United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-01-20

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

Wednesday, 20 January, 1999

HEADLINES

• Security Council members urge Taliban, all Afghan sides, to stop fighting and resume negotiations.
• Security Council strongly condemns massacre of Kosovo Albanians in Southern Kosovo.
• Denied access to Kosovo, Prosecutor of tribunal for former Yugoslavia says investigative efforts seriously hampered.
• Hard work ahead in disarmament and non-proliferation, Secretary- General tells his think tank on arms control.
• UNESCO Director-General calls for peaceful settlement of conflict in Angola.
• UN Special adviser on gender issues address women's anti- discrimination committee.
• UN population agency says Asian economic crisis affecting women and girls hardest.
• Criminal tribunal for Rwanda starts to speed up trials of genocide suspects.

In a statement to the press following a briefing on the situation in the country, the President of the Council, Ambassador Celso Amorim of Brazil, said that Council members reiterated their deep concern with the continuing Afghan conflict and its negative impact on international and regional peace and security and on Afghan people.

Council members called on all Afghan groups, in particular, the Taliban, to put an end to discrimination against girls and women and continuing violations of other human rights in Afghanistan. They also called on those groups to halt the cultivation, production and trafficking of illegal drugs. Members of the Security Council also demanded that the Taliban stop providing sanctuary and training for international terrorists and their organizations, and that all Afghan factions cooperate with efforts to bring indicted terrorists to justice.

Council members further demanded that the Taliban show its full commitment to the security of all international and humanitarian personnel which, it said, was a prerequisite for their activities in the country. They urged all parties, especially the Taliban, to resume cooperation with the United Nations for a speedy investigations of the mass killings of May 1997 and August 1998.

In a presidential statement at a late-evening meeting on Tuesday, the Security Council noted with deep concern that the victims of the massacre were civilians, including women and at least one child, as reported by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM).

The statement, read out by Council President, Ambassador Celso Amorim of Brazil, also took note of the assessment by the Head of the KVM, Ambassador William Walker, that the responsibility for the massacre lay with Yugoslav security forces and that uniformed members of both the Yugoslav armed forces and Serbian special police had been involved.

Emphasizing the need for an urgent and full investigation of the facts, the Council urgently called on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to work with the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and KVM to ensure that those responsible were brought to justice. The Security Council deplored the decision by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to refuse access to the prosecutor of the Tribunal and called on Yugoslav authorities to cooperate fully with it in carrying out an investigation in Kosovo in line relevant resolutions.

Deploring the decision by Belgrade to declare Ambassador Walker persona non grata, the Council reaffirmed its full support for him and the efforts of the OSCE to facilitate a peaceful settlement. It called on Belgrade to rescind this decision and to cooperate fully with Mr. Walker and the KVM.

Noting that against clear KVM advice, Serb forces had returned to Racak on 17 January, the Council said that it considered that the events in Racak constituted the latest in a series of threats to the efforts to peacefully settle this conflict.

The Council condemned the shooting of the KVM personnel on 15 January and all actions endangering KVM and international personnel and reaffirmed its full commitment to the safety and security of the monitors. It strongly called on the parties to cease immediately all acts of violence and to engage in talks on a lasting settlement.

In a statement issued in Skopje, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Justice Louise Arbour said that she had travelled to the city on Monday with the intention of proceeding to Kosovo. However, she was informed by officials of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on Tuesday that they had been unable to secure the compliance of President Slobodan Milosevic with NATO's demand to grant her office access to Kosovo to investigate the alleged war crimes.

Justice Arbour said she continued to hope that President Milosevic could be persuaded to assist her office in uncovering the full truth of what happened at Racak. Regarding the Yugoslav legal arguments to deny the jurisdiction of the tribunal, she reiterated the position put to the Minister of Justice on Tuesday that granting her office access to Kosovo for investigative purposes would not constitute an admission by Belgrade that the tribunal had any jurisdiction in this matter. She undertook not to use her access to the territory of Yugoslavia as evidence that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had voluntarily submitted to the jurisdiction of the tribunal.

