United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-08-06

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Friday, 6 August, 1999

HEADLINES

• Security Council authorizes deployment of UN military personnel in Democratic Republic of the Congo.
• Field deployment of UN civilian police in Kosovo set to start over the weekend.
• UN mission's Pristina regional administration moves to Municipal Building to join Kosovar civil servants.
• Aid starts flowing into Kosovo through FYR of Macedonia after Skopje government lifts transit fee -- UNHCR.
• Sudan ceasefire announcement welcomed by Secretary-General.
• Secretary-General calls on Afghan factions to stop "senseless self- destruction" as thousands flee fighting.
• Swiss Attorney-General nominated to head UN Yugoslav and Rwanda war crimes tribunals.
• Rebels in Sierra Leone hold UN team hostage for third day.
• New forum set up for sharing data on post-harvest research and development.

By a unanimous vote, the Council agreed to send military liaison personnel to the capitals of the six nations -- the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Namibia, Uganda, Rwanda and Zimbabwe -- that signed the Ceasefire Agreement on 10 July in Lusaka, Zambia. The officers will be accompanied by the necessary civilian, political and humanitarian support staff.

The military officers will also be deployed to the provisional headquarters of the Joint Military Commission (JMC) -- created by the peace accord to disarm the fighters and verify the ceasefire -- and, security permitting, to the rear military headquarters of the main belligerents and anywhere else the Secretary-General deems necessary.

Under the resolution, the UN group, to be deployed for a period of three months, will establish contacts and liaise with the JMC and provide it with technical assistance.

The mission will also provide the Secretary-General with information to help refine a possible further role for the UN in the implementation of the Agreement, once it is signed by all parties, as well as secure guarantees of cooperation and security assurances for the possible deployment of military observers.

In his 15 July report to the Council, the Secretary-General said he was also prepared, to recommend a further deployment of up to 500 military observers within the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, as required, to the belligerent and other neighbouring states.

By its action today, the Security Council also welcomed the signing of the Lusaka Agreement on 1 August by one of the armed opposition groups, the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo. However, the Council expressed deep concern that the Congolese Rally for Democracy still has not signed the accord and called on it to sign the Agreement without delay.

Speaking to the press in Pristina, Sven Fredericksen said UN civilian officers would first be on the beat in Pristina, where the crime rate remained very high.

There continued to be too many cases of harassment of minority groups and capital crimes in the provincial capital, which could only be contained by a greater law enforcement presence, Commissioner Fredericksen said.

UN civilian officers, operating as part of the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), will work out of Pristina's existing police stations and from substations to be set up in the city's "hot spots."

The UN civilian police force þ- which now numbers 474 police and is being enhanced at a rate of 200 additional officers a week -- will continue to work alongside the KFOR international security force, which currently retains responsibility for law and order in Kosovo. UN civilian police will take over law enforcement activities from KFOR on a "step-by-step" basis, Mr. Fredericksen said.

Responding to questions about the task of building an indigenous Kosovo police force, the Commissioner said the plan was to develop a democratic, ethnically mixed indigenous contingent that would be sent into the field to work with UN civilian officers.

All local trainees would be instructed to cooperate with each other and to treat every Kosovar individually. "If they can't handle this, they are not worth being police officers and they will be kicked out," the Commissioner said.

According to UNMIK, the move marked a milestone and demonstrated the UN mission's partnership with Kosovar workers performing essential public services.

"This is an important moment in the history of the United Nations mandate in Kosovo and in the history of Pristina," said Dominque Vian, Deputy Representative of the Secretary-General for Civil Administration in Kosovo. "It is a concrete expression of our shared desire to build a democracy in Kosovo founded on human rights."

The Pristina Administration is one of five regional offices established by UNMIK as bases for UN efforts to help rebuild the province's civil infrastructure and economy.

The UN Administrator of the Pristina regional office, Enrique Aguilar, called the move "a unique occasion to bring international community representatives to work alongside their Kosovo Albanian and Kosovo Serb counterparts."

Under UNMIK supervision, Kosovars have been returning to work at the Municipal Building over the past several weeks. By late September, it is expected that some 400 employees will be back in place at the Municipal Building administering health, education and welfare services.

Convoys of aid trucks started moving to Kosovo after the Skopje government told representatives of UNHCR and major donors this morning that it would waive the customs charge of nearly DM 640 per truckload or train car of goods crossing the border. The fee, which was imposed in mid-July, brought the aid pipeline to a halt and led to a huge backup of supplies.

UNHCR warmly welcomed the move and encouraged the international community to respond favourably to requests from the Skopje government for support to defray the costs of facilities and services the country provided to facilitate the delivery of aid into Kosovo.

