United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-09-09

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Wednesday, 9 September, 1998

HEADLINES

• Security Council condemns Iraqi decision to suspend cooperation with United Nations weapons inspectors.
• General Assembly opens annual session, electing Uruguayan Foreign Minister Didier Opertti Badan as President.
• Secretary-General sends team to Addis Ababa to assist in resolution of conflict in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Secretary-General welcomes Nigerian Government's decision to drop charges against exiles.
• Using new "poverty index," UN Development Programme reports rampant deprivation amid unprecedented affluence.
• Marking International Peace Day, Secretary-General calls on leaders of nations in war to think of their peoples.
• International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia seeks Security Council assistance in pursuit of suspects.
• Security Council adopts annual report to General Assembly.
• UNICEF says that humanitarian relief agencies are taking new measures to ensure that food reaches neediest in Sudan.
• United Nations Environment Programme to sign new agreement on global water assessment project.

Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, which provides for enforcement measures, the Council on Wednesday unanimously adopted resolution 1194 (1998) by which it demanded that Iraq rescind the decision of 5 August 1998 to suspend cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It also demanded that Iraq immediately resume dialogue with the Special Commission and the IAEA.

The Council said that the decision constituted "a totally unacceptable contravention " of Iraqi obligations under the resolutions of the Security Council and the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq and the Secretary-General on 23 February 1998.

The Security Council decided not to conduct the review of the sanctions imposed on Iraq scheduled for October and not to conduct any further such reviews until Iraq rescinds its decision and UNSCOM and IAEA report that they were satisfied that they had been able to carry out their work.

The Council reaffirmed its full support for the Special Commission and the IAEA in their efforts to ensure the implementation of their mandates under the relevant resolutions.

It also reaffirmed its full support for the Secretary-General in his efforts to urge Iraq to rescind its decision.

The Council reaffirmed its intention to act in accordance with resolution 687 (1991) on the duration of the prohibitions imposed on Iraq and noted that by its failure so far to comply with its relevant obligations, Iraq had delayed the moment when the Council could do so.

In his first address to the Assembly, Mr. Opertti pledged to work towards the creation of a climate favourable to the consideration of emerging international issues. This would take account of the fact that over the past 10 years, only half a dozen of the more than 100 conflicts that have breached international peace and security have been territorial conflicts.

Given the speed of change currently unfolding in today's world, the new Assembly President urged Member States to "continue without haste but steadily along the path of modernization and fine tuning of the Organization." He stressed that this effort must not be just diplomatic or legal, but rather "a natural political response on the part of States" which could not be postponed.

"Let us take care of this Organization, and even as we acknowledge and draw attention to its shortcomings, let us not allow skepticism to spread and make us lose heart," said Mr. Opertti. "Let us acknowledge that the transformation of the United Nations is both quantitative and qualitative and that this transformation must not only take place within the system and its organs and agencies, but must extend also to the conduct of States themselves, to their relations with one another, to regional relations and to the links between organs within the Organization itself," he stressed.

Prior to being named as Uruguay's Foreign Minister this February, Mr. Opertti served as Minister of the Interior since 1995. The 61-year old diplomat has a doctorate in Law and Social Sciences from the University of the Republic in Montevideo.

Mr. Opertti has had a long and distinguished international career, specializing mainly in international law. He served as Director of the Office of Codification and International Law of the General Secretariat of the Organization of American States (OAS) from 1979 to 1981. In 1985, he was named as a member of the OAS Administrative Court. He later was appointed as Uruguay's Permanent Representative to the OAS.

Mr. Opertti took over from the previous General Assembly President, Hennadiy Udovenko of Ukraine.

Mr. Annan was speaking to the press after briefing the Security Council on his recent diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict while he was attending the twelfth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Durban, South Africa.

He said that the United Nations was sending a delegation, including military advisers, to a meeting of African Defence Ministers and Chiefs of Staff in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The meeting follows the second summit meeting on the crisis in Congo Kinshasa which was held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, on 7 and 8 September where regional leaders agreed on a ceasefire. The Secretary-General said that at the Addis Ababa meeting, African leaders will "try to put together their concept of operation" to implement the ceasefire.

The President of the Security Council, Ambassador Hans Dahlgren of Sweden, who also spoke to the same group of reporters, reiterated the position of the Council regarding the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

He said the Council members called for a peaceful solution to the conflict, respect for human rights and humanitarian law, and access of humanitarian agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The members of the Council also reiterated the importance of an international conference on peace, security and development in the Great Lakes Region, Ambassador Dahlgren said.

In a statement issued by his spokesman on Wednesday, the Secretary- General also welcomed the release by the Nigerian authorities of the 20 Ogoni activists detained without trial since 1994.

The statement said that the Secretary-General continued to be encouraged by the positive actions taken by General Abubakar to restore confidence in government institutions and facilitate a democratic transition to civilian rule by 29 May 1999.

Using a new "poverty index," which measures the extent of deprivation and exclusion of poor people from a country's progress, UNDP has found the greatest extremes in the United States, where 16.5 per cent of the population lives in poverty. The United States is currently enjoying a booming economy and low unemployment, yet one-fifth of its people are functionally illiterate and 13 per cent of the population will not survive to age 60.

The report, which examines unequal consumption within and between nations, points out that a child born in New York City, Paris or London today will consume, waste and pollute more in a lifetime than as many as 50 children in a developing country.

