Press Briefing by Manoel de Almeida e Silva
Spokesman for the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for
Afghanistan
Thursday, 12 September 2002, 10am, UNAMA

TALKING POINTS

My portion of the briefing today is slightly institutional, but it is a good reference for you to have. Probably your colleagues in New York will be covering some of the points I will be talking about

· 57th session of the General Assembly

The 57th General Assembly of the United Nations opened on Tuesday. Jan Kavan, from the Czech Republic, was elected as President of this session of the General Assembly. He is currently a Deputy in the Czech Parliament. Until recently he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Today is the beginning of the General Debate. As you know, that is when all delegations take the floor to share their views on major international issues. President Hamid Karzai will speak this morning.

Immediately before the General Debate starts, the Secretary-General addresses all Member States. In his speech later today, he will make a very strong defense of multilateralism. He will also discuss responsibility of states and their leadership role.

The Secretary-General identifies four situations that are currently a threat to world peace. Among them, Afghanistan. He will ask all states to maintain their commitment to Afghanistan and will note that. "It was the international community's shameful neglect of Afghanistan in the 1990s that allowed that country to slide into chaos, providing a fertile breeding ground for Al-Qaeda."

The Secretary-General will go on to note that Afghanistan urgently needs help in two areas: "the government must be helped to extend its authority throughout the country. Without this, all else may fail. And donors must follow through on their commitments to help with rehabilitation, reconstruction and development. Otherwise the Afghan people will lose hope ? and desperation, we know, breeds violence."

· Report of the Policy Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism

Last Tuesday, almost one year to the day of the terrorist attacks on the United States, an expert report outlining new ways the UN can contribute to the international battle against terrorism was released.

The report, prepared for Secretary-General by a group of senior UN officials and outside experts, identifies the policy dimensions of terrorism for the UN, and offers a series of 31 recommendations on steps the Organization can take to further address the problem.

The group concentrated on areas where the UN has a comparative advantage over other entities, and aims to ensure the Organization adds value to, rather than duplicates, international efforts.

It argues that the UN must project a clear and principled message that terrorism, whatever the cause and whose name it is undertaken, is unacceptable and deserves universal condemnation.

We have available here a sheet with some of the instruments within the UN system, and we also have, for those of you who might be interested, the report which is also available on the UN website

· Special Representative of the Secretary-General address at 55th DPI/NGO conference, New York, 9 September 2002

As some of you may know the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Lakhdar Brahimi is currently in New York for the General Assembly, which opens today. On 9 September, he was the keynote speaker at the opening of the 55th Annual Department of Public Information (DPI)/NGO Conference entitled "Rebuilding Societies Emerging from Conflict".

We have his speech also available. There you might find interesting two aspects, where he outlines the relationship between NGOs and the United Nations, in particular in the context here of post-conflict Afghanistan. He says "Our role now should be to provide the Government with support and
assistance ? not to seek to govern in its place, or impose our own goals and aspirations"

Also, he outlines in his speech the 'light footprint' in a very clear and detailed manner.

· Funding Fact Sheet (See attached file: Funding table.pdf)  (See attached file: Funding.pdf)

Finally I would like to bring to your attention, that at the end of the briefing today two documents we have available for you.

The first is a fact sheet on funding which outlines the number of different Trust Funds available for Afghanistan. It provides details on pledges, donors and the status of contributions from donor nations and institutions. Of the $1.8 billion pledged for 2002, some $890 million or 49.5 per cent has been disbursed as of the first week in September 2002. I think it is also interesting to know that all these figures reflecting this idea of the government building its capacity and more and more running the administration of this country, have been supplied by single source which is the Afghan Assistance Coordination Authority (AACA).

· "United Nations in Afghanistan, 11 September 2001- 11 September 2002"

The second paper is a fairly detailed review prepared by our office, entitled "United Nations in Afghanistan, 11 September 2001- 11 September 2002 where we have attempted to put together a number of actions taken in different areas from Humanitarian relief to political development as a means to give you an overall picture of this last year. (See attached file: September 11.pdf)

· UNHCR ? Update on Returnees - Makki Shinohara

The number of internal refugees continues to go down as the night temperatures drop. Weekly returns have gone down to less than 30,000 people. The daily return figures from Pakistan are less than 4,000 and up to 3,000 from Iran.

In response to the decrease in returns, we are closing many of the voluntary repatriation center in Pakistan. This week ones in Islamabad and Baluchistan have been closed. Theones that are operation now are Takhtabaig in northwest frontier province and two in Karachi. We also have mobile teams going round camps in Pakistan registering those families wishing to return from Kacha Gari and Jalozai..

We do expect the numbers to decrease from here on through the winter months. What is more worrying is for us to prepare in case there is need of assistance in the coming cold weather. We did a preliminary survey, province by province and we estimate that up to 550,000 people, among those who have returned recently, as well as internally displaced people may be exposed to hardships in the cold winter months.

Roughly the breakdown among the returnees, about 290,000 people will become desperate, particularly those who return during winter when aid access and logistics become difficult. Among the internally displaced people, 260,000 of them may encounter difficulties. These are estimated figures based on province by province survey by our sub-offices done with the help of the Ministry of Repatriation and NGOs on the ground.

Based on this figure we are stockpiling aid items including stoves, tents, blankets, plastic sheeting, and we're also prepared to purchase more items including 7,000 tons of charcoal.

This is part of assisting the Government in devising a National Plan of Action for cold weather. The other aid agencies are also involved in this, other agencies are providing more food, clearing access roads as well as looking into the destitute among the general population.

