United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-07-29

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Thursday, 29 July, 1999

HEADLINES

• Start-up of UN mission in Kosovo "moving along very well" -- US Secretary of State.
• Deployment of UN international police in Kosovo proceeds on schedule.
• Head of UN Kosovo mission, Secretary-General's special envoys to attend Sarajevo summit on Balkans stability.
• Security Council committee takes steps to give teeth to sanctions against Angola's rebel movement.
• Policy makers and academics gather at UN to discuss vital issues of human development.
• UN leaders condemn murder of Tamil human rights activist.
• UNICEF and Oxfam call for new development aid and faster relief for debt- ridden countries.
• UN agricultural agency says locust infestation threatens crops in Russia, Kazakhstan.

Speaking to the press after an hour-long briefing by Dr. Kouchner and KFOR commander Lt. General Mike Jackson, Secretary Albright said she was encouraged by the cooperation between the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and KFOR, the international security force, which, she noted, were working very well together.

Responding to a question about reported dissatisfaction with the speed of UNMIK deployment, Ms. Albright said, "I have not been critical of the speed. I have understood that this is a very difficult mission."

In comparison to other start-ups in other places, Ms. Albright said she thought this mission was "moving along very well. I respect what Ambassador Kouchner is doing. He's not alone. He has to be supported by the international community."

Mrs. Albright met separately at UNMIK headquarters with Dr. Kouchner and the heads of UNMIK's four "pillars" responsible for civil administration, humanitarian assistance, institution-building and reconstruction.

According to UNMIK, the discussions focused on the full range of issues facing the UN mission and KFOR, including the maintenance of security in the territory, establishment of respect for the rule of law, the early deployment of civilian police, deployment of customs officers at Kosovo's international borders and the need to support rapid rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts.

With the arrival in Pristina of 37 officers from Sweden and 101 police from Bangladesh over the past two days, the total number of UN police now stands at 372.

When fully deployed as part of the UN Interim Administration in Kosovo (UNMIK), UNMIK police will be charged with providing temporary law enforcement and developing a professional and impartial Kosovo Police Service.

During the initial period, while the international security force, KFOR, is responsible for ensuring public safety and order, the UN police is advising KFOR on civilian police functions and establishing contact with local communities.

According to UNMIK, UN civilian police officers are now deployed at all border crossing points with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania.

Dr. Bernard Kouchner, who heads the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), will join in Sarajevo Secretary-General's Special Envoys Carl Bildt and Eduard Kukan, who have been dispatched to take part in the two-day event organized to address peace and stability in the region.

On Friday, Mr. Bildt is scheduled to deliver, on behalf of the Secretary- General, a statement to the Summit, which brings together leaders from nearly 40 States. Human rights, economic reconstruction and security in countries of the region are among the issues on the forum's agenda.

The Committee wants to give teeth to "hitherto-ineffective sanctions" to make sure that violations are no-longer cost free, Committee Chairman Ambassador Robert Fowler of Canada said as he briefed the Security Council during its open meeting.

The sanctions which were put in place in 1993, prohibit the sale or supply of arms, petroleum or funding to UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola.

As part of his efforts to strengthen the sanctions, Ambassador Fowler is appointing two expert panels to address UNITA's sources of revenue, funding, petroleum supplies and military support. For the first time, the panels will provide the Committee with an independent research and investigation capability.

In his statement to the Council, Ambassador Fowler also reported on his recent visits to Africa and Europe, where he had extensive discussions with representatives of the diamond industry and European diamond markets alleged to be violating the sanctions.

The goal is not to inflict collateral damage on the legitimate diamond trade, Ambassador Fowler stressed, but to reduce UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi's diamond revenues estimated to have reached $3 to $4 billion since the early 1990s. The intention was to curtail UNITA's capacity to wage war by diminishing its revenues from diamond sales and increasing the cost of arms procurement.

