United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-06-24

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Thursday, 24 June, 1999

HEADLINES

• Head of UN mission in Kosovo appeals to NATO countries to send administrators and civilian police.
• UNHCR set to begin organized return of refugees to safe areas in Kosovo.
• UNICEF to school all Kosovo children; steps up mine-awareness efforts.
• Secretary-General urges patience by Kosovar Albanians while UN readies war-torn province for their return.
• Security Council calls on parties fighting in Democratic Republic of the Congo to sign ceasefire.
• UN and Iraq reach understanding on makeup of technical mission to visit UNSCOM laboratories in Baghdad.
• Secretary-General's personal envoy arrives in East Timor for meetings with local security officials.
• UN human rights chief in Sierra Leone to support peace process.
• UN refugee agency urges world not to forget Commonwealth of Independent States and other troubled regions.
• UN drug control programme announces multi-agency database on global drug seizures.
• Democratic Republic of Congo files proceedings against 3 countries before International Court of Justice.

Sergio Vieira de Mello, who is in charge of setting up the UN operations in Kosovo, appealed for police contingents during a meeting on Thursday in Pristina with NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana and the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Wesley Clark. He made a similar appeal on Wednesday when he met the foreign Ministers of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) needs 3, 000 international police officers, said UN Spokesman Fred Eckhard. Although several countries had indicated their willingness to supply police, the offers had not yet been confirmed. "We need policing capacity now, before lawlessness prevails, after which it will be very hard to introduce order," added Mr. Eckhard.

In other developments in Kosovo, a group of Albanian and Serb leaders, met separately with Mr. Solana and General Clark, and then had their first public encounter at UNMIK headquarters. Serb Archbishop Artemije and Kosovo Liberation Army leader Thaci shook hands and exchanged a few words, the Spokesman said.

Meanwhile, at a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York, Carl Bildt, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy for the Balkans, said UNMIK was moving quickly to set up its administrative authority. A lot of attention was centered on the power vacuum as it was important to prevent any one group from assuming functions and powers they did not have. Attention would turn to economic conditions as there was a desperate need for food, jobs and economic regulation, he said.

UNHCR Special Envoy Dennis McNamara, said on Thursday that organized returns to Urosevac, Prizren and Pristina could begin as early as next week from camps in neighbouring Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Organized movements to other areas will follow as soon as basic requirements for safe and sustainable return are met. These include a secure environment, established international presence by UNHCR and its non- governmental organization partners, and the availability of shelter, food and other assistance.

Despite the dangers posed by landmines and other security threats and the very difficult conditions in their towns and villages, more than 250,000 refugees have returned spontaneously to their homes.

According to UNICEF, Kosovo's education system has been devastated, with many schools vandalized or destroyed and an unknown number of teachers injured or killed. A rapid UNICEF assessment of 13 schools west and south of the provincial capital, found only three considered safe.

Plans are underway to make temporary repairs to moderately damaged primary schools to prepare them for winter, said UNICEF. But many schoolrooms will have to be housed in alternative structures such as the tents used in refugee camps in Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

"We need the time to be able to prepare the ground, to be able to prepare shelter, to be able to preposition food, for us to be able to look after them when they get back," the Secretary-General said to reporters following wide-ranging talks in London with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Secretary-General said the UN had originally planned for 400,000 Kosovar Albanians to go back before the winter, but with the recent spate of spontaneous returns, "the number may be much higher than that."

Mr. Annan is in London for an unofficial visit, where he is scheduled to make two major speeches Friday and Monday. Before departing Moscow, the Secretary-General met with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and had a broad review of the international agenda, including Kosovo.

In a presidential statement read by Council President Ambassador Baboucarr- Blaise I. Jagne of Gambia, the Council reaffirmed its commitment to preserving the national unity, sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and all other States in the Great Lakes region.

The Council further reaffirmed its support for the regional mediation process promoted by the President of Zambia on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) in cooperation with the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

In emphasizing the need for a peaceful settlement to the conflict, the Council also stressed the need for a continuing process of genuine national reconciliation and democratization in all States of the Great Lakes region.

