Secretary-General

Noon briefing of 26 November 2007

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NOON BRIEFING

BY MICHELE MONTAS
SPOKESPERSON FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL BAN KI-MOON

Monday, November 26, 2007

BAN KI-MOON TRAVELS TO WASHINGTON, D.C.
FOR MIDDLE EAST MEETINGS

  • Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is traveling to Washington D.C., today, where this afternoon he will meet with the other principal members of the Middle East Quartet. The other Quartet partners are the European Union, Russia and the United States.

  • Then, tomorrow, the Secretary-General will travel to Annapolis, Maryland, to attend the Middle East conference being held there.

  • Speaking to the General Assembly last week, the Secretary-General expressed his hope that the meeting will provide the impetus for final status negotiations. In the meantime, he remains especially concerned by the prevailing humanitarian situation in Gaza.

  • Asked what role the United Nations would play at the Annapolis Middle East peace conference and if the Secretary-General would be delivering an official UN message, the Spokeswoman said that Ban Ki-moon would indeed deliver a message. However, the Secretary-General sees his role more as an observer. She noted that he has been in telephone consultations with many of the participants in the conference and hopes that diplomatic efforts will continue.

BAN KI-MOON CONCERNED BY BOLIVIA VIOLENCE

  • The Secretary-General is closely following political developments regarding the Constituent Assembly in the city of Sucre, Bolivia. In that regard, he wishes to express concern about violent confrontations that occurred in recent days.

  • In order to strengthen democracy and respect for human rights in Bolivia, the Secretary-General urges all political and social actors to remain calm, to abstain from using violence and to seek a consensus on the pressing issues affecting the Bolivian people.

DARFUR MISSION IS BOLSTERED BY CHINESE ENGINEERS
AND BANGLADESHI POLICE

  • Over the weekend, 135 troops from a Chinese engineering company arrived in Nyala, South Darfur, as part of an advance team of 315 Chinese engineers due to complete deployment in December.

  • They are part of the UN’s support package to the African Union (AU) Mission in Darfur and will pave the way for the deployment of the joint UN-AU Hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur (UNAMID) by undertaking engineering work critical to the establishment of the force.

  • In a separate deployment, a Bangladeshi Formed Police Unit also arrived in Nyala late last week.

  • Both units were visited by the AU-UN Joint Special Representative, Rodolphe Adada, yesterday.

  • Meanwhile, UN and AU Chief Mediators for Darfur, Tayé-Brook Zerihoun and Sam Ibok, are heading to Juba tomorrow to continue discussions with the Darfur Peace Agreement non-signatory movements present there and with the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) Task Force for the Darfur peace process.

  • They are also scheduled to visit Darfur during the first week of December to hold consultations with the leadership of the Justice and Equality Movement.

  • At UN Headquarters tomorrow, the UN Special Envoy for Darfur, Jan Eliasson, is scheduled to brief the Security Council in the afternoon on the Darfur political process, and Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guéhenno will update the Security Council tomorrow regarding UNAMID’s deployment.

  • The Spokeswoman, in response to a question, explained that the Chinese contingent would not have humanitarian duties but will be attached to the peacekeeping force, UNAMID, once the force deploys. In the meantime, they will serve as part of the UN heavy support package to the African Union force in Darfur.

HUMANITARIAN CHIEF STARTS MISSION TO ETHIOPIA, SUDAN, KENYA

  • Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, John Holmes, today begins a nine-day mission to Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya.

  • His first stop is Ethiopia, where he plans to visit the Ogaden region.

  • He will then continue on to Sudan. After a stop in Khartoum, he is scheduled to go to Nyala and El-Fasher in Darfur, where he will meet people who have been affected by the conflict there.

  • He will wrap up his visit in Kenya, with meetings with aid agencies and diplomats working on Somalia.