The aim of his trip to central and southern Africa, the Chairman said, was to explore the effectiveness of the sanctions, urge governments to enact legislation or regulations and appeal for information, especially hard intelligence.

Ambassador Fowler stressed that the Security Council sanctions were not punitive in nature but aimed to establish conditions for a resumption of political dialogue, which was the only way to end Angola's decades- long civil war.

"One of the things we look for from experts like you is advice on how to manage globalization," Mr. Annan told government ministers, policy makers and academics at the Global Forum on Human Development that opened today at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

"We need to manage capital flows, so the years of hard-won progress are not suddenly wiped out, and so that fears generated in one region do not suddenly destabilize another," said Mr. Annan. "We need to manage industrialization and urbanization, so they do not cause irreversible damage to the environment."

The Secretary-General said that those who controlled financial resources must be persuaded to deploy them in ways that will enable the poor to lift themselves out of poverty.

The three-day Forum, which is organized by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is the first in a series of annual events to stimulate discussion and debate on recent innovations in human development concepts, measurements and policies. The events are intended to provide an opportunity for dialogue between the research community, policy makers and development practitioners.

UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown highlighted the importance of the Human Development Report released earlier this month. He described the UNDP- commissioned annual Report as an extraordinary advocacy tool and "a benchmark of our collective progress."

"The great next frontier we have to cross if we are to carry on this great mission of development and poverty reduction is the promotion of good governance," said Mr. Brown. Transparent, accountable institutions that respected human rights and dealt with corruption were vital, he stressed.

"I condemn this act of terrorism in the strongest terms," Mr. Annan said in a statement released in New York by his spokesman. "There could be no better tribute to Mr. Thiruchelvam's memory than to bring an end to the senseless violence in that long-suffering country," he continued.

Also reacting to the assassination, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson called the murder a direct attack on efforts to bring about reconciliation and build a culture of peace and respect for fundamental rights in the South Asian country.

"This killing should not be allowed to derail peace efforts," the High Commissioner said. She noted that Mr. Thiruchelvam had been actively involved in constitutional reform, had tirelessly defended human rights and had contributed to the search for a political solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka.

The Cologne Initiative authored by the G7 in June expanded the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) Initiative by approximately $28 billion, to be applied at the rate of $2 to $3 billion a year. Its central objective was to provide greater focus on poverty reduction be releasing resources for investment in health, education and social needs.

UNICEF and Oxfam assert that the most critical imperative now is to identify the actual new resources that will be used for debt relief and to hasten the release of HIPC from the debt crisis. At present, debtor countries must go through a complex six-year process simply to qualify for HIPC aid.

UNICEF and Oxfam say countries should qualify on the basis of a two- year record of progress towards economic reform and poverty reduction.

Addressing the G7's concern about the progress of economic reform in the HIPC, the agencies argue that universal access to basic social services like education are a great stimulus to economic growth.

"No country has ever reached its development goals when the majority of its people were suffering the deep poverty facing hundreds of millions in today's world," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said. "Economic reform and human development are not contradictory but interdependent," she continued.

According to a Special Alert released today by the agency's Global Information and Early Warning System on Food and Agriculture, the situation is serious as both farmers and the government in all the affected countries lack adequate resources and technology to deal effectively with the problem.

The locusts, in addition to causing severe localized damage to crops in Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, have laid eggs over millions of hectares. These eggs, unless destroyed, will hatch in the spring of 2000 posing a greater threat to next year's crops. Locust swarms have also moved into Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Locust infestations are an annual occurrence mainly in Kazakhstan and, to a lesser extent, in the Russian Federation, but the scale and intensity of the infestations have increased steadily over the past years, FAO said. In Russia, locust infestations are being reported this year from areas which have not experienced infestations since the 1920s.

In Kazakhstan, locust infestations in the drier western areas covered 1 million hectares this year, twice the area that had been anticipated earlier, the UN agency said.

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

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