· UNICEF ? Opening of Education Logistic Centre - Eddie Carawadine

This afternoon the new Ministry of Education logistics centre will be officially inaugurated today by a senior member of the Afghan Transitional, marking a major step in the development of Afghanistan's education programme.

The centre, which has been rehabilitated with the support of UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, comprises six warehouses in the suburbs of Kabul and will form the nerve centre for supply and distribution of educational materials, including stationery, textbooks, and tents to schools across the country.

The first major task for the logistics centre will be the packing and distribution of classroom materials including student stationery and teachers kits, benefiting 1.2 million primary school and 300,000 secondary school children over coming weeks. These are additional children who have come back to school since the beginning of term in March. Six packing lines have been established with the support of UNICEF's Supply Division in Copenhagen ? these packing lines will send out 3,000 education kits per day when the centre reaches maximum output, with each kit serving 70 children.

200 Ministry of Education staff, including 30 women, will work at the centre in two shifts. UNICEF is providing training programmes for the staff, and is supporting a medical centre on site, is rehabilitating a mosque for staff worship, and has set up water and sanitation facilities in the complex. In coming months, additional training programmes covering warehouse management and use of databases will be established. Literacy classes are also planned for the Ministry of Education workforce.

The inauguration will mark a significant stage in the development of Afghanistan's education system, underlining the partnership between the UN
and the Afghan Transitional Authority to build national capacity in the education sector. At the event today, a Ministerial level statement will be made, setting out the Authority's vision for education.

The inauguration will take place at 4 pm today; interested media are invited to arrive at UNICEF's Kabul office, opposite Shahr-i-Naw Park at 3 pm to be taken down to the logistics centre.

· World Food Programme ? Update on contributions - Alejandro Chicheri

Two quick points, the first is a results update. WFP is happy to announce a new contribution from the Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, amounting to a total of 2.6 million dollars, which raises our total confirmed contributions to 221 million dollars. That is 77% of the total
amount appealed. We are still 23% under funded, that is 64 million dollars that we still need.

Lat week we were happy to receive a contribution from private donors from Japan amounting to 151,000 dollars. Donor from Japan have given a total of 449,000 dollars to Afghanistan this year.

I would like to mention the Pastoralist Vulnerability Assessment which has just been completed. The report has been released and we have copies if you are interested. The comprehensive report shows the situation of the people who are extremely vulnerable following three years of drought. The details are in the leaflet and if you have any questions please do not hesitate in contacting me.

Questions & Answers

Q: Which refugee areas raise concern.
UNHCR: During the winter season the most diffuclt places are the central highlands, Badghis and Ghor. Those people tend to be isolated. In terms of internally displaced people we do have about 400,000 roughly half of the entire case load down in the Southern Provinces, Helmand, Kandahar. Of course there are camps. The larger ones are in Heart, down in Kandahar, around the border of Spin Boldak, but those people inside camps , obviously we can provide for more easily. But for those people who might be living in private accommodation, or in settlements, they are many be in desperate need for aid. On the return going back, we have found roughly 100 families going back to Pakistan, some site security, some site the lack of jobs, actually it is also part of a seasonal movement, because some of these people do go down south during the winter season and then back up when the weather get warmer.

Q: Question about the Human Rights advisers who went up to the north. Do you have anything on their return from their conversation with the Northern Alliance leaders.
UNAMA: I think we talked about this last week. The leaders [ in the north] reaffirmed their willingness and preparedness to cooperate with an investigation as long as they see it as impartial. They also said that they cannot provide 100% security to the investigators and witness and asked for international assistance on that front.

Q: Has the burden of responsibility essentially fallen on the UN?
UNAMA: We're working on it. You know this country very well, I think that one way of describing it is an effort of co-responsibility for this process. By that I mean , the regional leader, national authorities, and the international community, be it through us or through other international mechanisms. We are also in contact with the High Commissioner for Human Rights and of course the Afghan Human Rights Commission which is to play a very key and important role. So these I would say are the actors, who have to be involved, who have to take ownership a shared
responsibility, and I think I can add that we are pursuing very actively all these venues, but I do not have any details to advance at this point.

Q: Have we already past the point that this investigation can be done?
UNAMA: I am not a forensic expert, but do not think we have gone beyond a time frame that would not allow for an investigation to take place. This is my understanding.

Q: [inaudible] Question on the role of the Afghan government, Physicians for Human Rights, the UN and about the protection of the site.
UNAMA: This is a sovereign country. We have to work with the authorities that are here. I am not the Spokesman for the government but I think it is a very strong statement to say that whatever reached them was ignored. They have sent more than one mission to the north. They are
following up on this and I should also say that Physicians for Human Rights were the experts who joined the UNAMA-Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights mission back in May.

As you know we don't have these experts on staff so what we do is we work with those who have the expertise. Physicians for Human Rights are one of the institutions we work with, their recommendation, which we endorsed regarding the site, is that it should be protected and that is what we mentioned back in May when I reported on that preliminary mission. This is easier said than done. Because no proper protection is in place yet, what we, UNAMA, are doing, since then we have been sending people from our office in Mazar-i-Sharif to the site.

The latest report, which dates back a few days does not [have] any indication of any human tampering with the site. I am sure however if you go there you might even see bones exposed. That is another problem of the site in terms of protection [note only human actions, but] also the weather, wild animals, the wind. I would like to stress that it is a very complex and difficult situation, the key actors in particular from the United Nations, UNAMA, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights are working actively with other actors in order to move ahead with this issue.

Best Regards

Office of Communication and Public Information
UN Assistance Mission for Afghanistan
Kabul