United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-06-25

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Wednesday, 25 June, 1998

HEADLINES

• Head of UN Special Commission charged with Iraqi disarmament says nerve agents detected in warheads; No agreement in Security Council to lift sanctions.
• Secretary-General's Special Envoy in Baghdad says oil-for-food programme helps alleviate hardships in Iraqi society.
• Security Council postpones further sanctions against UNITA until 1 July.
• Secretary-General dispatches aide to deliver messages on nuclear issues to leaders of South Asia.
• Secretary-General calls on Cambodian Government to create an environment conducive to free elections.
• United Nations Children's Fund condemns abduction of girls by Lord's Resistance Army in northern Uganda.
• World Food Programme warns of food shortages with the onset of heavy rains in Sierra Leone.
• United Nations team heads to Guinea-Bissau to assess humanitarian situation there.
• United Nations food agency expresses concern at plight of more than 30, 000 Georgians who have fled Abkhazia.
• Military contingent of United Nations mission in Central African Republic is brought to full strength.
• Secretary-General's special adviser on Africa says there is an "improving trend" on good governance in Africa.
• Secretary-General will travel to United Kingdom and Austria on Thursday.
• United States Government report confirms UN estimates of country's arrears, says top UN official.
• Slovakia tells treaty monitoring body its labour laws are designed to ensure favourable conditions for women.

UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler said this information is significant in the light of the fact that Iraq has stated that it never weaponized the nerve agent VX. "These findings show that they did weaponize it; they put it in missile warhead," he told the press, adding that he had informed the Council that the findings were "utterly unambiguous."

Mr. Butler expressed deep regret that the findings had been leaked to The Washington Post, noting that the source "certainly wasn't UNSCOM." He said the matter had been discussed "very discreetly" in Baghdad with the authorities. UNSCOM had asked for their explanation and had volunteered that further investigations would be carried out in laboratories in France and Switzerland. "We want to work with Iraq on this with good will and get to the bottom of the question of how much of this substance did they make, where did they put it, where is it now -- that's our job: to verify Iraq's compliance with its weapons of mass destruction obligations," Mr. Butler said. Further talks are scheduled for July in Baghdad.

Council President Monteiro said members of the Council acknowledged the spirit of cooperation which had prevailed in the latest discussions between UNSCOM and the Iraqi authorities in Baghdad. He said the new spirit of cooperation, which dates back to February when the Secretary- General concluded a Memorandum of Understanding with Iraq, must be translated into full cooperation with UNSCOM to enable it to complete its tasks as soon as possible.

"The Council has urged us to get on with it in practical terms, which we will do," Mr. Butler said. "We will do it, and we'll be back soon to keep the Council fully informed of progress as it develops," he added.

Mr. Butler's presentation to the Council came as it conducted its periodic review of the sanctions against Iraq. Following consultations, Security Council President Antonio Monteiro of Portugal said, "after hearing the views of the members on this matter, we concluded that there was still no agreement" to modify the sanctions regime against Iraq.

The oil-for-food programme has helped to alleviate the hardships of the more vulnerable sections of Iraqi society, according to Prakash Shah, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy in Baghdad. After briefing the Council on Wednesday, he said the programme had helped to improve the availability of agricultural tools, which increased food production, and stabilized the supply of medicines.

On the other hand, Mr. Shah pointed to reports of various United Nations agencies indicating "quite a dramatic adverse impact of the sanctions on the Iraqi population." The death rate among children under five in 1996 was eight times greater than before the Persian Gulf war, while currently more than one million children in the same age group suffer from chronic malnutrition, he noted. "While there is an improvement as a result of the programme, there is still a very long way to go and these effects will continue to be felt -- and will perhaps increase in magnitude -- if the present situation continues."

Acting unanimously, the Council also demanded that UNITA comply fully and unconditionally with all of its obligations under resolution 1173. By that text, which was adopted on 12 June, the Council had decided that additional measures against UNITA would take effect on 25 June unless UNITA had fully cooperated by 23 June in the immediate extension of State administration throughout Angola, including in particular Andulo, Bailundo, Mungo and N'Harea.

Wednesday's postponement came at the recommendation of the Secretary- General's Special Representative for Angola, Alioune Blondin Beye. In a letter to the Security Council President on Wednesday, the Secretary- General said that Mr. Beye had informed him that UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi "did not set specific dates for the implementation of the extension of State administration in the four strategic localities, but expressed his willingness to cooperate in the normalization of these localities by 30 June 1998."

According to the letter, initially Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos had agreed to the postponement on the condition that Mr. Savimbi indicate specific dates for normalizing State administration in the four localities. "However, in the course of further contacts, and responding to the request of my Special Representative, President dos Santos decided not to insist on this condition and agreed with the proposal to defer the entry into force of the sanctions until 30 June," the Secretary-General wrote.

