United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-08-11

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Wednesday, 11 August, 1999

HEADLINES

• UN mission in Kosovo beefs up civilian police presence in provincial capital.
• Violence against Kosovo Serbs in Pristina on the rise -- UNHCR.
• UN envoy arrives in East Timor for talks on autonomy ballot as two students are killed in shootout.
• Secretary-General to begin deploying UN personnel in countries around Democratic Republic of Congo.
• Swiss Attorney-General appointed to head UN Yugoslav and Rwanda war crimes tribunals.
• Security Council briefed on progress to settle conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
• UN provides food aid to civilians displaced by fighting in Afghanistan.
• UN war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia withdraws free counsel to seven Croatian detainees.

Speaking at a press briefing in Pristina, Nadia Younes, the Spokeswoman for the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), said 32 UNMIK civilian police were patrolling the Pristina area last night with the KFOR security force and 80 officers were in the regions.

Ms. Younes said that there was a total of "662 UN International Police in the theatre", including the 174 that had come from Bosnia and Herzegovina to perform only monitoring functions. She noted that many members of the police force were in the induction period, while 40 UNMIK civilian police were on hold in Skopje in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Meanwhile UNMIK was taking measures to stem the escalation of violence against Kosovar Serbs and other ethnic minorities, the Spokeswoman said. The UN mission has identified the hot spots and has been setting up police substations to be manned around the clock. The substations are expected to be in place by the end of the week, said Ms. Younes.

According to UNHCR, there have been at least nine murders and seven serious assaults against Serbs in Pristina during the past week. Meanwhile, the KFOR security force said that bomb attacks had occurred regularly against Serb homes, churches and businesses.

UNHCR has also reported a pattern of intimidation against the remaining Serbs. In many cases of harassment, Serbs are first receiving warning letters ordering them to leave their homes. Then threats are delivered in person, followed, in several days, by physical assault and, in some cases, murder.

Increasing numbers of Serbs still in Pristina are being forced, before fleeing, to sign letters transferring their property rights to Albanians, UNHCR says. These practices are being applied to whole blocks of apartments, triggering the simultaneous departure of tens of Serb families.

During the past two months, the number of Serbs in Pristina has dwindled from an estimated 20,000. Since the end of the NATO bombing and the arrival of KFOR in June, nearly 130,000 Serbs have fled Kosovo, mostly for other parts of Serbia and Montenegro.

The situation in Pristina is particularly disturbing because most Serbs remaining there are vulnerable persons, many of them elderly, disabled or isolated without family support, UNHCR says. As a result, case-by-case assistance is needed involving visits to individual homes.

To address the situation, UN aid workers are delivering humanitarian assistance directly to Serb homes, which proves to be a time-consuming and manpower-intensive process, according to UNHCR. The UN agency has also set up several distribution points for the Serb population, often in the basement of Serb buildings.

Shots were apparently fired by both the militia and members of the Indonesian armed forces against a student gathering at the offices of the National Timorese Resistance Council (CNRP) in Vikeke. Spokesman Fred Eckhard said one student was shot in the head and the other in the chest.

Personnel from the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) in Vikeke were never threatened, the spokesman said, but were confined to their compound for the night as a security measure.

Meanwhile, the Secretary-General's Personal Representative for East Timor, Ambassador Jamsheed Marker, is in Jakarta for scheduled meetings with Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas and Defence and Security Minister General Wiranto, as well as Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao.

Ambassador Marker is expected to meet with Indonesian President B.J. Habibie tomorrow and begin a tripartite dialogue on the post-ballot period, known as phase II. The two-day meeting will focus on activities during the interval after the scheduled 30 August ballot on an autonomy proposal for East Timor and the actual implementation of the results.

The first group is expected to arrive within the next couple of weeks in Lusaka, Zambia, and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. That contingent will be followed soon after by personnel heading to Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, and other capitals in the region, depending on further developments on the ground, the spokesman said.

Last Friday the Security Council voted unanimously to send up to 90 UN 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 in order to assist the parties in implementing the accord.

According the resolution, the UN personnel will also be deployed in Lusaka to the provisional headquarters of the Joint Military Commission (JMC) -- created by the peace agreement to disarm the fighters and verify the ceasefire -- and, security permitting, to the rear military headquarters of the main belligerents, as well as anywhere else the Secretary-General deems necessary.

The Council voted unanimously to appoint Ms. Del Ponte as the new Prosecutor of the Tribunals following her nomination by Secretary-General Kofi Annan. She will replace Louise Arbour, a Canadian judge who has been appointed to her country's supreme court.

Ms. Del Ponte, who will take up her post on 15 September, has wide experience combating organized crime, money laundering and illegal arms trafficking.

The Prosecutor is appointed for a four-year term and is based in The Hague where the Yugoslav Tribunal is located. The seat of the Rwanda Tribunal is in Arusha, Tanzania.

In a press statement by Council President Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia, Council members commended the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the individuals involved in efforts to secure an accord. "They expressed their full satisfaction and support for the continuing efforts of the OAU," Ambassador Andjaba said.

The Council was briefed earlier in the day by Ambassador Mohamed Sahnoun, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy in Africa, on progress towards a negotiated settlement of the conflict between the two countries.

Thousands have reportedly been displaced as territory changes hands and the front lines shift in the latest round of fighting between the Taliban and the opposition Northern Alliance.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) and private aid agencies are assisting approximately 500 families taking refuge in an abandoned diplomatic compound in Kabul, according to a spokesperson for the Office of the UN Co- ordinator for Afghanistan. Conditions in the crowded compound were less than ideal and the health situation of women and children was of particular concern.

In addition to these families, a larger number of other recently displaced families in Kabul have found refuge with friends and relatives. Staff from the United Nations and its partner agencies are assessing their health and living conditions.

Currently, there is sufficient food and medicine for those in need, but the UN is making contingency arrangements in Afghanistan and neighbouring Tajikistan to pre-position humanitarian supplies in case the need increases.

The Tribunal said on Wednesday that according to media reports, this organization raised 4,300,000 DM for the detainees mainly through an auction of art works held in the Bosnian town of Mostar last June.

When they surrendered to the Tribunal, the accused declared that they did not have sufficient means too pay for legal assistance and requested the Registrar to assign Counsel. Although the detainees still claimed their financial position had not substantially changed, the Registrar considered beyond a reasonable doubt that a considerable sum of money was made available to them.

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

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