United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-12-16

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Wednesday, 16 December, 1998

HEADLINES

• Security Council holds emergency consultations as U.S. and U.K. launch military strikes against Iraq.
• China and Russian Federation condemn military attacks against Iraq during Security Council meeting.
• Secretary-General deeply regrets his efforts to prevent use of force against Iraq were insufficient.
• Head of UNSCOM reports Iraq failed to fully cooperate with weapons inspectors.
• United Nations arms inspectors evacuated from Iraq but humanitarian workers stay on duty.
• Security Council meets to discuss post-conflict peace- building.
• A UN commission awards over $230 million in damages arising out of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
• Senior United Nations official launches 1999 inter-agency humanitarian appeal.
• Secretary-General's envoy says detention of journalists in Sierra Leone violates freedom of expression.
• UN health agency warns of shortage of vaccines needed for upcoming meningitis season in Africa.

The meeting came after Richard Butler, the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), delivered a report on Tuesday night claiming that Iraq had failed to live up to its agreement to cooperate fully with weapons inspectors.

In a letter to the Council, Secretary-General Kofi Annan suggested it consider three possible options: not to move ahead with a comprehensive review of Iraq's compliance; allow more time for Iraq to demonstrate its commitment to cooperate; or go ahead with a review to know precisely what has been achieved in the disarmament area since 1991.

Speaking to the press outside the Council Chamber, Ambassador Qin Huasun of China, told correspondents that there was no excuse or pretext for using force against Iraq as it would only threaten international peace and regional stability.

Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon said a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) indicated Iraq had cooperated. The UNSCOM report was politically motivated and very much influenced by United States policy, he said.

The report says Iraq failed to cooperate with United Nations weapons inspectors.

The Ambassador of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov, said the strikes were a threat to peace and security in the region and beyond. The United States and the United Kingdom had grossly violated the United Nations Charter, the principles of international law and generally recognized norms and rules.

"We reject outright", he continued, attempts by the United States and the United Kingdom to justify the use of force on the basis of previous Council resolutions. The potential for political and diplomatic solutions had not been exhausted, he added.

The Ambassador of China, Qin Huasun, also condemned the military action and said the attacks were completely unprovoked and unjustified. The use of force would not help any settlement and might create serious consequences for the implementation of Council resolutions, for relations between the UN and Iraq and for peace and stability.

Both the Russian Federation and China criticized the report by UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler. Ambassador Qin said Mr. Butler had played a dishonest role with his unfounded report and it would be difficult for him to shirk his responsibilities for the crisis. Mr. Lavrov described the report as distorted and said it had created the current crisis.

Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon said as he spoke, bombs were falling over his country's cities and villages. He described the aggression as the most glaring evidence of the absence of principles in international relations and the submission of the world to the authority of absolute power. The day was a grim one for United Nations and for the Council, he added.

He said the attacks had been launched before Council members had reached any conclusions about the UNSCOM report and flouted the prestige of the Council. The United States had once again flouted international law and the UN Charter.

The Ambassador of the United Kingdom, Jeremy Greenstock, said the decision to launch strikes had not been a hasty one. Iraq had deliberately provoked a series of crises to wear down the international community's will. The UNSCOM report made clear that Iraq had, once again, failed to keep its promises. "The whole continuing history of concealment and deceit is the reason why we have reached the point of military action," he added.

United States Ambassador Peter Burleigh said it was "attacking Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and its ability to threaten its neighbours". Coalition forces were acting under the authority of Council resolutions. The action was a necessary and proportionate response to Iraq's continued refusal to comply with the resolutions and to the threat to international peace and security which Iraq's non-compliance represented.

"My thoughts tonight are with the people of Iraq, the 370 United Nations humanitarian workers who remain in the country, and with all others whose lives are in danger," he said.

It was also a very sad day for him personally, the Secretary-General continued. Throughout the year, he said, he had done everything in his power to ensure peaceful compliance with Security Council resolutions, and to avert the use of force. However, daunting the task, the United Nations had to try as long as any hope of peace remained. "I deeply regret that today these efforts have proved insufficient".

What had happened could not be reversed, Mr. Annan said. "Nor can any of us foresee the future. All we know is that tomorrow, as yesterday, there will still be an acute need, in Iraq and in the wider region, for humanitarian relief and healing diplomacy." In both these tasks, the United Nations will be ready, as ever, to play its part, he said.

A report by Richard Butler, the Executive Chairman of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), claims that "Iraq did not provide the compliance it promised on 14 November. In addition, during the period under review, Iraq initiated new forms of restrictions on the Commission's work".

Ambassador Butler delivered his report to Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Tuesday night.

Despite the opportunity presented in the last month, including the prospect of a comprehensive review, the report says, Iraq's conduct ensured no progress in either disarmament or the accounting for its prohibited weapons programmes.

Since UNSCOM resumed its work on 17 November, Iraq had not provided full access to inspectors nor had it handed over requested documents. Those documents were available in Iraq and would be invaluable in helping close the gaps and achieve acceptable confidence in Iraq's declarations.

Some monitoring operations were allowed, Mr. Butler said. However, in light of "clear evidence" that Iraq had taken advance actions at certain locations in order to defeat the purposes of inspections, he said he had decided not to conduct the full range of inspections planned. No inspections of presidential sites took place, he added.

The report concludes "Iraq's current claims that it has fulfilled all its disarmament obligations in each weapons area; ceased concealment policies and actions; and that it has neither proscribed weapons nor the ability to make them, cannot be accepted without further verification".

