United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-12-08

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 8 December, 1998

HEADLINES

• Security Council backs proposal for human rights monitors to join UN mission in Afghanistan.
• General Assembly authorizes renewal of United Nations civilian mission to Haiti until 31 December 1999.
• Importance of international criminal justice, fight against terrorism highlighted, as Assembly adopts reports of its legal committee.
• In Paris, Secretary-General takes part in events marking anniversary of human rights declaration.
• Head of United Nations health agency calls for inclusion of health as basic human right.
• Secretary-General is shocked by reports that four foreign hostages are found decapitated in Chechnya.
• UN making strides in "comprehensive, top-to-bottom overhaul", Deputy Secretary-General tells parliamentarians in London.
• United Nations food agency delivers food to 10,000 victims of Hurricane Mitch in Honduras.
• UNICEF sounds warning over growing mass illiteracy.

In resolution 1214 (1998) adopted unanimously, the Council supported Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposal to create a civilian unit to be part of the United Nations Special Mission to Afghanistan (UNSMA). An assessment team will be sent to the country, as soon as security conditions permit, to determine the exact mandate, composition and location of the civilian monitors.

Further, the Council encouraged the Secretary-General to dispatch a mission to Afghanistan to investigate reports of grave breaches of international humanitarian law, particularly mass killings and mass graves of prisoners of war and civilians, and the destruction of religious sites. It urged all parties, particularly the Taliban, to cooperate with the mission and ensure safety and freedom of movement for its personnel.

Condemning the Taliban's capture of the Iranian Consulate-General and the murder of Iranian diplomats and a journalist in Mazar-e-Sharif, the Council stressed that those acts were flagrant violations of international law. It called on the Taliban to cooperate with the United Nations in investigating the crimes.

The Council demanded that the Taliban stop providing sanctuary and training for international terrorists and that all Afghan factions cooperate with efforts to bring indicted terrorists to justice.

It also demanded that all Afghan factions end discrimination against women and girls and that the Taliban and others halt the cultivation, production and trafficking of illegal drugs.

All fifteen members of the Council, as well as the representatives of Pakistan and Iran, made statements during the debate on the situation in Afghanistan.

In a resolution adopted without a vote, the Assembly welcomed the recommendation of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to extend for one year the United Nations component of the joint Organization of American States/United Nations International Civilian Mission to Haiti (MICIVIH). The current mandate of the mission expires on 31 December 1998.

In his report to the Assembly, the Secretary-General recommended that the Mission should be extended with the current mandate and staff level to continue to focus on institutional consolidation and provide technical assistance to the justice system during the implementation of the judicial reform. The Secretary-General said that along with the prison administration, the judiciary and the Office of the Ombudsman, the police were the main focus of the Mission's attention in its efforts to enhance respect for human rights and due process in Haiti.

In its resolution, the General Assembly urged the Haitian authorities and political parties to continue their efforts to find a compromise that will bring to an end the political crisis in the country. It called on them to mobilize political will for the pursuit of the reform and strengthening of Haiti's system of justice, including the improvement of the country's prisons.

The Assembly strongly condemned all terrorist acts as criminal and unjustifiable and decided that work will begin on an international convention to suppress terrorist financing. The proposed convention would supplement existing international treaties.

The Assembly's Ad Hoc Committee on international terrorism will elaborate a draft on terrorist financing and continue its elaboration of an international convention for the suppression of nuclear terrorism. It would also address how to further elaborate, on a priority basis, a comprehensive convention on international terrorism.

During the 1999 session, the Assembly will decide on the question of convening a high-level United Nations conference in the year 2000 to formulate a joint, organized response by the international community to counter terrorism.

In another resolution, the Assembly expressed alarm over recent acts of violence against diplomats and officials of international intergovernmental organizations. It urged States to enhance the protection and security of diplomatic missions.

The texts covered such issues as the functioning of the International Criminal Court and assistance to third States whose economies are affected by United Nations sanctions. The Assembly also decided to increase by four, the membership of the Committee on Relations with the Host Country.

The Secretary-General was addressing a meeting organized by the French Republic and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The meeting, under the theme "Human rights on the eve of the 21st century," was held at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

The Secretary-General said that human rights were now included in a growing number of peace keeping and peace making operations," because we know that in post-conflict societies, reconstruction begins with human rights."

The Secretary-General also said that human rights were increasingly emphasized in United Nations development activities, "not only because there is a right to development, but because lasting and genuine development cannot take root in the absence of human rights."

The Secretary-General said that the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration gave the United Nations inspiration and guidance. The declaration, he said, was "a mirror that, at once, flatters us and shames us, that bears witness to a record of progress for part of humanity, while revealing a history of horrors for others."