In a statement on Thursday, the Spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the mission will be conducted by independent technical experts who will be accompanied by UN staff as well as diplomatic observers. The mission is expected to be carried out in the next two weeks.

Ambassador Jamsheed Marker is scheduled to speak with local military and police commanders and members of the high-level Indonesian Task Force, the Government's counterpart to the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), which is organizing a ballot later this summer on the territory's future. Tomorrow, Ambassador Marker will visit UN electoral offices and talk with UNAMET personnel before travelling back to Jakarta, according to a UN spokesman.

In other developments, the Secretary-General has appointed Brigadier Rezaqul Haider of Bangladesh as Chief Military Liaison Officer for UNAMET. Early next week, the UN will observe a meeting organized by East Timorese church leaders for leaders of pro-independence and pro-integration factions. Xanana Gusmao, a leader of the National Council for East Timorese Resistance (CNRT), is expected to attend, as well as leaders drawn from the diaspora.

During her two-day trip, Mrs. Robinson is scheduled to meet with President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and other senior officials, as well as members of human rights organizations operating in Sierra Leone. The High Commissioner is accompanied by a high-level advisory panel, which includes the former President of Botswana, Ketumile Masire, and a number of human rights experts.

Mrs. Robinson's trip comes as Government and rebel representatives are conducting peace talks in Togo. The High Commissioner is expected to emphasize the establishment of some form of truth and reconciliation commission as well as visit survivors of rights abuses and sites of atrocities in order to draw attention to the plight of women, children and other vulnerable groups.

In a separate announcement yesterday, the Office of the High Commissioner said Mrs. Robinson has approved over $5 million in grants to organizations supporting torture victims.

The money, which comes from the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture, will benefit some 130 organizations providing medical, psychiatric, psychological, social, economic, legal, humanitarian and other forms of assistance to victims of torture and their families all over the world.

An estimated 60,000 torture victims and their families were assisted last year.

Speaking before a two-day meeting in Geneva on Thursday, Mr. Jessen- Petersen said there was a very real danger that the CIS countries would slip down the international agenda.

Representatives from 51 countries are attending the Fourth Steering Group meeting to follow-up on a programme of action adopted at a 1996 conference. That conference addressed the problems of more than 9 million people who moved between and within the CIS countries after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Since the 1996 conference, several States had signed or are considering accession to the 1951 Refugee Convention, said Mr. Jessen- Petersen. There had also been encouraging steps to introduce national refugee and citizenship laws. Lasting solutions had been found for Crimean Tartars in Ukraine and an international effort had been launched to explore durable solutions for the Meskhetian Turks, said the Deputy High Commissioner.

The database, which combines vital information collected by UNDCP, the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) and the World Customs Organization (WCO) about global drug seizures, is a major breakthrough in efforts to more clearly understand the scale and dynamics of illicit drug trading. The database already contains more than 10,000 records, which will be constantly updated by the three agencies.

Through the database, the three agencies will be able to communicate regularly and jointly assess the latest information about global trends in drug trafficking, passing on their results to governments and other decision-makers working on drug enforcement strategies.

WCO stressed in its latest annual report, "Customs and Drugs," that drug trafficking was a major component of transnational crime and urged law enforcers to form strong national and international partnerships.

According to UNDCP, the new database should serve as a springboard for closer and more effective cooperation among law enforcers, help them develop more comprehensive operational strategies and boost information sharing as well as training.

The petition filed yesterday in The Hague contends that troops from Burundi, Uganda and Rwanda committed acts of armed aggression "in flagrant breach of the United Nations Charter and of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity (OAU)." The three countries are also accused of attempting to assassinate President Kabila with the intent of installing a Tutsi regime or a regime under Tutsi control.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is asking the ICJ to order the troops out of the territory of the Congo and seeking compensation for "all acts of looting, destruction, removal of property and of persons and other unlawful acts attributable" to the States concerned.

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

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