United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-11-11

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Wednesday, 11 November, 1998

Latest Developments

HEADLINES

• Secretary-General urges Iraqi leadership to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors.
• Citing safety concerns, United Nations relocates over 100 staff members from Iraq to Bahrain.
• United Nations food agency doubles relief food for internally displaced persons in Rwanda.
• Efforts to reverse land degradation in Asia and Pacific discussed at United Nations meeting in Bangkok.

Meanwhile, a Secretary-General's spokesman told reporters in New York that Mr. Annan would suspend his current visit to North Africa and fly back to New York on Thursday. In response to questions, the spokesman said he knew of no planned meetings between the Secretary-General and Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz.

The Secretary-General said he was "saddened and burdened" by Iraq's decision of 5 August and 31 October to cease cooperation with the weapons inspectors.

"I strongly urge President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi Government to rescind its decision and resume immediate cooperation with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors."

The Secretary-General recalled that for a long time, Iraq has maintained that it wanted to see light at the end of the tunnel. "I also want to see the lifting of sanctions, so that Iraq can regain its place among the community of nations," said Mr. Annan. He emphasized that the only way to achieve that goal was for Iraq to fully cooperate with the United Nations Security Council.

Noting that the Security Council had agreed on a way forward for a comprehensive review, the Secretary-General said he firmly believed that "this offers Iraq a genuine opportunity." The comprehensive review would map out the remaining steps, provided the Iraqi authorities cooperated, that would "allow them to see light at the end of the tunnel," he noted.

"The Iraqi leadership's decision not to cooperate with UNSCOM at a time when the Council was undertaking these efforts came as a surprise to me and, I suspect, to all Council members," said Mr. Annan. Reiterating his appeal to President Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi leadership to resume cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA, the Secretary-General said, "This would be good for the Iraqi people, for the region and for the world."

The United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with Iraqi disarmament relocated all of its international staff, comprising 92 people. All 11 staff members of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also left.

UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler said the decision to withdraw had been "motivated overwhelmingly by concern for the safety of our personnel in Iraq." He expressed hope that the relocation of UNSCOM staff would be temporary. Were Iraq to resume its cooperation with UNSCOM, he said, "we could be back in Baghdad and on the job within 24 hours."

In a statement issued from IAEA Headquarters in Vienna, the Agency's Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, said his decision to temporarily relocate all IAEA inspectors to Bahrain was "due to concern for their safety in view of the escalating situation in Iraq."

The 103 IAEA and UNSCOM staff had left together on a United Nations flight to Bahrain, where they arrived Wednesday at about 7:15 am New York time. Eleven local staff members, who are residents of Baghdad, remained in the country.

Staff members of the oil-for-food programme and other United Nations agency personnel have also withdrawn staff from Baghdad. One hundred and thirty left in eight buses which were expected to arrive in Amman, Jordan at around 5:30 p.m. New York time. Eighty one staff of agencies and the oil- for-food programme remained in Baghdad, with 40 scheduled to leave on Thursday for Amman. The remaining 41 essential staff remaining in Iraq will include the Secretary-General's Special Envoy, Prakesh Shah, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, Hans von Sponeck, and heads of United Nations agencies in the country.

Meanwhile, 242 United Nations staff remained in Iraq's three northern governorates: Dohuk, Erbil and Suleimaniyah.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said in Nairobi on Wednesday that the number of 100,000 internally displaced persons it had been feeding six months ago in the northwestern part of the country had quadrupled. "The situation is one of continual deterioration, with insecurity causing more and more people to leave their homes and to be in need of humanitarian assistance," said Gerard Van Dijk, WFP's Representative in Rwanda.

According to the United Nations agency, approximately 350,000 people have been displaced from their homes since the middle of the year. Aid agencies estimate that 75 per cent of these people are living in camp-like structures near a military post for protection. In Gisenyi, some 250,000 residents have left their homes, 40 per cent of whom are living in camps and the rest taking shelter in ad-hoc sites within their communities. "Many are living in the open air, with no protection from the rains which began last month, and in places where there is little access to clean water and poor conditions," Mr. Van Dijk said. As a result, he added, large numbers of these people were already getting sick.

WFP, which is one of the few aid agencies working in Rwanda's insecure northwestern region, said that it was planning to double the 2,000 metric tonnes of food it had been sending to feed the displaced persons each month.

The forum, the International Expert Group Meeting on the Regional Action Programme for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Asia, is taking place at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok from 10 to 13 November 1998. It was organized jointly by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the Secretariat of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

Participants in the meeting include officials familiar with the Convention's process from over 20 countries of the ESCAP region, representatives of the scientific community, experienced development practitioners and non-governmental organizations.

In his keynote address to the meeting, Mr. Pongpol Adireksarn, Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives of the Royal Thai Government stressed that desertification and drought were global problems affecting all regions of the world.

Mr. Adrianus Mooy, the Executive Secretary of ESCAP, said that the Asian and Pacific region, where half of the world's population resides, was identified as the region most affected by dryland problems caused by a range of unsustainable land-use factors, among others, over-grazing, over- cropping, poor irrigation practices and deforestation combined with climate variation.

In his statement, Mr.Hama Arba Diallo, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, warned that the threat of land degradation in the world was severe. He recalled the magnitude of this year's catastrophic flooding of the Yangtze area which affected 240 million people and caused vast economic losses estimated at over US$20 billion, and the 1997 forest fires in Indonesia which led to heavy economic loss, environmental cost and widespread health hazards.

The recommendations of the meeting will be presented to the Second Conference of Parties to the Convention to Combat Desertification scheduled to be held on 30 November to 11 December in Dakar, Senegal.

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

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