United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-11-17

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 17 November, 1998

Latest Developments

HEADLINES

• Security Council demands that Federal Republic of Yugoslavia immediately arrest suspected war criminals.
• Security Council condemns attacks against civilians in Burundi and calls for swift punishment of culprits.
• United Nations weapons inspectors and humanitarian workers return to Iraq.
• UN refugee agency suspends airlift repatriation of Sierra Leoneans because of meningitis in camps.
• Secretary-General receives World Methodist Peace Award.

In a resolution adopted by 14 votes in favour with China abstaining, the Council demanded the "immediate and unconditional" arrest of Mile Mrksic, Miroslav Radic and Veselin Slijvancanin, who have been under indictment since November 1995 for their alleged involvement in the killing of unarmed men forcibly removed from the Vukovar Hospital in 1991.

The Council again called upon the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and all other States which had not already done so, to take any measures necessary under their domestic law to implement the Tribunal's Statute. It affirmed that "a State may not invoke provisions of its domestic law as justification for its failure to perform binding obligations under international law."

The Security Council reiterated that all States shall cooperate fully with the Tribunal, including executing its arrest warrants and complying with its requests for information and investigations.

The authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the leaders of the Kosovo Albanian community and all others concerned were called upon to cooperate fully with the Tribunal's Prosecutor in the investigation of all possible violations within its jurisdiction.

The Council was acting in response to a letter of 8 September from the Tribunal's President, Gabrielle Kirk McDonald. She had written that the persistent and continuing rejection of orders to arrest the three suspects was but the most blatant example of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's refusal to cooperate. Belgrade's continuing refusal to cooperate with the Tribunal displayed "a contempt for the authority of the Security Council," she said.

Explaining his country's decision to abstain, China's representative, Shen Guofang, said that questions arising in the work of the Tribunal should be settled through consultations by all sides concerned. "The Tribunal cannot become a political tool to exert pressure on the relevant sides," he said.

Following a briefing on the recent violence committed by both rebel forces and government troops in Burundi, Council President, Ambassador Peter Burleigh of the United States, told the press that the Council reiterated the need for the respect of human rights and humanitarian law in Burundi. It fully endorsed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's statement of November 13 which condemned the escalating cycle of violence in the country and reminded the Government of its responsibility to protect all its citizens.

Ambassador Burleigh added that the Council welcomed and encouraged the stated intention of the Government to investigate the massacre of civilians committed on 2 and 3 November and swiftly bring to justice those responsible for such atrocities. It expressed the hope that members of the Government's Commission of Inquiry would be granted immediate access to the site of the alleged massacre.

The Council again called for a renewed emphasis on the urgent need for all groups to participate in a negotiated settlement leading to a ceasefire established within the context of the Arusha process, Ambassador Burleigh said.

A United Nations spokesman said that an aircraft used by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) took 86 personnel into Baghdad. Spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters that these staff members would be reopening their offices and should, by Wednesday, begin to monitor declared sites in Iraq.

Mr. Eckhard said that UNSCOM, which is charged with overseeing the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, expected to start its full range of activities shortly.

On the humanitarian side, all the staff who had been pulled out of Iraq to Amman, Jordan, had returned to the Iraqi capital. As of Tuesday, approximately 150 of them had returned to Baghdad.

The return of all United Nations personnel to Baghdad has been authorized by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan after Iraq promised to comply fully with weapons inspectors of UNSCOM and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Seven cases of the disease were reported in camps in the Guinean Prefecture of Gueckedou, according to UNHCR Spokesman Kris Janowski. Over 3,500 Sierra Leoneans have been repatriated from the Gueckedou area to Freetown since August. All returnees undergo medical screening before going back to Sierra Leone.

"The operation þ- for which 1,800 inhabitants of Freetown have registered so far -þ will restart next week if no further cases of meningitis are identified in the refugee camps," Mr. Janowski told reporters in Geneva.

There are 350,000 Sierra Leonean refugees in Guinea and 90,000 in Liberia. More than 5,500 of those in Liberia are candidates for return.

"UNHCR so far has facilitated repatriation only to Freetown but is considering expanding returns to towns such as Bo and Kenema," Mr. Janowski said. Those towns are controlled by the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).

Mr. Annan took the occasion to recall that he had been educated at a Methodist institution, the Mfantsipim School in Ghana. "There, I was privileged to have teachers who understood the value of knowledge infused with a moral purpose," he said.

The Secretary-General recalled in particular how one of his teachers, Reverend Branful, had used a large sheet with a black dot to impart a lesson. Asked what they saw, his students had replied, "The black dot." Mr. Annan said the Reverend had questioned the students as to why they had only seen the dot, and not the vast spaces around it. "He was reminding us to always look beyond the obvious and beneath the surface, to bear in mind the larger picture, not to focus just on the blemishes," observed the Secretary-General. "He was teaching us also to remember that there is more than one side to a story, and more than one answer to a question."

The Secretary-General noted that peacemaking requires seeing conflicts in all their complexity. "To make peace, we may sometimes have to shake the hands of aggressors and lend our ears to voices of enmity," he said.

The Secretary-General said that "too much remains to be done, too many innocents are dying even as we meet, too many conflicts can be prevented for us to leave the field and abandon all hope." While the call to beat swords into plowshares may be only an ideal, he said if the United Nations could "help make that ideal more true than false, more promising than distant, more able to protect the innocent than embolden the guilty, we will have done our part."

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

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