United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-06-30

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 30 June, 1998

HEADLINES

• Numerous speakers decry Israel's planned actions in Jerusalem during day- long Security Council debate.
• New report on rights violations in Democratic Republic of Congo points to evidence of crimes against humanity.
• In Nigeria, Secretary-General discusses detained politician Moshood Abiola with leader General Abubakar.
• United Nations refugee agency contacts Kosovo Albanians and Serbian authorities to facilitate aid delivery.
• United Nations reports that four millionth Afghan refugee has returned home, but 2.6 million remain in exile.
• Secretary-General's Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict urges end to use of child soldiers.
• Secretary-General says hope for nuclear disarmament must guide United Nations work.
• General Assembly President expresses condolences on deaths of UN Angola envoy and colleagues in plane crash.

Ambassador Nasser al-Kidwa told the Council that the Israeli plan would expand the municipal boundaries of Jerusalem and establish an umbrella authority to include a number of illegal settlements. "This represents a concrete step towards the illegal annexation of more occupied Palestinian lands to the already illegally expanded Jerusalem municipality and towards maintaining a specific demographic composition with the aim of furthering the process of the judaization of the City," he said.

Israel countered that it had a special responsibility to preserve and protect Jerusalem. "This is not a new political program affecting the political status of Jerusalem," said the country's Permanent Representative, Dore Gold. He described the plan as "a municipal blueprint for bolstering the city's economy and infrastructure."

Egyptian Ambassador Nabil A. Elaraby said Israel's expansionist policy aimed to prejudge the outcome of the legal status and the demographic composition of Jerusalem while isolating it from the other cities of the West Bank. Any measures that altered the status of Jerusalem were null and void, and Egypt rejected them in form and in substance, he said.

Alain Dejammet, the Ambassador of France, agreed that all legislative and administrative measures taken by Israel which changed the character and status of Jerusalem were null and void and should be revoked immediately. Stating that Israeli policies in Jerusalem were creating an irreversible situation which would strip the city's status of any real meaning, he appealed to Israel to abandon its approach.

Speaking on behalf of the European Union and the Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Cyprus, Iceland and Liechtenstein, Ambassador John Weston of the United Kingdom expressed deep concern over Israel's plan to extend the municipal authority of Jerusalem in a way that tended to pre- empt the final status of occupied land. He echoed other speakers who said that by encouraging and endorsing settlement activity in the occupied territories, the Israeli Government was in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Russian Ambassador Sergey V. Lavrov said his country shared the negative reaction of the international community to recent pronouncements by Israel. Unilateral actions aimed at changing the demographic composition and borders of Jerusalem in violation of the status quo ran counter to agreements already reached between the parties. The Russian Federation, as a co-sponsor of the Middle East peace process, believed that the Israeli actions could cast a pall on the negotiations, he said.

Ambassador Njuguna M. Mahugu of Kenya stressed that the international community could not allow the establishment of new facts on the ground that would prejudge the final status negotiations. He urged the parties to reactivate their political will and resolve their differences through dialogue. Melvin Saenz-Biolley of Costa Rica appealed to the parties to fulfil their obligations under the Oslo peace process.

Hasan Abu-Nimah of Jordan said the Israeli Government's decision ran counter to the 1993 agreement, by which the status of Jerusalem would be decided in the final stage of negotiations on the Middle East peace process. Jordan condemned all Israeli attempts to alter the Arab nature of Jerusalem and especially Israel's expansionist policies.

Tunisia's representative, Ali Hachani, said the Israeli decision on Jerusalem was a provocation for the Palestinian people and a challenge to the international community. He said the Council must adopt firm measures to get Israel to rescind its decision and to return to the peace negotiations.

In a cover letter transmitting the report to the Security Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan highlights the Team's conclusion that the killings by the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of the Congo (AFDL) constituted crimes against humanity, as did the denial of humanitarian assistance to Rwandan Hutu refugees.

The Secretary-General withdrew the Team in April because of the Government's total lack of cooperation. The Team had gone in with a mandate to investigate violations of human rights and international humanitarian law which were alleged to have been committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo up to 31 December 1997.

According to the report, the Team members believe that some of the killings may constitute genocide, depending on their intent, and call for further investigation of those crimes and their motivation. "Our investigation was just a beginning," Team member Daniel Michael O'Donnell told reporters on Tuesday. "It is very important that this investigation be continued by an impartial body."

