United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-03-16

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

Tuesday, 16 March, 1999

HEADLINES

• UN Secretary-General joins President Clinton in call for action to relieve Africa's debt burden.
• UN search team reports no survivors of UN helicopter crash in Haiti.
• Murder of human rights lawyer in Northern Ireland draws strong condemnation of UN officials.
• UN representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina expresses 'shock and horror' at car-bomb attack in Sarajevo.
• Despite improved cash inflow, UN still faces financial difficulties, budget committee told.
• UN refugee agency looks to proposed peace agreement on Kosovo to alleviate plight of displaced persons.
• Fighting in Democratic Republic of Congo is driving more refugees to Zambia - UNHCR.
• UN agencies play key role in campaign to provide children with Vitamin A.
• UN commission on drugs opens annual session in Vienna focusing on drug control targets, programme reform.
• President of UN Yugoslav war crimes tribunal to leave post in November.

In an address at the opening of the three-day US-African ministerial conference in Washington, DC, the Secretary-General revisited some major themes of his report on Africa to the Security Council last April, including his call for action at the highest levels to reduce the continent's crippling debt burden.

In his speech, Mr. Annan stressed the importance of the US helping Africa reach its full potential. Africa needs partnership with America to be as profound in its consequences as it is admirable in its aspiration, he said. "We need to look to the last half-century of European and Asian development to see what is possible when America commits its strength, its resources, its will, and its generosity," said the Secretary-General.

For his part, President Clinton called on the international community to take a broad approach to debt relief that would result in significant debt forgiveness. The President also pledged to improve the initiative for heavily indebted poor countries and other measures outlined in the Secretary-General's report on Africa.

After the conference's opening ceremonies, Mr. Annan had a trilateral meeting with Salim Salim, the Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. They discussed the border conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; attempts to end the fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; peace efforts in Sierra Leone and support for ECOMOG, the West African peacekeeping force.

Spokesman Fred Eckhard said on Tuesday that the search team, which reached the crash site the previous evening, had reported most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition. Those on board included six members of the Argentinean National Gendarmerie serving with the UN Civilian Police Mission in Haiti (MIPONUH) and six Russians and an American from the International Charter Incorporated Helicopter Company.

The helicopter had been on its way to Labadie on the north coast of Haiti to assist a seriously injured person, said Mr. Eckhard. The UN would send an air safety expert to join the investigation of the crash.

In a statement on Tuesday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed profound sadness at learning of the deaths of the 13 people on board the helicopter and sent his condolences to their families.

Members of the Security Council also conveyed their sympathies to the families of the victims. In a statement to the press, Council President Ambassador Qin Huasun of China, said Council members had expressed appreciation to the Haitian and US governments for their rescue efforts.

Reacting to the murder of Rosemary Nelson, who died from injuries suffered in a car bomb attack on Monday, Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed shock at the brutal act, stressing that she had made a major contribution in the fight for human rights.

In Geneva, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson said in a statement that the attack on Rosemary Nelson seemed designed to keep the communities in Northern Ireland from achieving reconciliation and full respect for the rights of all citizens. Urging the people of Northern Ireland not to be deflected from the peace process, the High Commissioner said that pursuing "the road to peace and human rights is the greatest tribute they could pay to her memory."

Meanwhile, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Param Cumaraswamy, recalled on Tuesday the numerous death threats to Ms. Nelson in the past few years as a result of her defence of human rights.

The Special Rapporteur called on the Government "to establish an independent and impartial commission of inquiry to investigate this brutal crime, to apprehend those responsible and to bring them to justice."

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Elisabeth Rehn, expressed her shock and horror at the explosion, which occurred near the United States embassy, and pledged the full support of the UN mission in Bosnia to the investigation into the case.

The explosion seriously injured the Bosnian Federation Deputy Minister of the Interior, Jozo Leutar, who had been instrumental in the establishment of the ministry. Two other occupants in the car sustained lesser injuries, according to a spokesperson for the UN mission in the country.

Speaking to the Administrative and Budgetary Committee, also known as the Fifth Committee, Mr. Connor said that for the first time in four years, the Organization was borrowing less from peacekeeping funds to cover regular budget activities, and cash balances were higher. Mr. Connor said that these changes were due mainly to increased payments by the United States. He pointed out, however, that while that country had contributed an amount exceeding its assessed contribution for 1998, it still owed 76 per cent of all unpaid regular budget assessments at the end of 1998.

Overall, the level of unpaid regular budget assessments was decreasing substantially, Mr. Connor told the Committee which began to discuss the improvement of the United Nations' financial situation. He added that in 1995, unpaid regular budget assessments had been $564 million while at the end of 1998, they came to $417 million and the deficit in the regular budget cash was down.

