UN Secretary General, Spokesman Briefing (96-08-14)

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From: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.org

References to Cyprus: 1, 2, 3

14 August 1996
Press Briefing

DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL

FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY

"Never a dull moment", she said. There had been another incident in Cyprus. The Secretary-General deplored the violent clashes that took places in the United Nations buffer zone in Cyprus last Sunday and again today. He was greatly concerned by the excessive and indiscriminate use of force, which had caused two men to be killed and many more to be injured, including United Nations peace-keepers. He appealed to the leaders of the two communities on the island to calm tempers and resolve their differences through dialogue and negotiation. He would continue to assist the two sides in that endeavour.

"Normally I'm standing up here asking for money", the Spokesman continued. "Today I'm up here asking for ratification signatures -- four, as a matter of fact." The chemical-weapons Convention, officially known as the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction, would enter into force 180 days after 65 countries had ratified it. As of today, 61 had done so. (A list of the signatories was available in the Spokesman's Office and a brochure on the Convention was available at the documents counter.)

The Convention, which was painstakingly negotiated over a decade by the Conference on Disarmament, was opened for signature by the Secretary-General in January 1993, Ms. Foa continued. It was the first disarmament agreement negotiated within a multilateral framework that would eliminate an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons exist in large quantities, are possessed by many countries and have been used in combat, even in recent years. The Convention would ban all chemical weapons for an unlimited duration and provide for an extensive verification system. A technical secretariat headquartered in The Hague would be responsible for carrying out the verification provisions of the Convention. About 10 months ago, the Secretary-General had written to Member States appealing to them to ratify this important Convention. "We're just four ratification signatures short. So any country that has not yet ratified this Convention, sign on and let's get this going."

The Security Council was still working on the financing of the civil administration in Eastern Slavonia and the possible extension of the mandate of the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium (UNTAES), she said. "We do expect a presidential statement today. We're keeping our fingers crossed." (The meeting was subsequently schedule for 10 a.m., Thursday, 15 August.)

The Council was also getting briefed on Afghanistan, the Spokesman continued. (See the 13 August Daily Press Briefing for details.) In addition, Under-Secretary-General Chinmaya R. Gharekhan, Senior Advisor to the Secretary-General, was briefing the Council on Cyprus, among other issues.

Ms. Foa said that the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which administered the United Nations Volunteers (UNV), had now recruited half of the 1,200 volunteers needed to supervise and help monitor the Bosnia and Herzegovina elections scheduled for September. The volunteers had been recruited from 20 countries. They would report directly to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). It was the first time that UNV had recruited for another organization. It had done so because the OSCE needed to mobilize electoral staff very, very quickly, and it knew that UNV was equipped to do that. It was expected that the first group of volunteers would leave for Bosnia later in August.

In the Spokesman's Office there was a press release from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) saying that it was getting ready to start sending Somali refugees back to north-west Somalia from Ethiopia. There were about 275,000 such refugees. "They're getting them moving. People want to go home, and they're going home."

A correspondent asked why the peace-keepers in Cyprus did not stop demonstrators from entering the United Nations buffer zone? Ms. Foa said the zone was 180 kilometres (110 miles) long. Including civilian police, there were only about 1,200 United Nations peace-keepers in the area, and they had to monitor the zone 24 hours a day. That is not easy. However, today, the United Nations had expected some trouble. About 3,000 people, including 300 motorcyclists had attended the funeral of the young Greek Cypriot demonstrator who had been killed on Sunday. The United Nations knew that tensions were high, and expecting some problems, it had reinforced its strength throughout the area of Dherinia where the demonstrator had been killed. However, around 1:45 p.m. local time, about 200 motorcyclists and two cars had moved into Dherinia, and about 800 Turkish Cypriot demonstrators had gathered on the Turkish Cypriot side. Those demonstrators were held back by the Turkish Cypriot police.

Between 200 and 300 of the people coming from the funeral broke through the Cyprus police lines, she said. The staff of the United Nations Peace- keeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) felt it was doing a pretty good job of controlling those people. The peace-keepers were moving them out of the zone as fast as they could. But then a second group of Greek Cypriot demonstrators forced their way into the zone, and the peace-keepers were out-flanked. One young man started trying to climb a flag pole. Several peace-keepers ran over to try to pull the man down, but as they were approaching the flag pole a volley of shots rang out from the Turkish-Cypriot side. The man was hit either in the neck or the head. (There were conflicting reports.) He was reported dead at 2:45 p.m. local time. Two British peace-keepers were wounded. One was shot in the arm, the other in the backside. Five Greek Cypriot civilians and two Cyprus police officers were also wounded. Not all of those wounded were wounded by gun shots, some were wounded by stone throwing, of which there was a great deal. "It's not a happy day."