The report states that from mid-October to mid-November 1996, the AFDL and elements of the Rwandan Army (RPA) attacked camps in North and South Kivu containing refugees and, in most if not all cases, military elements hostile to the Government of Rwanda. The Team did not have sufficient information to draw any conclusions about those attacks.

"Hundreds of unarmed persons were captured and executed as a result of the attack on Mungunga camp in November 1996, and many unarmed civilians were hunted down and executed after fleeing from the attacks on this and other camps," the report states. The massacres were committed by the AFDL, in some cases with the participation of Mai-Mai militia. "These killings violate international humanitarian law, and, because of their systematic nature, may well constitute crimes against humanity." The AFDL, the report says, also carried out a number of massacres of civilians in Zairian Hutu villages in North Kivu around November 1996 which also constituted serious violations of international humanitarian law.

According to the report, in May, 1997, hundreds of unarmed Rwandan Hutus were massacred in Mbandaka and the neighbouring village of Wendji by AFDL troops apparently under effective RPA command. "Forensic evidence indicates that bodies were removed from a mass gravesite in Mbandaka, corroborating testimony that an effort was made to 'clean up' such sites prior to the arrival of the Investigative Team." The AFDL also forced large numbers of civilians to flee into scarcely populated areas in life-threatening conditions, and denied relief organizations access to ill and wounded non- combatants, another act which may constitute a crime against humanity.

The report finds possible evidence of genocide, noting that the attacks on the camps in North Kivu in 1996 "reveal the intent to eliminate those Rwandan Hutus who had remained in Zaire."

Among its recommendations, the report states that if a new investigative body is established, should focus on massacres occurring during inter- ethnic fighting in North and South Kivu beginning in March 1993; serious violations of human rights allegedly committed within the camps established in eastern Zaire from July 1994 to October 1996; the extent of RPA involvement since October 1996; the extent of foreign troops' participation in serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law during the armed conflict; and the intent underlying the massacre of Rwandan and Zairan Hutus beginning in October 1996.

The report was presented in advance to the Governments of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In part of its 32-page reply, Kinshasa calls the report "a dangerous document that, contrary to the ideals of international peace and security propagated by the United Nations, exacerbates the ethnic hatred between Hutu and Tutsi by oversimplifying the complex problems which plague the Great Lakes region."

Kigali replied that the report was "emotive" and that it lacked credible testimonies. "Publication of such an incomplete, biased and totally misleading report does not serve the human rights cause, and would compromise the possibility of getting to the truth of what happened," the Rwandan reply states.

United Nations Spokesman Juan Carlos Brandt told reporters in New York that a meeting between the Secretary-General and Mr. Abiola was possible, noting that Mr. Annan had been working for over a year to secure the his release.

The purpose of the Secretary-General's trip to Nigeria is to discuss ways in which the United Nations and the international community could support the transition to democratic rule there. According to Mr. Brandt, the Secretary-General had spoken frankly with General Abubakar about the critical transition process and about the regional security concerns, particularly the situations in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The Secretary-General was also scheduled to begin a series of meetings with representatives of groups with different political views, in order to acquaint himself with the situation in the country. He was expected to meet with the Chairman of the National Election Commission, Dagogo Jack, as well as the Chairman of the Human Rights Commission, Justice Nwokedi. He also would begin a series of meetings with a range of political leaders referred to as the "Group of 34" which brought together political opposition leaders from throughout the country. The Secretary-General had also expressed interest in meeting the winner of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Press Freedom Award, Chris Anyanwe, who had received the award last month and was subsequently released from prison.

A UNHCR Spokesman, Kris Janowski, said the agency was in touch with the Serbian authorities and Kosovo Albanian representatives in order to arrange for a delivery of emergency supplies this week to several hundred Kosovo Albanians who are currently stranded in the hills between Junik and the Albanian border.

"They need pretty much everything," Mr. Janowski told reporters in Geneva. UNHCR was working to send baby parcels, hygienic items, plastic sheeting and food to the Kosovo Albanians. "These people are in a bad shape," he said, adding, "they have been roughing it for weeks now." According to Mr. Janowski, the Kosovo Albanians report that they are afraid to go back to their villages, having fled under fire.