In a statement issued at UN Headquarters in New York, the Secretary- General stressed that the halt in fighting was "essential" for providing much-needed relief aid to hundreds of thousands of civilians, mostly women and children, affected by the ongoing conflict.

The Secretary-General called on the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) to consider extending the scope of the ceasefire and "thus contribute to the creation of an enabling environment for humanitarian operations in Sudan."

In mid-July, the SPLM/A agreed on the extension of a humanitarian ceasefire for the western and central Upper Nile regions of the country.

"I count on the continued support of the Government and the SPLM for the unhindered and safe provision by UN humanitarian agencies and non- governmental organizations of relief to all those in need of humanitarian aid throughout the country," the Secretary-General said.

In a statement by his Spokesman, Mr. Annan said the changing fortunes of the parties on the battlefield "vividly illustrate that the Afghan conflict can never be resolved through force and the gain or loss of territory will not bring peace".

The Secretary-General described as "alarming" reports of massive forced displacement of civilians and said UN personnel and others were trying to ascertain those responsible for the human rights violations. UN staff were also assessing the needs of people affected by the fighting and were prepared to provide whatever help was available.

"But the parties responsible for such disasters," the Secretary- General said, "cannot, cynically, commit such criminal acts and then turn to the UN and the international community as a whole to help save their own people from disasters provoked by those who claim to be their country's leaders."

Equally disturbing, Mr. Annan stressed, were reports that, in addition to the arms, ammunition and other war materials being liberally supplied to the factions by foreign supporters, thousands of non-Afghan nationals were now taking part in the fighting.

The Secretary-General warned that even as a purely internal conflict, the Afghan crisis was a clear menace to regional peace and security. "Should the transnational aspect be allowed to take root as it clearly threatens to do, the potential dangers will increase greatly and it will be much more difficult to prevent the conflict from spreading beyond Afghan borders," said Mr. Annan.

According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), between 100,000 to 140,000 people have been displaced after 6 days of heavy fighting between the ruling Taliban and the Northern Alliance.

Initially, the Taliban assumed control of more than 90 per cent of Afghan territory but, according to reports on Friday, some of this territory may have been recaptured by the Northern Alliance. However, the threat of a counter-offensive and the risk of landmines makes it difficult for the UN to send an assessment team into the Shamali Plain area, UNHCR said.

A UN spokesman said on Friday that the Secretary-General had forwarded the nomination to the Security Council, which formally appoints prosecutors and judges to the Tribunals.

Ms. Del Ponte has wide experience at the national and international level combating organized crime, money laundering and illegal arms trafficking. She will replace the former Prosecutor, Louise Arbour, a Canadian judge who has been appointed to her country's supreme court.

"I was looking for a strong and experienced prosecutor, and I think she is very good," Mr. Annan told reporters Friday at UN headquarters in New York.

A date had not yet been set for the Security Council to take action on Ms. Del Ponte's nomination, the spokesman said.

The Prosecutor of the Yugoslav and Rwanda Tribunals is appointed for a four- year term and is based in The Hague.

The team from the UN mission, escorted by Nigerian troops from the Economic Community of West African States' Monitoring Observer Group (ECOMOG), and a Sierra Leone bishop, were seized on Wednesday by a group of rebels not related to the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which signed a ceasefire agreement with the Government last month.

The UN group had gone to the Ocra Hills to gain the release of 100 children abducted by the rebels during Sierra Leone's civil war. However, instead of releasing the children, the rebels detained the delegation and presented a list of demands.

So far, the rebels have released a bishop, a UN spokeswoman and three military observers as well as a journalist with Reuters, and a Human Rights officer.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special Representative for Sierra Leone, Francis Okelo, is rushing back to Freetown to deal with the crisis, said the spokesman.

Mr. Okelo has just concluded three days of meetings in New York with an ECOMOG delegation. The discussions focused on future arrangements and the division of labour in Sierra Leone between the West African peacekeepers and the United Nations.

Meanwhile, because of the lack of security, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has suspended its scheduled distribution of food to some 9,000 people in the area where the hostages were seized.

Ten institutions will participate in the new forum, called PhAction, with the goal of creating and developing post-harvest information systems and raising the profile of post-harvest research. They will share information and develop and deliver innovative post-harvest systems in collaboration with a range of public and private sector partners in developing countries.

FAO said the problem of post-harvest losses is especially dramatic in developing countries, where loss of cereals is between 10 and 20 per cent and of fruits and vegetables as high as 20 to 100 per cent. The UN agency estimates that a 10 per cent savings of post-harvest losses in Asian rice would mean a savings of 5 million tonnes of food a year.

"Food security has two legs", said Francois Mazaud, Senior Officer of FAO's post-harvest management group. He stressed that after the production of food products, the second leg of food security involves all the levels of processing, storage and transporting that will allow consumers to have access to the food product.

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

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