Mrs. Arbour stressed "in the strongest terms" that the efforts of her office were seriously hampered by its inability to conduct on-site investigations. Nevertheless, she said, she was determined that this investigation would proceed, adding that even though her office had been denied access to Kosovo, its team would remain in the region to assemble information and gather evidence. She said that the investigators were ready to proceed to Kosovo as soon as acceptable form of access was granted.

In an appeal launched in Paris today, UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor said he sincerely believed that opting for all-out violence in Angola was the worst choice. "This is a grave mistake as violence breeds nothing but violence," he added.

Mr. Mayor called for imagination and courage to seek a peaceful solution with the help of the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity. He stressed that those who supplied arms and the necessary means of war must be aware that they would not facilitate the opening of dialogue and the peaceful settlement of "this bloody conflict" in Angola.

The head of UNESCO said that the international community could not remain inactive in the face of the "dramatic predicament" which the Angolan children, women and men had faced for many years. It was surprising and morally unacceptable that, especially following the Lusaka Protocol, all the international institutions and mechanisms only served in this case to observe and report on the massive violation of the most fundamental human rights, Mr. Mayor said.

The Advisory Board, a United Nations think tank established in 1978, advises the UN Secretary-General on disarmament and arms limitation issues.

In a message to the Board, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said that despite his efforts to re-focus attention on disarmament and non- proliferation, last year's disturbing events in South Asia demonstrated "we must work harder still".

India and Pakistan's "regrettable actions" had focused attention on the need for a more prescient policy, where the emphasis was not only on furthering disarmament regimes, but also on ways to sustain them, said Mr. Annan in the message, which was delivered by the Under-Secretary- General for Disarmament Affairs, Jayantha Dhanapala.

Mr. Annan said the scourge of small arms continued to devastate civilian populations, creating humanitarian crises all over the world. The weapons of personal destruction impaired economic and social progress, and impeded development efforts, the Secretary-General added.

In West Africa, he continued, the UN was helping to implement the moratorium on the import, export and manufacture of light weapons. If successful, he said, the ban could lead to a renaissance of peace in the region, and serve as an example to a continent whose economic and social development had been all-too-often hindered by internal strife and conflict.

In an address to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, Ms. King said that despite the increase in the number of States parties to the Convention, the target of universality remained elusive. The goal was realistic, she continued, but a concerted effort was needed to encourage the 20 or so countries that had not yet joined the treaty.

The Committee of 23 experts monitors implementation of the Convention, which is often referred to as a "bill of rights for women". During the current three-week session, the Committee will discuss measures by seven countries to ensure women's political, cultural and economic advancement.

The report, entitled "Southeast Asian Populations in Crisis -- Challenges to the Implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action", is a joint project by the UNFPA and the Australian National University. It examines the impact of the economic crisis, especially in relation to women, in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and Philippines.

Increased unemployment has resulted in massive increases in the numbers of people living below or close to the poverty line, creating a "new poor", the report says. If finds women are disproportionately affected because entrenchments are most severe in sectors where they are prominent.

Budget cuts have reduced reproductive health services and the depreciation in exchange rates has affected the supply and affordability of medicines, the report says. The reduced access to reproductive health services is leading more young women to choose unsafe abortions. Many women are also turning to the commercial sex industry to find work and support their families. These new recruits are likely to be poorly equipped to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS, according to the report.

The tribunal, based in Arusha, Tanzania, said that it would begin to implement the measures next Monday in the trial of Alfred Musema, a former Director of Gisovu Tea Factory in Kibuye Prefecture. The measures, adopted last year, include a decision that judgement and sentencing would be dealt with as one and not two separate procedures. They also include the decision to have conferences before either of the parties presents in order to allow judges to shorten examination of witnesses or to reduce the number of witnesses to be called to prove the same facts.

Mr. Musema, who was arrested on 11 February 1995 in Switzerland and transferred to Arusha on 20 May 1997, is charged with seven counts of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, crimes against humanity and serious violations of the Geneva Conventions. He is alleged to have committed these crimes in Gisovu and Sishyita Communes in the Kibuye Prefecture of Rwanda between April and June 1994. During his initial appearance on 18 November 1997, Mr. Musema pleaded not guilty to all the counts against him.

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

United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article