Earlier, the Secretary-General addressed the National Assembly where he was welcomed by its President, Laurent Fabius. He said that the United Nations had a privileged relationship with Parliamentarians who directly represented the people. He also spoke of the need for further thought to be given to the "raison d'etre" of the United Nations in the new world order.

Later in the evening, the Secretary-General went to Palais de Chaillot to receive a book representing 10 million signatures in favour of human rights. The book was presented by Pierre Sane, the Secretary- General of Amnesty International. In his statement, Mr. Annan paid tribute to human rights defenders around the world. He said that these "exceptionally brave" people, lawyers, reporters, trade unionists, and ordinary men and women, risked their freedom or even their lives to promote and uphold the rights of everyone. "We owe it to them, these defenders of our freedom, to do all we can to defend theirs," the Secretary-General stressed.

In her first major policy statement since taking over in July 1998 as the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland said that the principle of health and access to health for all was central to the development of humankind.

Chairing a round table in Paris, hosted by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to mark the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Dr. Brundtland spoke of the imbalance in access to health care. She noted that the developing world carried 90 per cent of the disease burden, yet poorer countries had access to only 10 per cent of the resources that go to health.

Stressing that girls and women were particularly vulnerable, Dr. Brundtland said that their right to equal health had to be especially protected. She identified female genital mutilation as a major violation of human rights and as violence against women. The head of WHO said that other areas of importance to her agency which affected people's basic right to full, productive and healthy lives were malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and the scourge of tobacco.

A statement issued by his spokesman said that the hostages were found in a region where kidnappings have become common. Among the foreigners who have been kidnapped in that region is Vincent Cochetel of France who headed the United Nations refugee agency's office in North Ossetia near Chechnya. Mr. Cochtel has spent 313 days in captivity and efforts to obtain his release have so far yielded no results.

The Secretary-General's spokesman said that Mr. Annan met with Cochetel's family in Paris on Tuesday. The Secretary-General also told reporters at a press encounter that he would speak with Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov as part of his ongoing efforts and contacts with Russian officials to try to bring Cochetel home.

Ms. Frechette, who is in London on an official visit, stressed in her address to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Overseas Development that in the name of greater agility, clarity and cohesiveness, the United Nations has been moving aggressively to discard outmoded ways of doing business, improve coordination and embrace new technologies.

Highlighting some of the key reform measures, Ms. Frechette said that thanks to cost-cutting efforts, $13 million in administrative savings has been transferred to a Development Account established for this purpose. "We are committed to increasing this amount over time, and expect to find about $40 million in savings from the next biennial budget that can be reallocated to development", she said.

Ms. Frechette noted, however, that the reform process was taking place under very difficult conditions caused by a chronic financial crisis stemming, in part, from the fact that Member States owed the Organization more than $2.3 billion in arrears to the regular and peacekeeping budgets. At the same time, under the present rule of "zero nominal growth" the UN budget was actually shrinking, in real terms, from year to year, said the Deputy Secretary-General.

Also on Tuesday, Ms. Frechette addressed the Overseas Development Institute on the issue of global governance. Yesterday, she met with the United Kingdom's Secretary of State for International Development, Claire Short.

The World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday that the victims were living in 170 villages scattered along the Patuca River in an area cut off after its only bridge was washed away by floodwaters in the Olancho province. Although the people had been forced to fend for themselves without food or medicine, no deaths were reported.

WFP said that with the help of Canadian Air Force helicopters, the first food relief was delivered to the villagers on Monday. WFP staff also started transporting food by barge and boat from La Ceiba to the area, using the Patuca River.

The United Nations food agency widened its food distribution to Central America's hurricane victims when on 12 November it announced a six-month emergency operation totalling $58 million. The agency plans to bring more than 116,000 tonnes of food to a total of 1.1 million people in Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, the countries most heavily damaged by Hurricane Mitch. In Honduras alone, 700,000 people are expected to benefit from the relief assistance.

The report, entitled "The State of the World's Children 1999", focuses on the causes and impact of mass illiteracy and what to do about it. An estimated 21 per cent of primary-school age children, two thirds of them girls, do not attend school. Many of the 250 million children who work cannot go to school and about 150 million who begin primary education never reach the fifth grade.

Speaking in London, Carol Bellamy, UNICEF's Executive Director, said a billion people, two-thirds of them women, lack the skills to fill out a simple application, much less use a telephone or a computer. The ranks of these functional illiterates are swelled every year by tens of millions of children who reach adulthood without a basic education.

Ms. Bellamy said illiteracy had devastating consequences, especially for women and girls. At the same time, when education was widely available rates of child malnutrition, maternal mortality and fertility declined significantly. Basic education was the key to easing violence and to promoting greater financial and social stability for societies and families. It would cost an additional $7 billion annually over the next 10 years to ensure free, compulsory primary education, said Ms. Bellamy.

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

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