United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-07-28

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 28 July, 1998

HEADLINES

• Increased cooperation in conflict prevention is urged at meeting between UN and regional organizations.
• Secretary-General says number of UN staff killed is alarming, asks for comprehensive report.
• High Commissioner for Refugees, in report to ECOSOC, highlights problem of sustaining refugee repatriation.
• Secretary-General sends Lakhdar Brahimi as special envoy to assess situation in Angola.
• Secretary-General expresses hope that India and Pakistan will lessen tensions at meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
• Head of UN human rights agency urges Government of Myanmar to resolve stand-off with opposition leader.
• WFP proposes emergency food aid for more than half a million people affected by drought in Cuba.
• UN high-level panel on Algeria visits site of 1997 massacre.
• Mali is picked in "lottery" for seating assignment in next session of General Assembly.

His call was supported by the President of the General Assembly and the President of the Security Council, who also spoke at the opening of the third biennial meeting of the United Nations and regional organizations in New York.

"Given the nature of conflict today such cooperation is more of an obligation than an opportunity," Mr. Annan said in his opening statement. "When genocide, mass rape and atrocities against children can take place from the Balkans to Rwanda," he said, "war can no longer be seen as continuation of politics by other means.

The Secretary-General suggested that, as first steps, there should be more regular consultations, better flow of information, exchange of liaison officers -- as the United Nations has already done with the Organization of African Unity (OAU) -- and visits by staff.

The President of the General Assembly Hennadiy Udovenko, said it was imperative to ask why "for all of its obvious merits, prevention remains such an underutilised tool." "There is an urgent need to address in a more focused and sustained way the root causes of conflicts," Mr. Udovenko said.

Cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations in matters relating to international peace and security is specifically mentioned in Chapter VIII of the UN Charter.

"The Security Council has entered into a very active phase of seeking and actually utilizing the assistance of regional organizations and arrangements," said the President of the Security Council, Sergey Lavrov of the Russian Federation.

Ambassador Lavrov cited a number of crisis situations -- from Liberia to Georgia -- where the regional organizations have collaborated with the United Nations in peace-keeping. But in the area of conflict prevention, Mr. Lavrov said, "much more remains to be accomplished."

Fifteen regional organizations are represented at the two day meeting, which is scheduled to finish on Wednesday.

"We are placing civilians in more and more dangerous situations," Mr. Annan said at a high-level staff meeting on Monday, according to Spokesman Fred Eckhard. "This is unacceptable," the Secretary-General added.

So far this year, 17 civilian United Nations staff have been killed to date. An additional eight people have been killed in peace-keeping missions.

Asked by a reporter if the number of civilian casualties constituted a record, Mr. Eckhard said "it's the first time the number of civilians killed has exceeded the number of military killed."

The President of the General Assembly, Hennadiy Udovenko, reacted to press reports of the growing toll among United Nations civilian workers with "a renewed feeling of sadness, concern and outrage," according to a statement by his Spokesman, Alex Taukatch.

"The recent spate of killings of United Nations staff in Burundi, Tajikistan and Afghanistan served as a tragic reminder of the dangers facing UN staff as they try to provide much needed help to people caught in the flames of war and conflict," Mr. Taukatch said.

"This is a problem that has existed for a long time," said High Commissioner Sadako Ogata in a statement to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), "but it has recently been brought to the fore in more dramatic fashion by massive repatriation movements to countries that remain deeply divided after conflicts." The experiences of Rwanda and Bosnia and Herzegovina were examples of this phenomenon, Mrs. Ogata said.

Mrs. Ogata suggested that these situations could be improved by linking humanitarian assistance with early intervention for development, and by allowing opportunities for women and children to play an "active, conciliatory role in post-conflict societies."

In her presentation to the ECOSOC, the High Commissioner also pointed out that, in recent years, a marked increase in internal conflicts has led to a similar increase in the number of internally displaced people, as opposed to refugees who are forced to flee across international borders.

