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 a number of recent statements and messages from the Secretary-General on the tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre; the agreement by Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and United States negotiators reached in Beijing to resume the six-party talks during the last week of July; the presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan; the five-day Second Biennial Meeting of States to Consider the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects; and the United Nations International Conference on Civil Society in support of Middle East Peace; Geneva activities and other issues. Spokespersons for and Representatives of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the World Food Programme, the United Nations Children's Fund, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organization for Migration participated in the briefing.

Tenth Anniversary of the Srebrenica Massacre

The tenth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia and Herzegovina was commemorated in a ceremony yesterday in Srebrenica, Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said. The message of the Secretary-General was delivered by Mark Malloch Brown, the Secretary-General’s Chef de Cabinet. In his message, the Secretary-General said that the United Nations could not evade its own share of responsibility. Adding that the full truth about what happened in Srebrenica needed to be uncovered and confronted, he also stressed that the main architects of the massacre must be brought to justice. The Secretary-General also said that the world's most important duty now was to prevent such systematic slaughter from recurring anywhere in the present and future. He noted that out of an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 victims, only 1,705 had officially been identified. Copies of the message of the Secretary-General were in the press room.

Agreement between Democratic People's Republic of Korea and United States

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the Secretary-General had also welcomed the agreement by Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and United States negotiators reached in Beijing to resume the six-party talks during the last week of July. The Secretary-General said he was strongly encouraged by the determination expressed by the participants of the six-party talks to aim for actual progress at the resumed talks, which should lead to negotiating a stable, secure and prosperous Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons. Copies of the statement were available in the press room.

Presidential Elections in Kyrgyzstan

The Secretary-General in a statement welcomed the peaceful conduct of the presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan on 10 July 2005. Preliminary reports indicated that the elections were held in a credible manner and with strengthened commitment to upholding international standards. He said the holding of these elections was an important step in the consolidation of political institutions in Kyrgyzstan. Copies of the statement were available in the press room.

Meeting to Combat Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons

At Headquarters, the five-day Second Biennial Meeting of States to Consider the Implementation of the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects started yesterday, Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said. In a message delivered to the meeting, the Secretary-General lauded the progress made in stemming the flow of such weapons, noting that many countries had developed national action plans to address proliferation concerns. At the same time, however, he warned that the world must not relax in the fight against illicit small arms, which continued to kill, maim and displace scores of thousands of innocent people every year. Copies of the message of the Secretary-General were available in the press room and other documentation on the meeting was available in the Documentation Centre.

UN International Conference on Civil Society in Support of the Middle East Peace Process

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said that the United Nations International Conference on Civil Society in support of Middle East Peace would be held in Paris at UNESCO today and tomorrow. The Conference was being held under the auspices of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People which was charged with organizing it by the General Assembly according to resolutions 59/28 and 59/29 of 1 December 2004. The Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva, Sergei Ordzhonikidze, was representing the Secretary-General at the Conference and was delivering a message on his behalf at 10 a.m. today. Copies of the message of the Secretary-General were available in the press room.

Geneva Activities

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said the second part of the 2005 session of the Conference on Disarmament would be concluding at the end of this week. The final plenary of the second part would be held at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 14 July, but there were no speakers so far. The third and last part of the 2005 session of the Conference would resume on Monday, 8 August.

The Human Rights Committee opened its eighty-fourth session yesterday at the Palais Wilson. The meetings of the Committee were public. This morning, the Committee would be concluding its consideration of the fourth periodic report of Yemen. The Committee would be taking up the initial report of Tajikistan on 13 and 14 July, and the second periodic report of Slovenia on 14 and 15 July. The press releases in English and French were available in the press room.

International Strategy for Disaster Reduction

Salvano Briceno, Director of the Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), said that the final communique of the G8 Summit in Gleneagles had spoken about the need to reinforce the international strategy for disaster reduction. This was very important because during this season of hurricanes, and during crises caused by drought or floods or other natural causes around the world, it was more urgent than ever before to reinforce the international strategy for disaster reduction. ISDR welcomed the G8's mention of this issue which was the first time that the G8 had done so. ISDR and its UN partners called on Governments to implement the Hyogo Framework for Action - adopted at the Kobe meeting in January - which they could use as a guide to reduce their vulnerability and risk to natural disasters. The damage from hurricane Dennis had already been witnessed and it was clear that it was going to be a heavy hurricane season.

In response to a question, Mr. Briceno said that many countries implemented the international strategy for disaster reduction and a good example was Cuba. The hurricane had hit Cuba strongly right in the middle and if it had not been well prepared, there would have been many more victims. Also, there had been no victims in the United States because of the preparations.

Elizabeth Byrs of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that Hurricane Dennis was classified as a category IV event and between 7 and 9 July, it had devastated some 600 kilometres of territory in Cuba. The official figure of persons killed in Cuba was 10, but if the hurricane had hit a country which was less prepared, there could have been thousands of fatalities. Preparation was very important. She recalled that in June, there had been a regional meeting of Caribbean countries to discuss preparations before the start of the hurricane season to plan a group regional strategy. Hurricane Dennis had caused extensive damage in 11 provinces in Cuba and had affected some 8 million persons out of the total population of 11.1 million. More than 1.5 million persons had been evacuated. More details were available in the latest OCHA situation report.

