United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-06-21

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Monday, 21 June, 1999

HEADLINES

• Everybody must draw lessons from Kosovo, Secretary-General says on visit to Russia.
• United Nations faces unprecedented tasks in Kosovo, says head of UN mission.
• Kosovo refugees return home in growing numbers -- UNHCR.
• Head of UN mission in Kosovo welcomes KLA's agreement to disarm.
• UN war crimes tribunal's investigative teams start probes in Kosovo.
• UN officials welcome G8 announcement to cancel $70 billion in debt of world's poorest countries.
• Security Council members voice concern over situation in Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Marking Africa Refugee Day, head of UNHCR hails importance of key African convention.
• Agreement in principle reached on small UN mission for Angola.
• First UN police observers arrive in East Timor as preparations for autonomy vote gather speed.

The Secretary-General made his remarks during a press encounter in St. Petersburg, where he arrived on Monday on the first leg of his four- day official visit to the Russian Federation, where he is scheduled to meet with President Boris Yeltsin, Prime Minister Sergey Stepashin and other senior Russian officials.

Mr. Annan arrived in St. Petersburg from Paris, where he met on Sunday with President Jacques Chirac to discuss the situation in Kosovo, including the role of the UN in the return and protection of refugees and the setting up of a civilian administration in the province. The two leaders also exchanged views on the situation in Africa, including the developments in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea-Bissau and Angola. Their discussions also touched on the issue of Kashmir and the question of sanctions against Iraq.

Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, the Secretary- General said, in response to a question, that for the moment he did not have any plans to go to Kosovo, but that he was in daily contact with his Acting Special Representative there.

On the question of Iraq, Mr. Annan said that in his discussions with President Chirac they had agreed on the need for a lasting solution. We must work effectively and discretely, he said, to find a solution that would be of value for Iraq and for the region.

"The UN has been assigned the enormous task of rebuilding Kosovo into a functioning, democratic, tolerant and autonomous society," said Sergio Vieira de Mello, the Secretary-General's interim Special Representative in Kosovo. He was speaking at a press conference in Pristina on Sunday, after making a public announcement spelling out the authority of the head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).

Mr. Vieira de Mello said he would perform the executive functions of government until new legitimate authorities were established. In the next few days, he would appoint international interim administrators at the district and municipal level, deploy an international civilian police force and take steps to re-establish a multi-ethnic and democratic judicial system.

International organizations such as the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) would help to implement these and other responsibilities, said Mr. Vieira de Mello. The international military force, known as KFOR, would ensure public safety and order until UNMIK could assume full responsibility for that task, he added.

Leading an advance team, Mr. Vieira de Mello arrived in Pristina on 13 June, three days after the Security Council had adopted a landmark resolution authorizing the UN mission. His team had already formed close working relations with local authorities to maintain and develop civil administration, utilities, justice and media, he said.

"We have already met with a broad range of political figures in Kosovo. In the coming days we will establish proper consultative mechanisms to fully engage them and the local population in our work. The full participation of the people of Kosovo will be essential to our joint success," he said.

Meanwhile, Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Monday appointed senior officials who will be responsible for two major components of the UN mission. Dominique Vian was named Deputy Special Representative for the interim civil administration, while Dennis McNamara, UNHCR's Special Envoy for the region, was appointed Deputy Special Representative in charge of refugee return and humanitarian assistance.

More than 60,000 refugees in the two neighbouring countries returned to the battered province over the weekend, UNHCR said, bringing the total number of returnees so far to nearly 140,000. Most of those going back have been travelling in their own cars and tractors, while others have hired taxis or minivans.

According to UNHCR, fewer than 35,000 of 112,000 refugees remain in Kukes, Albania, near the Kosovo border, while less than 5,000 are still in camps. In the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, more than 27,000 refugees headed for home, bringing the total to 49,500 that have already returned.

Meanwhile, UNHCR said truck convoys delivering food and other relief supplies continued to fan out from the Kosovo capital of Pristina, reaching as far west as Pec. Aid agencies are also drawing up plans to use helicopters for airlifting urgently needed relief supplies to remote and inaccessible areas.

In a related development, UNHCR reported that some 150 medical personnel who had been seeking refuge in Montenegro volunteered to return to Kosovo to begin work in hospitals as doctors, nurses and aides.

The UN agency also launched an effort to assist an estimated 50,000 displaced Kosovo Serbs. On Saturday, UNHCR dispatched a relief convoy with 140 metric tonnes of aid to ten municipalities in central Serbia which have the largest concentrations of displaced Serb Kosovars.

Speaking to the press in Pristina, after an announcement that the agreement had been signed on Sunday night, the Secretary-General's acting Special Representative, Sergio Vieira de Mello, described the KLA's undertaking as "a very good news". It meant that armed people would no longer be roaming Kosovo's streets, he said.