In a separate report, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said that since 17 November, Iraq "has provided the necessary level of cooperation to enable the ... activities to be completed efficiently and effectively".

There were another 232 international and 880 local staff in the three northern governorates of Dohuk, Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, he said. All international staff in Baghdad had been instructed to move immediately to the UN offices in the Canal Hotel.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan had received a phone call on Tuesday night from United States Ambassador Peter Burleigh informing him that Americans were being asked to leave, said Mr. Eckhard. The U.S. had also advised Ambassador Richard Butler to withdraw UNSCOM personnel. The Director- General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, decided to relocate his staff temporarily to Bahrain.

On Wednesday morning, Lloyds Register, a United Kingdom company which authenticates and certifies the arrival of humanitarian supplies under the UN oil-for-food programme, said it was withdrawing staff. Oil experts from the Dutch firm, Saybolt, were on duty and there was no interruption to the monitoring of oil exports from Ceyhan in Turkey or the loading platform of Mina Al-Bakr in Iraq, Mr. Eckhard added.

One of 15 speakers, the Ambassador of the Russian Federation, Sergey Lavrov, said the international community's peacekeeping efforts must be more effective, absolutely impartial and have clearly defined mandates. He described force as an exceptional and extreme measure to be used only when there was a real threat to international peace and then, only through a Council decision.

The United Kingdom Ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock, told the Council its role in conflict resolution could only be effective if part of a wider effort by the UN system. He said account must be taken of the role of international financial institutions and such regional organizations as the European Union in post-conflict peacebuilding.

The United States Ambassador, Peter Burleigh, said Member States needed to understand and manage better tasks that went beyond peacekeeping to peacebuilding.

Equal attention should be given to all post-conflict regions with no double standard in providing assistance, said Chinese Ambassador Qin Huasun. The type of development chosen by a country should be respected and there should be no political connections to assistance, he added.

Alain Dejammet of France said the overall objective was good governance and those emerging from conflict should learn how to share power. Attention must be given to national reconciliation, including the demobilization and reintegration of combatants, developing dialogue and human rights and establishing economic and social infrastructure, particularly educational systems.

The awards were approved by the Governing Council of the United Nations Compensation Commission which concluded its thirtieth session in Geneva under the Presidency of Ambassador Goncalo de Santa Clara Gomes of Portugal.

In total, the Council approved payment of over $53 million for claims filed by 129 individuals and more than $181 million for ten large claims filed by corporations from six countries.

Under a resolution adopted in 1991, the Security Council established a Fund to compensate any direct loss, damage or injury to foreign governments, nationals or corporations resulting from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Iraq was required to contribute to the Fund an amount not exceeding 30 per cent of the annual value of its oil exports.

In 1993 the Fund's Governing Council appointed nine jurists and experts as Commissioners to examine claims and recommend compensation. The first payments, concerning humanitarian cases, were awarded in June 1994.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs launched the appeals in Geneva for $1.3 billion on behalf of the United Nations agencies and Programmes. Mr. de Mello said that the figure was roughly equivalent to a half day's total military expenditure but would serve to protect some 25 million people from starvation or disease, and help to rebuild the lives destroyed by the scourge of war.

It was the first time that the United Nations was presenting its planned annual humanitarian programme for countries at one occasion. The new appeals reflected enhanced efforts in accordance with the Secretary- General's reform programme to have a more coherent approach in dealing with humanitarian crises.

Mr. de Mello, who is also the Emergency Relief Coordinator said that, through strengthening and rationalizing the consolidated appeals process, the United Nations had been able to significantly reduce its requirements for relief assistance from the 1998 figure of $2.2 billion.

He said that the challenges involved in providing humanitarian assistance were enormous, ranging from insecurity and lack of access to the need for a high level of coordination among humanitarian partners, both within and outside the United Nations family.

The appeal covers the needs in Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Former Yugoslavia and Albania, Guinea-Bissau, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Uganda and the Great Lakes region of Africa.

The three journalists working as stringers for the BBC were being held in police detention after their arrest on December 8 under the "emergency powers regulations" imposing restraints on press coverage of the conflict there, United Nations Spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Wednesday.

Mr. Eckhard said that the Secretary-General's Special Envoy had made representations to the government of Sierra Leone on the grounds that the action against the journalists violated the right of freedom of expression. Mr. Okelo had also offered the assistance of the United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (UNOMSIL) regarding the interpretation of the emergency power regulations, effective since March, in a manner consistent with the right of freedom of expression.

Spokesman Eckhard said that the development would be raised in the Secretary-General's report on Sierra Leone to the Security Council to be issued shortly as scheduled.

The Geneva-based WHO said that a minimum global stock of 7 million doses was needed. Yet, available stockpiles contained only 6 million vaccines to deal with the current epidemic which began in 1996.

So far there had been 300,000 cases of meningitis from Senegal in the west to Mozambique in the south-east of Africa. Dr. Lindsay Martinez, Director of WHO's Department of Communicable Disease Surveillance and Response said that countries still being hit by the current epidemic needed an effective international response which meant maintaining sufficient vaccine stocks and a smoothly functioning system.

Dr. Martinez said that historically, meningitis epidemics occurred once every decade or so and lasted two to four years. He warned that given the fact that several African countries affected by meningitis had not yet experienced an upsurge in this epidemic cycle, the number of cases might increase dramatically in the near future. Approximately 280 million people are at risk across the "meningitis belt", which extends from Ethiopia in the east to Senegal in the west. WHO said that the countries worst affected so far included Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.

According to WHO, the African meningitis season normally runs from late autumn through spring, with the bulk of cases reported from February onwards.

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

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