The report shows that those who consume less bear the brunt of environmental damage. "The overwhelming majority of those who die each year from air and water pollution are poor people in developing countries," the report notes. Although deforestation is concentrated in developing countries, more than half the wood and nearly three quarters of the resulting paper is used in industrialized States. One fifth of the world's people living in the highest-income countries are responsible for 53 per cent of the carbon dioxide emissions that fuel global warming. The poorest fifth contribute just 3 per cent, but live in the communities that are most vulnerable to coastal flooding.

The report debunks the myth that developing countries should restrain consumption, industrialization and development to avoid exacerbating environmental problems. It states that in most developing countries, consumption is so low that it must be increased, while at the same time using innovative policies and other techniques to prevent harm to the environment.

"Poor people and poor countries need to accelerate the growth of their consumption," affirmed UNDP Administrator James Gustave Speth. But, he said, they need not follow the path of rich and high-growth economies. "The need is not so much for more consumption or less, but for a different pattern of consumption -- consumption for human development," he said.

In a statement on the occasion of International Peace Day, which was marked by the annual ringing of the Peace Bell ceremony in New York, Mr. Annan said that too many parts of the world were at war. From the Balkans to Central Africa, he observed, innocent men, women and children were the victims of indiscriminate attacks and were left to a life of despair, dispossession and exile.

He pointed out that the sanctity of life -- the very basis of human coexistence -- was being violated primarily by political and military leaders who exploited division to advance their own agendas with no regard for the cost in human loss and suffering.

The Secretary-General appealed to the leaders to resist the temptation to seek glory through conquest, and to recognize that peaceful statesmanship alone would bring them and their peoples the rewards they deserved.

He said that no amount of interaction, development or cooperation, would make the difference between war and peace without "legitimate and honourable leadership responsive to the needs and desires of their peoples."

The Secretary-General recalled that the United Nations was founded in the name of "We, the Peoples," and that it was the peoples of the world in whose service political leaders laboured. He stressed that the "cardinal mission" of leaders was to help the peoples secure their lives and livelihoods and to aid them in their escape from tyranny and oppression, and bring nearer the day when they might live in peace.

The Tribunal took its action in response to the failure by the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to arrest Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Slijvancanin. The three have been under indictment since November 1995 for their alleged involvement in the killing of unarmed men forcibly removed from the Vukovar Hospital.

In a letter to the Security Council, Tribunal President Gabrielle Kirk McDonald states that the persistent and continuing rejection of orders to arrest the three suspects is but the most blatant example of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's refusal to cooperate. She says this intransigence has formed a consistent pattern since the International Tribunal was established in 1993.

President McDonald writes that the continuing refusal of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to cooperate with the Tribunal displays "a contempt for the authority of the Security Council". She says that "not only does the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia consider itself to be outside international law, it has become a haven for fugitives from international law."

During that time, the Council held 103 formal meetings, adopted 61 resolutions and issued 41 Presidential statements. In addition, Council members held consultations of the whole for a total of approximately 588 hours. The Council considered over 92 reports of the Secretary-General and reviewed more than 1,079 documents and communications from States and regional and other intergovernmental organizations.

According to the report, the Council devoted much of its attention to conflicts on the continent of Africa. The situation in the former Yugoslavia continued to be a prime concern of the Council, which held 16 formal meetings on the subject. Fourteen formal meetings were held on Iraq. In addition, the Council held meetings on Angola, Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic, Africa as a whole, Western Sahara, the Middle East, Tajikistan and Georgia. The Council also met on Afghanistan, Albania, Cambodia, the Republic of the Congo, Cyprus, Haiti, Liberia, Rwanda and Somalia.

In addition, the Council considered items related to peacekeeping operations; protection for humanitarian assistance; the Lockerbie affair and the sanctions against Libya; Papua New Guinea; and the nuclear weapons tests by India and Pakistan.

Quoting Operation Lifeline Sudan (OLS) and the Sudanese Relief and Rehabilitation Association (SRRA), UNICEF said that the measures had been introduced following indications that not all the neediest people were receiving enough food and other relief assistance in that region.

According to UNICEF, the measures followed an intensive, three-week assessment conducted by a joint Task Force comprising OLS agencies, the SRRA, and the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in the SPLM- controlled areas of Bahr el Ghazal.

The Task Force found that the humanitarian intervention was restricted and constrained by a complicated set of factors. Initially, those factors included funding problems, flight suspensions and restrictions in February and March, and the lack of capacity and inadequate planning in the early phases of the crisis.

The Task Force also found that local chiefs were redistributing food to people within their community who they perceived to be in need, said UNICEF. As a result, food was not always distributed to people with the greatest immediate needs and some groups were being left out altogether, the United Nations children's agency added.

In other instances, the Task Force found that communities were applying a modified version of the practice of "tayeen" to relief food. The Task Force said that this practice, by which a community contributed to the "authorities," was unjustifiable. The distribution of food was also hampered by difficulties of law and order at some distribution sites, according to UNICEF.

UNICEF said that the Task Force members stressed the need to critically review distribution methodologies and practices to tackle the famine crisis in the Sudan.

The Marine Biological Centre in Kalmar, Sweden will serve as the future home of the coordination office of UNEP's Global International Waters Assessment project.

The $13.5 million project will provide the first fully comprehensive assessment of the world's water-related environmental problems.

"In the next century, more than two thirds of the global population will be living under conditions of water stress," said UNEP Deputy Executive Director Shafqat Kakakhel. "This assessment will provide the key to anticipating and solving the water-related problems of the new millennium."

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

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