Human Rights

José Luis Díaz, Spokesperson of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the report of the mission of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to Kyrgyzstan in June, whose members had interviewed eyewitnesses and survivors of the incidents in Andijan, had been released. The report said consistent, credible eyewitness testimony strongly suggested that military and security forces committed grave human rights violations, mostly of the right to life, last May in Andijan, Uzbekistan. The report went on to say that significantly diverging casualty figures – the Government claimed fewer than 200 people were killed, while other sources put the death toll at hundreds more – and unanswered questions about the seizure of a regional administrative building, the overrunning of a prison and the subsequent release of prisoners require clarification through comprehensive investigation. The report from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reiterated a call for an independent international probe.

Mr. Díaz said that in addition to reaffirming the need for a properly funded and resourced international commission of inquiry, the report stated, among other things, that there was an urgent need to trace those who had disappeared. Efforts at family reunification are also necessary for those who had survived; that the Government of Uzbekistan should ensure adequate compensation for the families of the victims; and that there was an urgent need for a stay of deportation of the Uzbek asylum-seekers and eyewitnesses of the Andijan events who would face the risk of torture if returned to Uzbekistan. The asylum-seekers should be relocated urgently to a third country, under the guidance of UNHCR. Other recommendations of the OHCHR report included that the international community must be granted access to the four asylum seekers who were deported from Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan on 9 June; and that in light of the consistent pattern of human rights violations in Uzbekistan reflected in the findings of United Nations human rights treaty bodies and the special procedures of the Commission on Human Rights, the international community may also consider the need for the establishment of a public mechanism of scrutiny of the situation in Uzbekistan.

In light of the findings of the report, the High Commissioner had written to President Islam Karimov on 23 June 2005, reiterating her call for an independent investigation into the Andijan events on 18 May. No response had been received thus far. Copies of the statement were available at the back of the room.

Mr. Díaz said a new OHCHR office would be opening in Guatemala at the beginning of next week. The office would be headed by Mr. Anders Kompass, who had previously headed OHCHR offices in Colombia and Mexico. A statement on that issue would be released shortly.

In response to a question, Mr. Díaz said that the OHCHR mission interviewed the asylum seekers who were residing in the camps in Kyrgyzstan. The mission also received other information from different sources. Staff of the OHCHR prepared the report of the mission.

A journalist noted that there was a controversy over the Special Rapporteur on the right to food John Ziegler, including reports in which Mr. Ziegler had apparently compared Israelis to Nazis. He asked if there was a response from the OHCHR. In response, Mr. Díaz said that the High Commissioner was in West Africa right now and had been informed of the reports. He had not seen a letter apparently sent by a group complaining of the alleged comments. The Office had yet to hear what Mr. Ziegler, who was in Niger at the moment, had to say about this issue. If what had been reported had indeed been said by Mr. Ziegler, then those comments were highly irresponsible.

Food Shortages in Niger

Christiane Berthiaume of the World Food Programme said that WFP was launching a new appeal for $ 12 million to help 1.2 victims of the drought and locusts in Niger. The new appeal tripled the amount of persons in need of food aid in Niger. Last year, the appeal for $ 4.2 million to help 460,000 victims had been funded very late and only in part, and WFP had not been able to set up any prevention strategies. This was an example of how a situation could deteriorate quickly and make the cost of aid increase quickly when funds were not provided on time. The next two or three months, until the next harvest, were going to be very difficult. Luckily, there were heavy rains right now.

Damien Personnaz of the United Nations Children's Fund said available was a press release which noted that acute malnutrition rates had risen to 13.4 per cent in southern Niger's Maradi and Zinder regions, with 2.5 per cent of this group identified as severely malnourished children under the age of five. Under the best of circumstances, 40 per cent of children, or one million, suffered from some form of malnutrition. This number had increased dramatically because of the current food shortage.
Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier recalled that the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, was presently on mission in Niger and would be giving a press conference on the situation in the country on Wednesday, 13 July, at 2:30 p.m. in press room 1.

Other

Ron Redmond of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees said that Kazakh authorities early today released and put under UNHCR's protection a prominent Uzbek human rights activist who had taken refuge in Kazakhstan in the aftermath of the 13 May events in Andijan. Mr. Lutfullo Shamsuddinov had been arrested in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on 4 July at the request of the Uzbek authorities. Mr. Shamsuddinov and his family would be flown to an unnamed European capital where he would stay temporarily pending permanent resettlement. UNHCR welcomed this decision by Kazakh authorities to free Mr. Shamsuddinov. So far, no independent investigation had been carried out into those violent events that left a number of people dead. The outcome was making the job of determining the status of Uzbek asylum seekers especially difficult.

Mr. Redmond said that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 1,000 Congolese had returned to their homes in the Equator province of the country. This was one of UNHCR's most unusual, logistically challenging voluntary repatriations ever. All together, some 58,000 DRC refugees were expected to return between now and the end of 2006.

Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration said IOM was providing transportation assistance to internally displaced persons who were currently being relocated from Abu Shouk camp in northern Darfur to Al Salaam, a new camp located a few kilometres away.

In Sri Lanka, Mr. Chauzy said quality housing for tsunami survivors with minimal environmental cost, and the quality of accommodation for tsunami survivors and environmental protection were two issues of growing concern as the pace of reconstruction accelerated across Sri Lanka. The Sri Lankan Government said more than 40,000 transitional houses had been completed island-wide, but 20 per cent did not meet minimum standards.

Mrs. Ponomareva-Piquier said that a press release by the Economic Commission for Europe on the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business releasing a roadmap towards paperless trade was available.

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