Mr. Beye's recommendation that the Council postpone the sanctions was endorsed by the Joint Commission, which includes the representatives of the Government, UNITA and the three observer States (Portugal, the Russian Federation and the United States).

The new sanctions will take effect unless the Council decides, on the basis of a report by the Secretary-General, that UNITA has complied with its obligations. If the sanctions do kick in, States will be required to freeze UNITA funds within their territory and ensure those funds are not made available directly or indirectly to the organization and its leaders. States will also be required to prevent any official contacts with UNITA leadership and prohibit receipt of diamonds from areas not under State administration in Angola. Further, they will have to prohibit the sale or supply of mining equipment and motorized vehicles to areas outside the Angolan State administration.

The Secretary-General is sending his Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Alvaro de Soto, to visit the countries of the South Asian region and to deliver personal messages to their leaders.

Mr. de Soto will also prepare for an eventual visit by the Secretary- General to the region, according to Mr. Annan's Spokesman.

The Assistant Secretary-General will leave New York on Thursday. His first stop will be in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he will be received by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Accompanying Mr. de Soto on his trip will be Rolf Knutsson, Director of the Secretary-General's Executive Office, as well as Horst Heitmann, Senior Political Officer in the Department of Political Affairs.

In a statement, the Secretary-General commended the National Elections Commission, for its efforts, but said he was keenly aware that more needed to be done for the Commission to accomplish its tasks. The Secretary- General noted that the Commission had an estimated shortfall of $3 million and made an urgent appeal for donor countries to close the funding gap as soon as possible.

Mr. Eckhard said Secretary-General Annan reiterated his call to the Cambodian Government to do its utmost to create an environment conducive to the holding of free, fair and credible elections in line with the principles set forth in his memorandum of 2 April. The Secretary-General was ready to cooperate with the Cambodian authorities and other political actors to move the electoral process forward, said Mr. Eckhard.

UNICEF said on Wednesday that it has learnt with shock of yet another abduction of forty girls from St. Charles Lwanga College in Kalongo. The United Nations agency said that its representative in Uganda, Michel Sidibe, visited Kalongo on Tuesday and heard about how the LRA had carried out a carefully planned operation during which it selected the girls from a group of eighty in a dormitory that night.

According to UNICEF, an estimated 8,000 children have been abducted by the LRA and 2,000 to 4,000 of them remain in captivity.

The children's agency said that the abducted girls would serve the atrocious requirements of the LRA and sustain the rebels. These girls will be kept by the LRA as slaves and sexual objects and will be subjected to a life of torture and brutality, UNICEF added.

UNICEF said that children who have been able to escape from the rebels tell of despicable inhuman acts, including forced killings of civilians and soldiers, lashings, and beatings to death. Some of the children have been tied to trees and left to die of dehydration. They have been forced to witness the killings of the weak and other children. The children also undergo torture for days while imprisoned in a trench with the bodies of other children killed by the LRA, said UNICEF.

The United Nations children's agency said that perpetrators of these crimes should be tried. UNICEF underlined the need for the adoption of a statute for the establishment of an International Criminal Court which is being discussed in Rome. Quoting Stephen Lewis, its Deputy Executive Director, UNICEF said the adoption of the statute would send "an unequivocal message from the international community that heinous violations of human rights cannot go unpunished and impunity cannot prevail."

The World Food Programme (WFP) said that food harvested and stored by farmers at the end of last year has been exhausted. Other food supplies were lost during the rampant looting and destruction by junta forces following intervention by the forces of the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in February.

According to WFP, fighting between ECOMOG and the ousted military junta in eastern and northern Sierra Leone is severely hampering food availability in most of the country. The food agency added that the fighting and the prevalent insecurity will also affect the next harvest, expected later this year.

"Many farming families have been displaced by the fighting and will likely miss the planting season entirely," said Patrick Buckley, WFP Representative in Sierra Leone. He said that many farmers are relying on relief supplies provided by the international community to cultivate and protect staple rice crops.

Since last May, the United Nations food agency has distributed food aid to 20,000 families throughout Sierra Leone. These families are also receiving seeds and agricultural tools. The agency has also provided emergency food aid to more than 35, 000 internally displaced and vulnerable people in Freetown, Bo, Kenama, Makeni and Segbwema.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) mission will include representatives of the Department of Political Affairs as well as United Nations agencies operating in the region.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on Tuesday that hundreds of people were leaving Guinea-Bissau every day over land or by rivers to Senegal and Guinea. Authorities at crossing points with Guinea estimate that 12,000 people have arrived since 11 June. Officials are allowing people to cross for humanitarian reasons even though the border has officially been declared shut. Opening the border, they say, would draw 700 to 1,000 people a day.

WFP said on Friday that an outbreak of hostilities between Abkhaz separatists and Georgian militias on 20 May broke a cease-fire and triggered the new wave of displaced people from the region.

