United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-09-01

United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 1 September, 1998

HEADLINES

• Truth Commission hearings in South Africa are not inimical to International Criminal Court, says Secretary-General.
• More refugees continue to flee fighting in Congo-Kinshasa to Rwanda and Tanzania, according to UNHCR.
• United Nations children's agency protests rebel looting of its premises in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Secretary-General's Special Representative for Georgia sets meeting with parties to discuss rising tension.
• United Nations World Food Programme appeals for over $20 million in emergency aid to help drought victims in Cuba.
• United Nations refugee agency concerned about plight of refugees in Kosovo as winter approaches.
• United Nations Children's Fund provides $800,000 in emergency relief assistance to Bangladesh.
• United Nations humanitarian office prepares to deploy team to flood- stricken People's Republic of China.
• Secretary-General cautions that microcredit has limited capacity to eradicate poverty.
• UN Development Programme sets up website on relief follow-up to bombing of United States embassy in Kenya.

Mr. Kofi Annan was speaking at the University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa, where he received an honorary Doctorate of Laws from Chancellor Richard Goldstone, who was the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia.

The Secretary-General noted that South Africa's recent history had "been marked by some appalling crimes" painfully chronicled and exposed in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He said that South Africa had confronted the legacy of the past by offering amnesty, "even to the worst offenders, provided they were willing to make a full confession under the eyes of the whole nation, in the presence of the surviving victims."

The Secretary-General dismissed as a "travesty" the argument that such an "exemplary" process of national reconciliation might be torpedoed by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which empowers the Court to intervene in cases where a State is unwilling or unable to exercise its national jurisdiction.

The Secretary-General stressed that the purpose of that clause in the Statute was "to ensure that mass-murderers, and other arch-criminals cannot shelter behind a State run by themselves or their cronies, or take advantage of a general breakdown of law and order." That clause would not apply to a case like South Africa's, where the regime and the conflict which caused the crimes had come to an end, and the victims had inherited power, he said.

Mr. Annan also emphasized that the Court would not be composed of "frivolous or malicious people, roaming the world in search of opportunities to undermine a peace process here, or prosecute a peacekeeper there."

Noting that the officials of the Court would be chosen by secret ballot in an Assembly of all States which had signed and ratified the Statute, Mr. Annan encouraged States to sign and ratify the Statute, and to ensure that as many like-minded States as possible do the same. At least 60 States must sign and ratify the Statute before the Court can come into existence.

Quoting Congolese refugees who crossed into Cyangugu in southern Rwanda over the weekend, UNHCR said that fighting continued around Bukavu, in Congo-Kinshasa. The group of 104 refugees who had been taken to a transit centre in Nyagatare reported that more people might be forced to go to Rwanda because of insecurity in Congo-Kinshasa, UNHCR added.

In neighbouring Tanzania, Congolese refugees from South Kivu continued to arrive in significant numbers in Kigoma, UNHCR said. On Monday more than 260 refugees were registered in the Lake Tanganyika port, bringing the total number of refugees to more than 2,000.

However, UNHCR said, no new arrivals from Kinshasa had been reported in Brazzaville, in the Republic of Congo where its staff was working on reception facilities for a possible influx of refugees. UNHCR said that it wanted to ensure that refugees who were already in Congo-Brazzaville continued to receive humanitarian aid.

Relief workers sent a barge carrying two months worth of food rations to Loukolela, a site previously assisted by UNHCR, from Kinshasa, the agency said.

"We are particularly concerned that, among the stolen items, valued at more than $600,000, were nine tons of nutritional biscuits meant to feed hundreds of malnourished children," said a UNICEF statement. Also taken were 10 vehicles essential to the delivery of food and medical supplies to those in greatest need.

In Uvira, UNICEF's main sub-office and warehouse were totally looted. In Bukavu, Goma and Kisangani, offices were destroyed and communications equipment, vehicles and humanitarian supplies were stolen. In the western city of Boma, rebel forces seized three UNICEF four-wheel drive vehicles.

UNICEF and United Nations staff have been threatened and intimidated at gunpoint, UNICEF reported.

The agency has worked in the country for over three decades. Since 1991, there have been at least four major lootings of its offices. "These lootings seriously undermine efforts to bring humanitarian and development assistance to the Democratic Republic of the Congo's 25 million children," the statement warned. "It is essential that UNICEF premises not be targeted and that UNICEF workers be able to carry on their work without fear for their personal safety."

The Coordinating Council of the two sides will meet in Sukhumi in an attempt to take steps to end the frequent incidents of violence which threaten to deteriorate into an outbreak of hostilities, according to the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG). Both the Georgian and Abkhaz sides have written to the Special Representative complaining of aggressive behaviour on each other's part. Russia's First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Boris Pastukhov, wrote to Mr. Bota that if urgent measures are not taken, armed hostilities might resume.

The two sides will be represented at the highest level -- the State Minister of Georgia, Vazha Lordkipanidze and the so-called "Prime Minister" of Abkhazia, Sergei Bagpsh. Also attending the meeting will be representatives of the Russian Federation, in its capacity as facilitator, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the members of the Group of Friends of the Secretary-General: France, Germany, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The Coordinating Council was set up in November 1997 at the first high- level meeting of the two sides, held in Geneva. Wednesday's gathering will mark its fifth session.

