United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-08-27

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Friday, 27 August, 1999

HEADLINES

• Security Council extends UN mission in East Timor for three months to oversee post-ballot period.
• Secretary-General's envoy says UN intends to proceed with East Timor vote despite recent violence.
• Head of UN mission in Kosovo urges action to secure release of ethnic Albanians held in Serbia.
• UN Balkans envoy says international community must preserve multi- ethnicity in Kosovo.
• Head of UN Iraq programme says Security Council committee can do more to address country's humanitarian needs.
• Senior UN official tells Security Council Taliban have mistreated Afghan civilian population.
• Rations to continue for displaced Afghans seeking refuge in diplomatic compound, says UN food agency.
• UN health agency says water and sanitation key to disease control in Turkey in aftermath of earthquake.
• UN Law of the Sea tribunal announces decisions in fishing dispute over bluefin tuna.
• Deportation of Eritreans draws "strong protest" of UN refugee agency.

In a unanimous vote, the Council endorsed Secretary-General Kofi Annan's proposal to restructure the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) for the interim phase after the 30 August vote and before the implementation of the poll's results.

Under the Secretary-General's plan, UNAMET would be expanded to include up to 410 civilian police -- with an additional 50 to recruit and train a local police force -- and up to 300 military liaison officers.

The Secretary-General had also recommended that there be an electoral unit to help monitor elections for the Regional Council as well as civil affairs and public information components.

In a Presidential statement following the vote, Ambassador Martin Andjaba of Namibia stressed that the East Timorese have a unique opportunity to decide their own future. "Whatever the outcome of the consultation, members of the Security Council strongly hope that the people of East Timor will respect that decision and work together to build a peaceful and prosperous future," he said.

Ian Martin, the Secretary-General's Special Representative, told a press conference in Dili that the failure to check militia violence has been a problem throughout the consultation process. Members of the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) had witnessed heavily armed police failing to intervene when militia violence was carried out in front of them during Thursday's clashes between pro-independence and pro-autonomy supporters, he said.

"It is essential that the Indonesian police take action to arrest and remove weapons from those who continue to move about freely with them, to threaten -- and as we have seen yesterday -- to kill," Mr. Martin said.

Meanwhile, in New York during a Security Council meeting on East Timor, the representative from Indonesia pledged his country's commitment to ensuring that there is a safe environment, as called for in the 5 May agreement that authorized the ballot.

The Indonesian Government has "exerted serious efforts to ensure that the security situation is conducive to the holding of free, fair and peaceful popular consultations," said Ambassador Makarim Wibisono.

Speaking in Pristina at a rally for more than 5,000 Kosovar Albanians still believed detained in Serbia, Dr. Kouchner also called on international human rights organizations to help seek information on those still missing.

Dr. Kouchner told hundreds of demonstrators that he had received detailed information on 1,924 detainees held in Serbian jails whom representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had been allowed to visit. Most of them were being held without trial and have been charged with terrorism, he said.

Stressing that it was a violation of international law to hold prisoners without providing information to relatives, Dr. Kouchner said he was attempting to coordinate a high-level meeting of human rights representatives in Pristina to confront the matter of prisoners and missing persons.

He also said the Kosovo Transitional Council -- the highest Kosovar political body working with the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) -- would create a special working group, made up of the ICRC, human rights activists and family members, to address this issue.

Speaking at a press conference at UN Headquarters in New York, Carl Bildt said while the human rights situation for minorities in Kosovo was presently not satisfactory, UNMIK and the international security force, KFOR, were doing their utmost to protect Serbs and other groups.

The idea of creating cantons or "ghettos" for minorities was not the solution, Mr. Bildt said, even though it was natural for minorities to gather together into groups for protection.

Mr. Bildt said UNMIK was establishing itself throughout Kosovo at a very rapid pace, even under challenging circumstances, and would soon be in each of the province's 29 communes.

Meanwhile, the UN-supervised Kosovo Transitional Council had succeeded in bringing together all the key political parties to address security concerns and other vital matters, Mr. Bildt said. While the Council had gotten off to a bumpy start, its recent agreement to meet once a week was an important and positive development.