Still, the Under-Secretary-General said, "we have no capital, we have no reserves, we borrow from some Member States to make up for the income we do not get from other Member States."

The United Nations would assess its Members about $1.8 billion in 1999 to cover the regular budget, peacekeeping, and the two ad hoc international tribunals, compared to $2 billion in 1998, and $4 billion in 1995, Mr. Connor said. He added that assessments for the regular budget had been relatively consistent, while peacekeeping assessments had decreased from over $3 billion in 1994 to an anticipated $650 million in 1999, while assessments for the tribunals had risen steeply: $99 million in 1998 and $155 million in 1999.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Tuesday that with clashes spreading to new, previously not affected areas, the fighting was causing more displacement of people in Kosovo. According to UNHCR estimates, at least 9,000 people had been driven from their homes since the Kosovo talks resumed in Paris on Monday.

The UN agency said that the level of fighting across Kosovo and the intensity of displacement had reached the highest level yet since the October 27 ceasefire. Fighting returned to the Klina area this week for the first time since last summer, forcing thousands of people to flee again, UNHCR added.

The UN agency said that its staff had seen several smouldering houses in the deserted village of Svrhe, after the Yugoslav army pounded the area with artillery shells, allegedly responding to an attack by the Kosovo Liberation Army. UNHCR also said that new fighting had raged in the Vucitrn, Srbca and Mitrovica regions where some villages had been subjected to continuous shelling.

UNHCR said that its staff in northern Zambia were bracing for the arrival of more Congolese refugees and that at the Kalanda border crossing they heard gunfire from across the border as they counted 900 arrivals in a single hour on Monday. There were no injuries reported among the latest arrivals, the UN agency added.

UNHCR said that it was difficult to estimate the total number of new arrivals as more refugees were entering Zambia from other points along the border. Since 5 March, Zambia had received at least 6,000 Congolese refugees, including 750 DRC soldiers and policemen, the UN agency added.

Meanwhile, UNHCR continued to assist the refugees in the town of Kaputa, where continued rains had made sanitation an urgent priority. The UN agency said that it would shortly move the refugees to a site at Mporokoso, which is about 200 kilometres further inland from Kaputa.

The United Nations owed Member States $872 million for troops and contingent-owned equipment at the end of 1998 -- virtually the same as 1997 and 1996, Mr. Connor said. He warned that without significant payment of arrears, this debt would remain intractable.

Known as a Global Vitamin A Partnership, the campaign, which was re- launched in Washington and New York, is aimed at saving millions of young lives by either fortifying foods with vitamin A or providing an efficient twice-a-year capsule that costs only two cents to produce.

Speaking to members of the Partnership at a luncheon in Washington D.C. UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said that vitamin A was needed by 100 million children around the world. The luncheon was hosted by United States First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Brian Attwood, the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Ms. Bellamy praised the assembled representatives of governments and corporations and commended countries like Zambia and the Philippines where vitamin A fortification and supplementation have been highly successful. She also welcomed the United Kingdom which has joined the Global Vitamin A Partnership.

UNICEF has been working with USAID, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ottawa-based Micronutrient Initiative (MI) to ensure that capsules and fortified foods are available in areas of need. Vitamin A reduces death from measles and diarrhoea.

The 53-member Commission on Narcotic Drugs will also review an expert report on how the UN International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) should be strengthened as well as a list of substances to be controlled under two international drug treaties.

The Commission will discuss progress governments have made in implementing action plans laid down at last year's special session to significantly reduce drug supply and demand over the next decade. Nations at that event agreed to draw up strategies aimed at combatting illicit drug use and production and demonstrate by 2008 substantial results against all illegal drug activity.

Another crucial item on the Commission's agenda will be the report of a 13- member high-level expert group appointed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in which the panel recommends the Commission be restructured into two segments -- one concerned solely with executive-level decisions about the UNDCP and the other directed specifically at drug control policy.

Among the report's other suggestions are the establishment of a separate governing body for the UNDCP, which would allow developing countries to interact with the agency during the Commission's intersessional periods, and the creation of a global drug facility so that international drug control projects could tap the resources of global financial institutions such as the World Bank.

In a letter to her staff, Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald of the United States said she would not leave her commitment to justice in the Hague and would continue to support the Tribunal's work in any way she could. She said her resignation would be effective from 17 November, or as soon as cases to which she was assigned were completed.

Judge McDonald was elected by the UN General Assembly as one of the Tribunal's original 11 judges in September 1993 and was re-elected on 20 May 1997 for a second four-year term. She has been a vigorous advocate for the establishment of strong ties between the Yugoslav Tribunal in the Hague and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She is also fully committed to the setting up of a permanent international criminal court.

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

United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article