Press Briefing by OHCHR, 21 April 1998

Geneva, 21 April 1998


John Mills, media officer for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the High Commissioner had issued a statement yesterday on the assassination at the weekend in Bogota of Eduardo Umaña Mendoza, a human rights activist. The Commission on Human Rights had also observed a minute of silence in memory of that inspirational and courageous human rights defender.

Today the Commission was voting, largely on agenda item 10 concerning country situations, Mr. Mills said. There was a list of the draft resolutions notionally up for consideration. It seemed only 14 drafts were likely to be acted on today. By the time of the briefing, a resolution on states of emergency had been adopted by consensus, while a resolution on the Democratic Republic of the Congo had been adopted by a roll-call vote of 28 in favour, 7 against, with 18 abstentions. Copies of the draft resolutions were in the press room.

The contry situations to be voted on today were southern Lebanon and west Bekaa, Myanmar, Nigeria, Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sudan and Cuba, Mr. Mills said. The vote on the draft regarding Iran could be delayed or there could be amendments. The draft on Burundi was likely to be deferred until tomorrow, while the situation in Equatorial Guinea was likely to be acted on today.

The Chairman of the Commission had confirmed that he would be happy to meet the press at 11 a.m. next Thursday to provide a summary of the proceedings of this session of the Commission, said Mr. Mills. He would be briefing on his progress on adjusting or reforming the agenda of the Commission; and on his efforts to establish a mechanism to review how the Commission operated.

The list of the countries no longer being considered at the Commission under the "1503" procedure, as well as of those still under scrutiny, had been made available, said Mr. Mills.

What had happened to the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Roberto Garreton? asked a correspondent. Had it been extended to include investigation of massacres or not? Mr. Mills said the resolution adopted this morning extended the Special Rapporteur's mandate for a further year. It did not speak of an additional mandate for investigation; what it did was ask the Secretary-General to report, with any comments or recommendations he might wish to make to the General Assembly and the Commission at its next session. It also demanded that the Government cooperate fully with the Secretary-General, the High Commissioner and the Commission in addressing the allegations in question.

Did that mean the UN had given up on massacre investigations at the moment or not? the correspondent asked. The way he read it was that the Commission recognized that at the moment it did not have the full information on the outcome of the mission of the Secretary-General's Team. It recognized that it needed that information in order to assess what the next steps might be.

Was the UN ready to admit that the establishment of the Secretary-General's team was an error that eliminated the work of the Joint Investigative Mission led by Mr. Garreton? a correspondent asked. Ms. Gastaut said the Secretary-General and the High Commissioner had pronounced themselves on that subject last week.

Asked whether the High Commissioner had given European Humanitarian Affairs Commissioner Emma Bonino a "cool" reception last week, Mr. Mills said his understanding of their meeting was that although she had not felt it appropriate to sign the letter that Emma Bonino and her colleagues were using as a campaign, the High Commissioner had expressed her support for that campaign and her appreciation of its contribution of raising consciousness about the situation of human rights of women and girl children in Afghanistan.