Mr. Vieira de Mello also said the agreement would facilitate the work of the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), particularly in the deployment of police.

The signing of this document is very important since it means that UN police will be deployed by the end of the week and take possession of police stations currently controlled by the KLA, the Special Representative said. "They can then play the traditional role of civilian police, in urban centres and elsewhere in the province, side-by-side, with the international military force."

The teams, which have been in the Yugoslav province for four days, have begun investigating war crime scenes at seven sites mentioned in the Tribunal's indictment of President Slobodan Milosevic, said the spokesman.

On 27 May the Tribunal indicted President Milosevic and four other senior Yugoslav and Serb officials for crimes against humanity in Kosovo and issued warrants for their arrest.

The US and UK teams, which started their investigations at Velika Krusa, will be joined by investigators from other nations this week to help with additional sites at Racak, where there was a massacre in January, as well as Blavo Crkva, Djakovica, Crkolez and Izbitza.

"I know that you are going to do your countries and the UN proud," said UN Police Commissioner Alan Mills, welcoming the police officers who had flown in on Monday from Darwin after completing their training.

The 41 observers, part of the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), are among the 280-strong police force whose job will be to advise the Indonesian police and ensure there is a secure environment for the 8 August ballot. Fifteen of the officers are from Australia, with 10 from New Zealand, seven from the United Kingdom, six from Spain and three from Ireland.

Meanwhile the first group of 70 United Nations Volunteers is scheduled to arrive in East Timor on Wednesday, according to a UNAMET spokesman in Dili. They will be deployed in Baucau and Dili, where Regional Electoral Offices are already running, to register voters and man polling stations. By the end of the week, all eight Offices should be open.

Sadako Ogata, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), made her appeal in a statement issued on 20 June in observance of Africa Refugee Day, which marks the entry into force -- on that very day 25 years ago - - of the Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugees in Africa.

Originally signed in 1969 by 34 members of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the Convention took the accepted definition of a refugee and expanded it with new principles, such as refugee status for entire groups of people and provisions for voluntary repatriation.

Praising the treaty as an "outstanding model" deserving of remembrance, the High Commissioner stressed that despite the dramatic increase in the number of refugees in Africa and the complex challenges facing countries and aid workers alike, "the OAU Refugee Convention is as relevant now as it was 30 years ago.

"UNHCR, the OAU and nations on the continent will continue to rely on the wisdom of this 30-year-old document to meet the challenge of assisting future refugees," Mrs. Ogata said, noting that it had been a cornerstone of UNHCR's efforts in Africa since it came into effect on 20 June 1974.

Since its creation in 1951, UNHCR has expanded its presence in Africa from a single bureau in Cairo to over 2,000 staff working in 110 offices in 42 countries throughout the continent.

Following talks with the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping, Bernard Miyet, on Friday, the Angolan Minister for External Relations agreed that a small UN mission would include political, information and humanitarian components, Spokesman Fred Eckhard said. There was no agreement, as yet, on military observers or human rights monitors, but more discussions would follow, added the spokesman.

The mandate of MONUA, the previous UN mission in Angola, was terminated last February by the Security Council on the recommendation of the Secretary-General who said the peace process had collapsed and the country was in a state of war.

Meanwhile, the spokesman said some 50 United Nations staff and personnel from non-governmental organizations are pinned down by fighting in Huambo in central Angola.

In a statement to the media, Council President Ambassador Baboucarr- Blaise I. Jagne of Gambia, said Council members expressed their hope for a successful outcome to the summit this weekend in Lusaka, Zambia, to discuss the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Council members were also preparing a formal statement on the matter, he added.

Earlier Monday, the Council heard a briefing by Moustapha Niasse, the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the peace process in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who had returned to New York last Friday after his 15-country mission to Africa.

In recent months, the United Nations has urged the seven leading industrialized countries and Russia to provide relief for the world's heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs), arguing that the crushing debt burden and world financial crisis have returned millions of people to poverty and reversed decades of economic development.

A spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the UN leader welcomed the "very significant commitments" made at the G8 meeting. "He expresses the hope that financial resources will be made available shortly to implement the proposed measures," Spokesman Fred Eckhard said.

In Nairobi, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Klaus Toepfer, called debt relief a necessary pre-condition for sustainable development and an important step towards increasing resources for education, health and the environment. "In order to achieve poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability, it is also important that the international community increase its level of overseas development assistance (ODA) to deserving countries," Mr. Toepfer said.

The G8's debt relief plan would also free up needed funds for health concerns, said Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the UN World Health Organization (WHO). "Whereas 90 percent of the disease burden is in developing countries, these countries have access to only 10 percent of the resources going to health," she said.

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

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