"This staggering number of returnees is a record for any refugee group since World War II," said High Commissioner Sadako Ogata on Tuesday. "Tragically, Afghanistan still holds the record as UNHCR's largest single refugee caseload in the world for the eighteenth year in succession -- around 2.6 million at present," she said.

Despite reaching the four million mark, UNHCR said it is struggling to raise funds for the continued repatriation and reintegration of Afghan refugees. With more than half the year gone, the agency only has $4.5 million available out of its original budget of $21 million, making it one of the most cash-strapped refugee programmes in the world. UNHCR officials warned that if funds continued to remain in short supply, many refugees who would like to return might be deterred from doing so since the agency would be unable to carry out rehabilitation work in their home areas.

According to UNHCR, the next few years will be a crucial period for the Afghan refugees. "Already, we've reached the point where there are many adult refugees who have never even set eyes on their home villages," said UNHCR's representative in Pakistan, Jacques Mouchet. "They were either small children, or were not even born, when their families fled the war," he observed.

Olara Otunnu held a press conference to launch the new International Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. "We have to be unequivocal and uncompromising about this because it violates their innocence, exploits their particular vulnerability, and destroys their future and therefore the future of their society," Mr. Otunnu said. He said the most reprehensible abuses of children in armed conflict included the deliberate and systematic targeting of children, the use of rape of young women as a strategy of war, and the cynical use of minors as "weapon of choice".

"The use of children in waging war violates every existing standard of civilized human behaviour," said Stephen Lewis, the Deputy Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). He called for a ban on military recruitment under the age of 18.

Emilio Hernandez-Xicara, who was forcibly recruited by the Guatemalan Army at age 14, recalled his experience as a child soldier. "The army was a nightmare," he said, describing the cruel treatment he endured at the hands of the military. "We were constantly beaten, mostly for no reason at all, just to keep us in a state of terror." Mr. Hernandez-Xicara said he still wears scars from his beatings, and still suffers stomach pains where he had been brutally kicked by older soldiers. "They forced me to learn how to fight the enemy, in a war that I didn't understand why it was being fought, " he said.

The Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers was established by six non- governmental organizations (NGOs) which will work in close cooperation with key United Nations agencies and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. Sponsoring NGOs are Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Jesuit Refugee Service, International Federation Terre des Hommes, the Quaker United Nations Office, and Swedish Save the Children.

In a statement to the Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters delivered on his behalf by Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala, the Secretary-General said the tests by India and Pakistan had demonstrated that the dangers associated with nuclear weapons remained at the top of the international agenda. He noted that the end of the cold war had brought hope for a world moving irreversibly towards the ultimate goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. "I would like to stress that despite the current pause in achieving disarmament agreements, that vision should continue to inform our work."

The Secretary-General said that he would continue to encourage India and Pakistan to resume their bilateral talks on the issues that have divided them. "I have been in contact with the leaders and have dispatched an envoy to the region to deliver personal messages to them and to prepare for my own eventual visit there," he said, referring to the visit of the Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Alvaro de Soto, who is now in the region.

On the positive side, the Secretary-General welcomed the fact that there has been movement towards the preparation of a treaty establishing a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Central Asia.

Mr. Annan also urged the Advisory Board to turn its attention to the proliferation of small arms. "When 90 per cent of victims of conflicts fought with small arms today are civilians, and 80 per cent of them are women and children, the international community is challenged to mount a humanitarian response." The Department for Disarmament Affairs had formulated a proposal for coordinated action on small arms which would bring together United Nations efforts to address the problem. "I see great potential here," the Secretary-General observed.

Assembly President Hennadiy Udovenko of Ukraine was profoundly saddened to learn about the tragic death of MaŚtre Alioune Blondin Beye and five of his colleagues from the United Nations Observer Mission in Angola accompanying MaŚtre Beye, according to his Spokesman, Alex Taukatch.

"The President wishes to extend his heartfelt condolences to the families of all the victims and he would also like to convey his expressions of grief and support to United Nations staff in Angola," Mr. Taukatch told reporters in New York. He noted that this tragic incident once again underscores the dangers facing United Nations staff as they are sent on missions of goodwill to trouble spots around the world. "International civil servants, who are selflessly devoting their lives to the cause of peace, deserve our deepest gratitude and appreciation," he added.



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

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