United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-10-02

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

Friday, 2 October, 1998

Latest Developments

HEADLINES

• Security Council members deplore Belgrade's continuing non-compliance with International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia.
• President of Ecuador says that peace with Peru is an incentive for the development of the two countries.
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees extends condolences in wake of killing of humanitarian aid workers in Kosovo.
• United Nations refugee agency reports that attacks by rebels in Sierra Leone cause thousands to flee to Guinea.
• United Nations food agency distributes supplies to thousands of Rwandan returnees.
• United Nations official says fight for a drug-free world can be won.

Addressing the press following a closed meeting, Council President Jeremy Greenstock of the United Kingdom said the members had stated their intention to continue following up the matter. He said the Council had also reaffirmed the authority and jurisdiction of the International Tribunal over matters within its competence throughout the territory of the former Yugoslavia.

During its closed meeting on Friday, the Council was briefed by Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, the Tribunal's President, who said that the threat posed by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's non- compliance must be dealt with "once and for all."

Judge McDonald provided a specific account of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's failure to comply with its obligations. She noted that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had not adopted legislation -- as it was required to do under the Dayton Agreement -- facilitating cooperation with the Tribunal. The country had also refused to transfer its nationals who had been indicted into the Tribunal's custody, arguing that its Constitution prohibited extradition.

"The disregard of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is clear and its obligation to cooperate is not subject to dispute," Judge McDonald told the Council. For three years, the country had failed to hand over three individuals who allegedly murdered 260 unarmed men following the fall of Vukovar in November 1991. "Thus, almost three years after their indictment and nearly seven years after the families of the victims lost their loved ones, the three accused I speak of today remain at liberty," she said.

The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had also refused to execute arrest warrants against Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, she pointed out. She said such international non-compliance had far- reaching consequences for international peace and security. "Such transgression is not only unlawful, but importantly sends a message to other States that the measures adopted by the Security Council can be ignored. Therefore, it is imperative that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia be brought into the fold of nations who believe in world peace and respect the authority of the Security Council."

In his address to the General Assembly, President Jamil Mahuad Mitt said that the two countries have had a problem that goes back many decades. "Peace is our objective, and we see peace as an ethical good, as a moral good, as an economic good," President Mahuad Mitt said. He characterized peace as "the best gauge for the budgets of our countries," and that by achieving peace, the two countries can benefit enormously. "The possibility of $3 billion in loans for border development projects, for irrigation, for roads, for agricultural systems, for schools, for health centres," are just a few examples of what peace could bring, he said.

The leader of Ecuador told the General Assembly that the two countries had been having talks in the past three years and that they had established commissions which have reached border agreements regarding trade and navigation on an extremely important basin, the basin of the Amazon River. He added that Ecuador and Peru had also been having talks on matters of security and confidence-building for the future. "What remains to be resolved is the most difficult issue, and that is the determination of the border between the two countries," the President of Ecuador said.

He pointed out that Ecuador and Peru had been having talks at a number of levels, including those of the Foreign Ministers and the negotiating commissions. He said that in a period of under two months, the two countries had three meetings in order to seek a final settlement to their border dispute. He also announced that he and the President of Peru had agreed to hold another meeting in New York on Saturday in order to find a definitive formula to resolve their border dispute in "a worthy way, in a way that is acceptable to the two countries, in a way that is appropriate for our peoples."

The incident took the life of one doctor working with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and injured three other ICRC workers, when their vehicle hit a landmine at Gornje Obrinje, which is around 30 kilometres west of Pristina.

On Thursday, UNHCR organized a 14-truck convoy in Kosovo to carry relief goods of UNHCR and four non-governmental organizations (NGOs) -- Medecins du Monde, Mercy Corps International, Catholic Relief Services and Children's Aid Direct -- to around 40,000 needy, mainly displaced people in Suva Reka and Djakovica.

In the Malisevo area, UNHCR staff saw Serbian police looting villages, said UNHCR Spokesman Judith Kumin. They also visited Obilic municipality, and went to three villages which were shelled last week. Some villagers had returned to this area, and were requesting help to restore water and electricity, she said.

"More than 3,000 Sierra Leoneans crossed into the Forecariah area of Guinea on Tuesday after rebels reportedly killed civilians and burned down dozens of houses in Kukuna village, 4 kilometres from the border in the northwest of Sierra Leone," said UNHCR Spokesman Judith Kumin.

The arrivals in Forecariah, between Freetown and Conakry near the coast, were the first in that region for some time, she said. Approximately 3,300 refugees had been given two-week emergency rations and transferred to existing camps.

The rebels had previously struck at refugee camps in Guinea along Sierra Leone's eastern border. In a raid on Tomandou camp near Gueckedou on 1 September, rebels killed seven refugees and several Guineans. UNHCR has moved thousands of refugees from Tomandou, among the most vulnerable of the sites in the forested region, to camps farther inside Guinea. "The process is slow and costly as sites are in extremely remote areas and roads are almost impassable," Ms. Kumin told reporters in Geneva.

Guinea currently hosts 340,000 Sierra Leonean refugees, 210,000 of whom arrived this year, according to UNHCR.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said that on Tuesday it had begun distribution of 120 tonnes of food sent under military escort to the commune of Kanama in the Gisenyi prefecture. The United Nations agency said that authorities in the small rural community had been overwhelmed trying to help resettle 42,000 people who had streamed back into the area over the past eight weeks.

WFP said that it also fed another 33,000 returnees who had fled Kanama nearly a year ago when rebel attacks terrorized families and forced virtually all of the commune's 80,000 residents to flee to distant villages and into the nearby Gishwati forest.

WFP's Country Representative in Rwanda, Gerard Van Djik, said that it was good to see so many people returning to their home area. "But the population in this commune has more than doubled since July, and that has put tremendous strain on the communities' limited food supplies and health facilities," he added.

The United Nations agency said that since sporadic attacks were still taking place in the area, many of the returnees refused to go to their homes and had gathered in large groups, creating ad- hoc living sites near the commune's main offices and buildings. WFP said that this meant that thousands within the community were still displaced from their homes and unable to cultivate their land.

Addressing a meeting on drug abuse in Rimini, Italy, Mr. Arlacchi said the United Nations would continue providing assistance to those countries which needed it, and would work to ensure that national and international strategies against the drug problem emphasized the need for prevention and treatment, especially among the young and the vulnerable.

More than 600 delegates from communities all over the world -- and 400 students -- are taking part in the fourth international meeting of the Rainbow International Association against Drugs, which opened on Thursday.

Among the participants in the three-day meeting are representatives of national drug control institutions, the private sector and the media, in addition to delegates from more than 100 communities working in the field of drug abuse treatment and prevention around the world.

The Rainbow Association Against Drugs was originally established by a number communities from the Netherlands, Denmark, the United States, and Sweden. The Community of San Patrignano, which organized the event, is one of the Association's founding members.

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

United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article