya municipality of Choco Province to more than 2,000. Many more were at direct risk of displacement.

Tanzania was set to close one of its nine camps for Burundian refugees towards the end of the month as large numbers of refugees continued to return to Burundi under the ongoing voluntary repatriation programme. As part of a camp consolidation move, Karago camp in the Kibondo district of northwestern Tanzania, currently home to some 5,500 Burundia refugees, would be closed. The refugees would be moved to a neighbouring camp where they would continue to receive the same level of assistance.

Ms. Pagonis concluded by saying that towards the end of April, in some of the world’s most difficult terrain, UNHCR was scheduled to start the voluntary repatriation of thousands of Congolese refugees currently in the Republic of Congo back to the northwestern province of Equateur in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The logistics of this repatriation movement were among the most difficult UNHCR had faced anywhere.

Mr. Chauzy of IOM said that in the Dominican Republic, the IOM office in Santo Domingo, in cooperation with the Attorney General’s Office and ILO, had kicked off a mass information campaign designed to combat human trafficking and smuggling. The slogan of the campaign was “La Ley Pega Fuerte”, or “The Law Can Strike a Hard Blow”. The main objective of the campaign was to raise awareness among the general public of a new law, recently passed by the Dominican Congress, defining the crime of trafficking and providing stiff sanctions against traffickers.

Jean-Michel Jakobowicz of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), who was not present at the meeting, asked that the following be brought to the attention of journalists. In March, UNECE organized, in cooperation with the Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the UN regional commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) capacity-building workshops on trade facilitation for countries in their respective regions. The workshop on Africa was held in Geneva on 10 March, while the one on Asia and the Pacific was held in Kuala Lumpur on 17-18 March. “Trade facilitation is one of the key factors of economic development of all nations and world welfare,” noted the opening speaker in the Kuala Lumpur workshop. UNECE has made press briefing notes on both workshops available to journalists.


PB050405E