U.N. ENVOY SEEKS VIET NAM’S SUPPORT FOR MYANMAR PROCESS

  • The Secretary-General’s Special Adviser, Ibrahim Gambari, is in Vietnam, where earlier today he met with the country’s Prime Minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, and delivered a letter from the Secretary-General, seeking support for his good offices' effort in the Myanmar process. On Saturday, Gambari also met with the country’s Foreign Minister.

  • Gambari will travel on to Cambodia and Laos before returning to New York at the end of this week.

UNESCO CONCERNED BY PRESS RESTRICTIONS IN PAKISTAN

  • The Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Koïchiro Matsuura, today said he was concerned by continued repression of the press in Pakistan. He once again urged President Pervez Musharraf to lift restrictions on the media in that country.

  • His call came after hearing of the arrest of 180 journalists during demonstrations against censorship.

  • Matsuura said that preventing media professionals from carrying out their duties would not lead to internal peace and development. He added that the fight against terrorism must contribute to the defence of democracy, not to its erosion.

POLICE CONFISCATE WEAPONS IN TIMOR-LESTE

  • In Timor-Leste, UN police officers and their Timorese counterparts, assisted by the International Security Forces, have completed a successful weapons recovery operation in the capital Dili’s problematic district of Bairro Pite.

  • The four-day “Operation Weapons Sweep” concluded on Saturday. It successfully recovered an assortment of weapons, including bows, arrows, machetes, sling shots, knives, spears and homemade guns.

  • Community officials also participated in the Operation by assisting police in searching homes, with the written authorization of their owners.

  • The Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Timor-Leste, Atul Khare, said the collective move to confiscate weapons sends a strong message to those involved in the violence that it will not be tolerated by the community.

U.N. TRIBUNAL GRANTS TEMPORARY PROVISIONAL RELEASE

  • The Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has confirmed its decision granting Rasim Deli3; conditional temporary provisional release.

  • Deli3; is thus authorized to return to Bosnia and Herzegovina for a period of one month, starting on 11 December.

  • This comes at the request of the accused, who surrendered voluntarily and has cooperated with the Tribunal in his trial for command responsibility for crimes committed by his troops when he was Commander of the Main Staff of the Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

  • Tribunal Prosecutor Carla del Ponte did not object to the request, leaving the Trial Chamber to grant it.

  • Delic’s trial, which began in July, is expected to end in early 2008.

D.R. CONGO: U.N. ENVOY CALLS ON REBELS TO DISARM

  • This past weekend, Ross Mountain, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary- General for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and UN Humanitarian Coordinator in that country, was in the North Kivu province to review security and humanitarian conditions there.

  • Mountain met with local authorities, UN peacekeepers and UN agencies’ representatives. He also visited camps for the internally displaced, which house some 45,000 civilians who fled a military standoff between Government troops and rebels. Mountain appealed to rebels to disarm and join the brassage process.

  • Speaking last week about violence in North Kivu, UN Force Commander General Babacar Gaye noted that not enough dissident soldiers had joined the Congolese Army though brassage. He added that the next step may require UN peacekeepers to use force to disarm illegal armed groups, including the one led by rogue General Laurent Nkunda.

OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS

NO FIRM DATES FOR WESTERN SAHARA: Asked when the next round of discussions between Morocco and the Frente Polisario over Western Sahara would take place, Montas said that no firm dates for the talks have been set at this time.

UNITED NATIONS IS CONSULTING WITH CAMEROON AND NIGERIA OVER BAKASSI: Asked for a Secretary-General position on the Nigerian Senate's rejection of the previous Nigerian Government's agreement to transfer the Peninsula to Cameroon under a UN-mediated plan, Montas said that the UN Office for West Africa (UNOWA) is currently in consultations with both Governments. In early December the parties are scheduled to meet with UN interlocutors.

**The guest at noon was Marijke Velzeboer-Salcedo, Chief of the Latin American and Caribbean Section at UNIFEM, who briefed on a regional report on violence against women, entitled “Not one more! The right to live a life free from violence in Latin America and the Caribbean.”