United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-03-15

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Monday, 15 March, 1999

HEADLINES

• Latest round of Afghan peace talks ends with agreement on four points as UN aid staff begin to return to Kabul.
• UN refugee agency reports worsening humanitarian situation in Kosovo.
• UN helicopter with 13 people on board missing in Haiti.
• Secretary-General's special envoy in Angola says UN is not abandoning the country.
• Explosion wrecks UN vehicle in northern Iraq.
• Agreement on new legal instrument hailed as major success in fight to end discrimination against women.
• UN food agency appeals for urgent funds to feed more than a million Tanzanians.
• UN cultural agency honours Mexican journalist for work to expose corruption.

As part of the agreement, the Taliban and the opposition alliance known as the United Front decided to release 20 prisoners each as soon as possible through the International Red Cross (ICRC). They also agreed to form shared executive, legislative and judicial branches of government and to continue talks to address the remaining issues and to implement the decisions already reached. The two sides decided to hold the next round of talks preferably inside Afghanistan at a mutually agreed site as soon as practicable. According to a UN spokesman, the sides agreed to meet again around the first week of April.

Andrew Tesoriere, the UN representative at the four-day talks said the two sides had taken a big first step forward on the road to a peace settlement.

Meanwhile, the director of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Afghanistan became the first UN international staff member to return to Kabul Sunday under the decision announced last Friday.

Five other international staff will arrive Tuesday to relieve UN workers providing assistance to victims of recent earthquakes. Other UN personnel will also be arriving in Kandahar later this week.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that clashes last week between Yugoslavian security units and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) forced approximately 12,000 villagers from their homes in the Prizren and Vucitrn areas. Another 6,000 people were displaced by fighting along the southern border with Macedonia. According to UNHCR, both the KLA and Yugoslavian forces denied humanitarian workers access to the affected areas.

UNHCR reported that at least 230,000 persons are now displaced within Kosovo as a result of the fighting, with another 170,000 having fled the province in the past year. Several hundred thousand who have not been forced to leave their homes nevertheless remain affected by the conflict.

Since the end of the first round of peace negotiations last February in Rambouillet, France, some 30,000 persons have been forced to flee their homes and endure miserable conditions in the surrounding forests and mountains, according to UNHCR. About 12,000 of them have been able to return after short absences.

Spokesman Fred Eckhard said the MI-8 Russian-made helicopter left Port-au- Prince en route to Cap Haitien at 7:25 p.m. and lost radio contact 15 minutes later with the UN Mission in Haiti.

On board were 6 Russians, 6 Argentines and an American who was an officer with the US company which contracted the helicopter, said Mr. Eckhard. The US Coast Guard was assisting in the search, but so far the helicopter had not been located.

Issa Diallo, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Angola, made the statement as he left the country on his way to New York. Mr. Diallo has served in Angola since last August after his predecessor, Alioune Blondin Beye, died in a place crash in June.

Meanwhile, UN agencies on Saturday completed the withdrawal of staff from Kuito as fighting intensified near that strategic capital of Bie province, said UN spokesman Fred Eckhard. Humanitarian organizations were now present in only 8 of the 18 provincial capitals and most relief aid was being delivered by air as access to 60 per cent of the country was restricted. Some 480,000 new internally displaced persons were receiving assistance in relatively safe areas.

Mr. Eckhard said negotiations were under way to ensure that humanitarian organizations could independently verify reports of additional displaced persons and host communities in critical condition throughout Angola. Relief agencies have confirmed the existence of 650,000 of the 1.5 million persons estimated to be seeking refuge within the country, said the spokesman.

The vehicle, which was in a parking lot of another UN agency, the World Health Organization (WHO), was extensively damaged in the explosion, said Mr. Eckhard. No casualties were reported as a result of the incident, which occurred on Friday.

According to preliminary investigations, it was believed the explosives were placed in the rear side of the vehicle, presumably on the back seat. "We have no clues as to the motives or the people behind the explosion," added Mr. Eckhard.

At a press conference in New York, Chairperson Patricia Flor said the optional protocol, adopted by the Commission on Friday after four years of intense negotiations, would allow women to take their grievances to the United Nations in case they could not get remedies within their own countries and within their own judicial systems.

When the Protocol comes into force, women, individually or in groups, will be able to submit complaints on sex discrimination and other violations of their rights under the Convention. The Protocol must be ratified by 10 States parties to the Convention before it enters into force.

Aloisa Woesgetter, the Chairperson of the working group which negotiated the Protocol, said the fact that it had no reservations was a great success and unusual for human rights instruments.

Angela King, the Secretary-General's Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, said the adoption of the Protocol would hopefully inspire the 22 other Member States which have not yet ratified the Convention to do so before the end of next year.

The Optional Protocol will go to the UN General Assembly for final adoption.

Due to serious crop failures in Tanzania, WFP said over the weekend that it needs to begin distributing food immediately to 1.4 million people living in 12 regions of the country. However, a recent appeal to donors for 20,000 metric tons of food aid valued at about $8 million raised only half that amount.

According to WFP's country director for Tanzania Irene Lacy, if the agency did not get additional funds to mount the operation soon, malnutrition and other hunger-related diseases might cost human lives. "The food aid, we're planning to distribute is the very minimum needed to stave off a major crisis," she said.

In a related development, WFP has approved a $23 million emergency food aid programme for people facing severe food shortages in Mauritania, Senegal, the Gambia and Cape Verde. The six-month operation will provide food to more than one million people living in areas affected by drought and below- average harvests.

Jes£s Blancornelas of Mexico will be awarded the $25,000 prize on 3 May in Bogota, Colombia, as part of the celebrations for World Press Freedom Day. Both activities are part of UNESCO's mission to promote the free flow of information and its activities in the interest of press freedom, media independence and pluralism.

Mr. Blancornelas is the co-founder and editor of the Tijuana-based Zeta news weekly as well as the vice-president of the Mexican Society of Journalists, which he helped to create in 1998 to fight for press freedom. Mr. Blancornelas has also been investigating the 1988 murder of Zeta co- founder Hector F‚lix Miranda.

The prize, chosen by a jury of 14 news professionals from around the world, honours each year a person, organization or institution that has made a notable contribution to the defence and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially if it involves risk.

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

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