WFP said that some 615,195 of the most vulnerable people in the five eastern provinces of Holguin, Las Tunas, Granma, Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo urgently need emergency assistance for the nine months until the next harvest in May.

"We are making this appeal on humanitarian grounds," said WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini. "These people need help, and they need it as soon as possible. The situation is worsening, and it is clear that the country confronts a serious shortfall in food."

Ms. Bertini warned that in the absence of a generous response from the international community, "the vulnerable population of Cuba faces malnutrition and will become more susceptible to illness."

In addition to seeking contributions from donor countries, WFP hopes to mobilize help from the private sector, including corporations, private voluntary organizations, and especially members of Cuban communities living abroad.

According to WFP, drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon has caused some $267 million worth of crop losses and has cost $8 million in lost livestock. The lack of rain has also reduced drinking water reservoirs throughout the five provinces to 50 per cent capacity. In Granma and Holguin, more than 400,000 people are receiving water by tanker trucks.

The Government of Cuba will contribute some $6.5 million to the relief effort, making its total cost just over $27 million. This amounts to less than 10 per cent of Cuba's expected food losses.

The Spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Kris Janowski, said on Tuesday that the people were in the woods without shelters. On Saturday, he added, UNHCR saw a group of 47 people, mainly women and children, shivering in the cold and rain under pieces of tarpaulin thrown over carts in the Kula woods, 15 kilometres outside the town of Pristina. According to Mr. Janowski, a woman gave birth under those terrible conditions that day.

UNHCR said that the displaced persons had nowhere to go as their houses had been burnt and they were afraid of police in the area and the shootings they heard overnight.

UNHCR added that representatives of the village of Sediare, west of Pristina, came to its office in Pristina to ask for help on Monday. They needed food and regular visits from UNHCR as they felt the agency's presence could protect them from attacks.

The people said that they had fled to the hills a week ago, but came down to the villages when their provisional hide-out was attacked again at the weekend, UNHCR said.

According to the agency, the representatives of the displaced people said that they would rather die in their homes than in the cold outside.

On Tuesday, 16 trucks set out from Pristina to deliver relief supplies to more than 55,000 people in central and western Kosovo. This was the largest relief convoy to date, according to UNHCR.

UNHCR Spokesman Kris Janowski reiterated the agency's appeal for a cessation of hostilities followed by "some sort of a political settlement" in Kosovo. He said that UNHCR did not want the Kosovo humanitarian relief operation to "become a substitute for other solutions" to the conflict.

Much of the assistance is being devoted to providing oral rehydration therapies, IV fluid bags and water purifying tablets. In addition, planned deliveries include high-protein biscuits and other food supplies, materials for constructing sanitary latrines, as well as corrugated iron sheets for shelter.

The assistance is being channeled through Bangladesh's Ministry of Disaster and Relief, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and Department of Public Health Engineering. Non-governmental organizations are also participating in the effort.

In its latest report on the floods in the country, OCHA said that following an agreement with the Chinese Government, a team from the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) would be deployed shortly to the worst-affected provinces and to assist in mobilizing resources from the international community.

OCHA said that United Nations agencies continued to assist in tackling the problems of the summer flooding which occurred earlier than usual this year and were the worst in 44 years, and killing more than 3,000 people.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has carried out a rapid field survey in the four provinces of Hubei, Jiangxi, Hunan and Anhui, where 18 million people have been affected. The need for food was found to be enormous as some people would need food for 6 to 8 months before the next harvest season, said OCHA.

OCHA also said that the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was working with the Ministry of Education on possible areas of cooperation during the rehabilitation phase.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) envisaged a mission in October/November to assess the needs for schools and health facilities, according to OCHA.

Recently, Klaus Topfer, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) visited China and highlighted environmental degradation which had been caused by such activities as deforestation, extensive logging, and drainage of lakes and wetlands. The flooding in the country has been attributed to these practices.

Known as microcredit, such loans have received prominence in recent years. Last year, donors meeting in Washington, DC agreed to provide loans to 100 million poor households by the year 2005.

The Secretary-General acknowledges that microcredit helps women and socially marginalized people to achieve productivity. But he warns that "many people, especially the poorest of the poor, are usually not in a position to undertake an economic activity, partly because they lack business skills, and even the motivation for business."

The report also warns against siphoning scarce development assistance funds away from crucial sectors like agriculture, infrastructure, health, sanitation and education for relatively untested microcredit schemes.

The point of microcredit is to help the poor start up small businesses. A recent alternative approach advocates extending loans to anyone who has the ability to repay, regardless of whether they have a credible plan for a small business. The Secretary-General observes that under this plan, borrowers might consume their capital, rather than invest it.

The Secretary-General points out that microcredit must be conceived as one component in an overall strategy to foster small business enterprise in the context of access to land, technology and markets.

The United Nations Disaster Management Team in Nairobi has established a website on the Internet to facilitate the exchange of information among organizations and agencies involved in relief operations following the 7 August bomb blast.

The website provides information and contact data on agencies and organizations concerned, an overview of relief contributions to date, needs assessments and a schedule of upcoming meetings.

Coordinated by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the website can be located at http://www.nbnet.co.ke/KenyaEmergency.

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

United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article