United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-07-07

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Wednesday, 7 July, 1999

HEADLINES

• Secretary-General welcomes signing of Sierra Leone peace accord.
• Minority Serbs and Romas in Kosovo request 24-hour protection from ethnic violence -- UNHCR.
• Expert team headed for Baghdad to dismantle laboratories of UN Special Commission on Iraq.
• Famine threatens a million people in Somalia, says UN.
• World Health Organization enlists new partners in latest push to eradicate polio by 2001.
• UN to implement humanitarian programme for thousands affected by unrest in Solomon Islands.

In a statement by his Spokesman, the Secretary-General warmly welcomed the signing of the accord, which ends years of brutal warfare and called on the parties to honour their commitments. "He sincerely hopes that the people of Sierra Leone can now begin rebuilding their country and their lives," said Spokesman Fred Eckhard.

The Secretary-General saluted the political courage of Sierra Leonean President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, as well as the leaders of the region who supported the peace effort.

During his stay in the Senegalese capital of Dakar, the Secretary- General met with President Abdul Diouf to discuss recent efforts to peacefully resolve the 18-year rebellion in Senegal's southern region of Casamance. They also spoke about other regional issues including Angola, Somalia, Sudan, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania and Libya.

The Secretary-General is scheduled to travel to Sierra Leone and Liberia tomorrow, and will then visit Guinea, Nigeria and Algeria, where he will attend the annual Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit.

According to the UN agency, small groups of Serb and Roma civilians want KFOR, the international military force, to provide 24-hour protection. Otherwise they want to be evacuated to Montenegro and Serbia proper. In one village, 54 Serbs said returning Kosovars had threatened to kill them and without a KFOR presence they would leave. In another village, six Serbs and 11 Roma told UNHCR they wanted to go to Montenegro and asked for a KFOR escort.

UNHCR has received similar requests for protection from Serb minorities in Dajkovica and Orahovac. On Tuesday, agency staff visited the Strpce area which has become a sanctuary for Kosovo Serbs. Around 11,000 people are believed to have sought sanctuary there and UNHCR described a "climate of fear and uncertainty about the future." In Darcane, KFOR troops rescued several Serb children when their house was set on fire by unknown people after their parents left on an errand.

Meanwhile, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the acting head of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), visited the western town of Pec on Wednesday as part of his continuing effort to explain the Mission's purpose to local community leaders and seek their support.

Mr. Vieira de Mello, who is the Secretary-General's acting Special Representative, met with the head of the main Pec monastery, which is a refuge for Serbs fleeing violence. He also spoke with a top Albanian leader. "We know we have to rebuild the administration of Kosovo and with your cooperation I know we will succeed," Mr. Vieira de Mello said while in the devastated city.

During the war, the entire city centre of Pec was gutted by fire, but signs of economic life are emerging, said a UN spokesman. People have begun repairing and rebuilding what they can and household supplies and food are being sold on the street.

In other developments, a team from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and its Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat) is designing strategies so local authorities and communities can participate in the massive reconstruction effort in Kosovo. The UNEP/Habitat Balkans Task Force team will create mechanisms for land title registration, resolving tenancy and property disputes and strengthening municipal administration and leadership.

The five-person team will include four experts from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and one independent biological weapons expert.

The technical mission is scheduled to leave tomorrow for Bahrain, where they will be briefed by UNSCOM on the lab. Upon arriving in Baghdad, the team will be joined by the Acting Director of the UNSCOM office, Jaakko Ylitalo, and the Secretary-General's Special Envoy in Baghdad, Prakash Shah of India. Three foreign diplomats based in Iraq will also accompany the team, the UN spokesman said.

The appeal was launched in Nairobi by the Somalia Aid Coordination Body, a group of UN agencies, donor countries, and relief organizations. The UN estimates that 30,000 tons of food will be needed to feed a million people over the next six months.

According to the UN, a lack of rain, poor harvests and a shortage of pasture and water for livestock have affected crop yields. Increased factional fighting, general instability and higher food import prices have also undermined food security for vulnerable groups.

At a news conference at London's National Portrait Gallery, WHO and UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, unveiled the action plan for wiping out the poliovirus, which would make it only the second disease after smallpox to be eradicated.

The UN health agency said it will conduct massive vaccination campaigns over the next few months -- especially in places where there is conflict or intense transmission of the poliovirus -- as it deals with a major polio outbreak in Angola, the largest ever recorded in Africa.

WHO said the $2.7 million contribution by De Beers will help fund Angola's National Immunization Days, which the Government plans to conduct during 1999 and 2000. Under this programme, 3.3 million children will be vaccinated in six rounds of nationwide immunization days.

At the announcement ceremony, Lord Snowdon displayed his photographs of Angolan children paralyzed by the disease taken when he travelled to the country in May as a WHO Special Envoy to document the tragic events and emergency vaccination campaign there.

"I hope my pictures help send a strong message to governments and donors around the world so that future generations of children can grow up without the risk of polio," said Lord Snowdon, who himself had polio. "I also hope my portraits give the polio sufferers the dignity they deserve."

At a press conference at UN Headquarters, Kevin Kennedy, from the Department of Humanitarian Affairs, said the "fairly modest but effective" programme would be carried out in conjunction with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the government and local non- governmental organizations.

Mr. Kennedy led a UN mission to the Solomon Islands to assess the needs of an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people affected by ethnic tensions, which recently erupted on the main island of Guadalcanal, between indigenous people and settlers from neighbouring Malaita. Frictions centre around land ownership issues, control of resources and general resentment towards Malaita people, who are perceived to have disproportionately benefitted from economic development.

The humanitarian team focused on the plight of Malaitans forced out of their homes and Guadalcanal natives who had moved into the bush to escape the conflict, said Mr. Kennedy. People needed food to tide them over until the next harvest in October or November, tools to rebuild homes and harvest crops and also protection against malaria.

The team, which was in the Solomon Islands from 27 June to 5 July, included representatives from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Departments of Political and Humanitarian Affairs.

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

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