Georgian authorities have accommodated the displaced people in 200 communal centres in western Georgia and around the town of Zugdidi and the Tsalenjikha district northwest of the town. According to WFP, most of the centres have no water supply or cooking facilities.

WFP is providing flour and vegetable oil for an emergency bread- making operation organized by the Government of Georgia and is helping in the distribution of the bread to the displaced people.

Robert Houser, head of WFP's headquarters unit dealing with Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States said that his agency will assist these people as much as possible. "The tragedy is that they don't want to be victims. They want to return to a life of farming and self-reliance," he added.

The food agency said that it also supplies food as payment to a large number of displaced people who work on projects to improve their own living conditions and to rehabilitate public facilities for local residents.

Contingent Commander, Colonel Samir Ahmed Badawry arrived in Bangui on Tuesday with 120 soldiers who are based at the M'poko airport. The Egyptians were met at the airport by Chief of Staff, Colonel Wade accompanied by Egypt's ambassador to the Central African Republic, Mr. Aly Wagdy Elwy.

MINURCA's military component comprises 1,350 soldiers provided by ten countries. The other nine countries are Burkina Faso, Canada, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, France, Gabon, Mali, Senegal and Togo.

Working with the country's armed forces, MINURCA's military contingents provide security in the capital city of Bangui and help in the collection of arms from the demobilized fighters. MINURCA observers also offer technical support for the upcoming legislative elections to be held in the Central African Republic later this year.

In an interview with United Nations Radio on Wednesday, Mr. Trevor Gordon- Somers said that in spite of the problem of the absence of governance in countries which are facing civil war, there is an "improving trend" in a number of countries. For example, he said, Tanzania has appointed a minister for governance, "one of the first that we know of." The minister, he added, deals with such issues as corruption and leadership ethics.

Another example is that of Ghana which has recently undertaken an accountability survey to determine the performance of government in the delivery of services and in addressing the issues of corruption. Similarly, Mr. Gordon-Somers pointed out, Uganda is undertaking an integrity survey.

The United Nations official was speaking on the eve of the second Africa Governance Forum which will be held in Accra Ghana on 25 and 26 June, under the theme "Accountability and Transparency." The forum, which has been organized by the United Nations Development Programme and the Economic Commission for Africa with support from the governments of Norway and Switzerland and the European Union, is being hosted by the government of Ghana.

Participants will include officials from ten African governments and twenty donor countries, representatives of ten non-governmental organizations, the United Nations system, as well as two media networks in Africa.

On Friday, the Secretary-General will deliver a lecture in Ditchley. The following day he is expected to speak off-the-record with members of the Ditchley Foundation.

The Secretary-General will then travel to Vienna to attend various commemorative activities relating to human rights.

Following his arrival on Saturday, the Secretary-General will chair a panel discussion on "human rights and the rule of law in societies in transition" featuring a number of Nobel laureates. Later that afternoon, he will address the Vienna Public Assembly on Human Rights. On Monday, before departing Austria, he will hold a press conference at the Vienna International Centre.

The report by the United States General Accounting Office says the country owes the United Nations about $1.3 billion.

Under-Secretary-General Joseph Connor told correspondents in New York that the report substantiates trends the UN has been noting: the regular budget deficit is increasing, peacekeeping cash is declining and the total resources available to the Organization are diminishing. He said he hoped it "puts to rest" the issue of whose numbers are right.

According to the report, the United States will have to pay between $214 and $244 million by the end of the year to avoid losing its voting rights in the UN General Assembly. Mr. Connor said the $30 million difference allows for uncertainty over whether an appropriation already made can be reprogrammed.

The US Congress asked the General Accounting Office to assess the UN's financial status and the impact of U.S. arrears on some UN decisions, including resolutions dealing with Iraq and other matters.

A US State Department letter attached to the report, Mr. Connor said, describes it as too narrowly focused to permit valid conclusions on whether US policy objectives had not been achieved because of its UN arrears. The letter mentions difficult negotiating environments and failure to achieve the 22 per cent rate for regular budget assessments. The letter concludes major policy objectives, such as the series of resolutions on Iraq were achieved.

Ms. Suchankova spoke on Tuesday on Slovakia's first report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, which is meeting in New York.

She told the 23 experts on the Committee that although women's wages were often lower than those of men, Slovakia's laws ensured employment for parents and protected women from unemployment. Labour laws favoured mothers and protected women from doing physically harmful jobs, she explained.

Members of the Committee raised concerns about Slovakia's assertion that its legislation was gender neutral, which they said would not give women equal rights. They also drew attention to the prevalence of traditional career choices for boys and girls and the increasing rate of domestic violence.

The Committee monitors the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and is the only UN human rights treaty-monitoring body to deal exclusively with women. Countries which have ratified or acceded to the Convention are legally bound to put its provisions into practice and report periodically on compliance.

From the United Nations home page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.org

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