Turning her attention to operational activities, Mrs. Ogata gave an overview of the global situation of refugees.

Among the most dramatic developments she addressed, Mrs. Ogata spoke of an additional 255,000 refugees fleeing Sierra Leone in the last six months -- bringing the total from that country to well over half a million -- and an estimated 100,000 people being uprooted in the Kosovo region of Yugoslavia.

The decision came as the long-standing civil war between Government troops and forces of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) has intensified.

Mr. Brahimi's mandate in Angola will also include recommendations about the future presence of the United Nations in Angola, according to the Spokesman for the Secretary-General, Fred Eckhard.

Mr. Brahimi left New York on Monday night and is expected to spend about one week in Angola, where he will urge the Government -- and especially UNITA -- to refrain from any action that would undermine the peace process.

"The situation in Angola is really so grave now that the Secretary- General felt that he had to send someone right away," Mr. Eckhard told reporters at a press briefing on Tuesday.

The Secretary-General's Special Representative to Angola, Maitre Alioune Blondin Beye, died in a plane crash near Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, on 26 June. The appointment a new Special Representative is expected later this week.

The Summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which will be held from 29 to 31 July, "provides an excellent opportunity for a meeting on the sidelines between the leaders of India and Pakistan," according to a statement issued by Mr. Annan's spokesman, Fred Eckhard.

Mr. Eckhard also said that the Secretary-General hoped that leaders of those two countries would "resume a political dialogue in which to address all their differences."

"He also hopes both countries will find it possible to join the overwhelming majority of the international community in the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)," the Spokesman said.

The CTBT is the international agreement by which states would willingly cease any form of testing of nuclear weapons. This treaty, which has been signed by 150 nations and ratified by 16, requires the ratification of India and Pakistan, among other countries, before it can enter into force.

"There are legitimate concerns about Mrs. Suu Kyi's health and security," said Mary Robinson, in a statement released on Tuesday. According to reports received by Mrs. Robinson's office, Mrs. Suu Kyi has spent five days in her car after being blocked on a road as she was travelling to visit supporters outside of the capital, Yangon.

"This incident provides stark evidence of the need for the Government to enter into a frank and sincere dialogue with civil society in Myanmar," Mrs. Robinson said. "I urge the Government of Myanmar to work with Mrs. Suu Kyi and her supporters to resolve the current stand- off peacefully and quickly," she said.

The drought has drastically reduced food production in the five eastern provinces of Cuba, according to a WFP press release issued in Havana on Tuesday.

An evaluation mission composed of experts from WFP and other agencies -- including the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and UNICEF -- visited eastern Cuba at the Government's request from 16 to 25 July.

"During the visit we determined that 539,000 people were directly affected in these provinces as a consequence of reduced food availability and lowered incomes," said Francisco Roque Castro, the WFP Regional Manager for Central America and the Caribbean, who led the mission. "The volume of food production has dropped by 42 percent," he said.

While in Beni Messous, the team -- headed by the former President of Portugal, Mario Soares -- interviewed survivors and met with military representatives there, according to Fred Eckhard, the Spokesman for the Secretary-General. They also visited a prison in Serkadji, where they met with inmates.

The panel, which has been invited by the Government of Algeria, arrived in Algeria on 22 July and is expected to present a report to Secretary-General Kofi Annan after its two-week stay.

Tuesday's schedule included meetings with government officials and a representative of a political party, as well as a visit to public areas of the capital, Algiers.

"In accordance with established practice, the seating arrangements will be in English alphabetical order following that country," said Alex Taukatch, the Spokesman for the President of the General Assembly at a press briefing on Tuesday.

With the first seat going to Mali, the last seat in the upcoming session will be occupied by the Maldives, with all other countries coming in between. Prior to Mali, the first seat in the General Assembly was occupied by Honduras.

The seating arrangement for the General Assembly is established yearly in a simple event held on the 38th floor of the UN Secretariat building, during which the Secretary-General picks out the name of the first country from a bag containing domino-like chips with the names of all Member States of the United Nations.

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

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