Asked if the United Nations had any plans to change its operations in the buffer zone, the Spokesman said, "There's a lot of discussion". A report on Sunday's incident had just been received. It was not the United Nations task to control demonstrations. That was up to the local authorities. Today, the United Nations felt we had control of the situation. The peace-keepers were removing the demonstrators and picking up stragglers when suddenly the shots rang out. UNFICYP Force Commander Ahti Vartiainen had requested an immediate meeting with the commander of the Turkish forces Lieutenant-General Hasan Kundakci to discuss the issue.

Referring to recent comments by United States political leaders and United Nations-bashing at the Republic Convention in San Diego, a correspondent said that the Secretary-General did not seem to have any friends in Washington, D.C. Did Mr. Boutros-Ghali really believe that he could survive the upcoming United States election campaign as well as the threats of the Clinton Administration that it would veto his re-election. "I don't think it's right to say the Secretary-General doesn't have any friends in Washington", the Spokesman said. "Our mail is running more toward, 'Hey, what's going on here?' than against the Secretary-General. The things being said [at the Republican Party Convention] in San Diego are obviously being said for political reasons. Some of them I found quite amusing. I was happy to note that the Republican Party foreign-policy platform gave such importance to the United Nations that we got into the second sentence. It said that 'Republicans put the interests of our country over those of other nations -- and of the United Nations' too. I thought, so what else is new?"

Regarding the Secretary-General's possible re-election, she said, "We're all taking a wait-and-see attitude. As the Secretary-General says, this is up to the Member States. It's out of his hands. But to say he has no friends in Washington -- hmmm", Ms. Foa said, shaking her head. "You should see our mail."

Asked whether it bothers the Secretary-General to be pounded by American politicians' comments, she said, "When I first started, the Secretary-General showed me his 15,000-page job description. I don't know if he ever got around to reading it all. But down there somewhere on page 687 in the fine print it says, 'You will serve as a scapegoat for any Member State who needs a scapegoat. You will take on all the problems that we can't resolve, and you will get blamed when you don't resolve them, even though we don't give you the resources to resolve them.' The Secretary-General just kind of shrugs that off. It's part of the job. He's used to it."

Asked again to respond to the bashing of the United Nations by speakers at the Republican Convention, including former United States President and United Nations Ambassador George Bush, the Spokesman said, "What came out in some of these statements and in the foreign-policy platform showed that sadly many people are ill-informed about how the United Nations works. I think it's worrying that a party that would seek to lead America would be so ill-informed about how the United Nations actually functions, and about how soldiers are actually committed to peace-keeping operations. Everybody in this room is aware that no country commits soldiers to a peace-keeping operation if they don't want to, and that the United States can veto any peace-keeping operation. Even if it votes for the operation, it doesn't have to send soldiers to fight in it. People in this room know that the United Nations is not a foreign power. The United Nations belongs to all of us, it's ours."

She said she was also really bothered by comments about such things as the United States National Parks. "The United Nations is not trying to take over America's parks. We simply give plaques and awards saying what great parks America has. That does not mean that we are now expressing our sovereignty over the United States' parks."

"The United Nations is not trying to take over the United States Internal Revenue Service and put in a 'global tax'", she continued. A tax on air flights or international transactions, that has nothing to do with the IRS or the American taxpayer, had been proposed as a way of financing United Nations operations. It was not currently under serious consideration, it is not currently on the table. The proposed tax had nothing to do with the Internal Revenue Service or the American taxpayer, and if it ever actually came up the United States could veto it if they were opposed to it.

"There's so much disinformation" being disseminated, she said. "After a while you get to the point where you say are these statements pandering to people who are paranoid about the United Nations or are they addressed to a well-informed American public? Sometimes it's quite frightening."

A correspondent said that the mandate of UNFICYP was to prevent fighting from breaking out again in Cyprus, and yet the Spokesman said it was not the peace-keepers' responsibility to control demonstrators. Was the United Nations backing off from its responsibilities?

"We are there to monitor the separation of the two sides", Ms. Foa said. "But when the zone is stormed by 300 bikers throwing stones and hurling insults, and then it is stormed on the other side by another group, there's very little a few hundred peace-keepers can do." On Saturday, the Secretary- General had begged the demonstrators not to create an incident. "But when people are determined to go and create violence, they will, and there's nothing an unarmed peace-keeper, who doesn't even have a nightstick, can do about it."

"Twelve hundred peace-keepers are unarmed?" a correspondent asked.

"That's right", the Spokesman said. "If there was an all-out war they probably could be armed, but they are unarmed during civilian demonstrations. The agreement is that it is up to the police authorities on either side to keep peace. The peace-keepers are there simply as observers and monitors."

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