In a briefing to the Security Council yesterday, Benon Sevan, Executive Director of the UN Office of the Iraq Programme, said nearly 500 applications -- worth almost $500 million -- remain on hold and reminded Council members of Secretary-General Kofi Annan's appeal for an "all-out effort" to expedite the approval of contract applications.

Citing a recent survey by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) that showed an increase in child and maternal mortality, Mr. Sevan stressed that the sanctions committee had a crucial role to play in expediting the approval of applications that have a direct impact on the health and well-being of children.

"The Secretary-General's conclusions are very clear -- more can and should be done under this programme to address these unacceptable levels of child and maternal mortality," Mr. Sevan said. "More can and should be done by the Government of Iraq, and more can and should be done by the Security Council Committee."

Under the programme, Iraq is permitted to sell up to $5.2 billion worth of oil every 180 days to buy medicine and other humanitarian supplies. However, due to fluctuating oil prices and the faltering state of its oil industry, Iraq has failed to reach that ceiling in the two previous six-month periods, leading to a $3.1 billion deficit for purchasing essential goods.

In a briefing to a formal meeting of the Council, Under-Secretary- General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast said that while the Taliban assert that they have only destroyed houses used by opposition guerrilla fighters, the extent of the destruction of homes and crops and livestock does not seem compatible or commensurate with their claims.

The UN has proof that the Taliban, in the course of their attack in the Shomali plains, "have meted out unacceptable treatment to the civilian population," Mr. Prendergast said.

The UN mission in Afghanistan has estimated that around 1,200 Taliban and 600 opposition United Front fighters have been killed in the past month, Mr. Prendergast said. However, the fighting has made little difference in the military balance between the two sides.

During the course of the meeting, speakers from 29 countries and organizations emphasized the need to find a political solution and supported the efforts of the "6+2" Group to that end.

The Group comprises the Russian Federation, the United States and Afghanistan's six neighbours: China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

The food ration was set to expire today but WFP decided to extend it for another month, given the increasing number of displaced people in the compound, their vulnerability and the low probability of their return in the short term, the spokesman said.

An additional 150 internally displaced persons are arriving in Kabul each day, the spokesman said. The city now has a total of 30,000 to 40,000 internally displaced persons.

Meanwhile, the Special Rapporteur for Violence against Women of the UN Commission on Human Rights, Radhika Coomaraswamy, has scheduled a visit to Afghanistan and Pakistan for 1 to 11 September, the spokesman said.

"In over 20 years of tracking natural disasters, WHO has not found one instance of a disease epidemic occurring in the aftermath of an event," said Dr. Lindsay Martinez, Director of WHO's Department of Communicable Disease. The primary health threats are water-borne diseases because of unsafe water, and acute respiratory infections due to overcrowding.

WHO said other priorities include establishing infectious disease surveillance systems, re-establishing basic health care services and providing mental health services. The agency has been working extensively with the Turkish Ministry for Health, and the task ahead in the coming weeks will be to rebuild basic health services in the affected areas.

Meanwhile, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) announced a series of new relief measures for $7.3 million aimed at speeding the recovery of children and families.

The recovery measures encompass clean water and sanitation facilities; health initiatives focusing on rehabilitating community health centres and the acquisition of specific medicines and vaccines. There will also be a major initiative to address the psychological impact of the quake on children, including trauma counseling and child-friendly spaces in the temporary encampments that have become home four thousands.

The Tribunal handed down provisional measures in a case that Australia and New Zealand brought against Japan for failing to conserve the stock of southern bluefin tuna. The two countries claimed that Japan's actions threatened to seriously damage the tuna population and asked the Tribunal to order that Japan immediately cease its unilateral experimental fishing.

In addition to the prohibition against experimental fishing, the Tribunal decided that the national allocations for annual catches should remain at their current levels. The Tribunal also ordered the countries to resume negotiations and to take no action that would aggravate or extend the dispute.

According to UNHCR, the group had arrived in Malawi from Ethiopia on 14 August and was returned by air one week later. Despite several interventions, UNHCR staff were not granted access to the Eritreans to hear their case. Malawi authorities said the group had entered the country illegally on fake visas and that it was an immigration issue.

The Eritreans, alerted to their imminent deportation, staged a protest on 20 August at a detention centre. One detainee was killed and several others reportedly injured.

UNHCR said it was now following the case in Addis Ababa.

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

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