United Nations Daily Highlights, 00-07-17

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

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE NOON BRIEFING
BY FRED ECKHARD
SPOKESMAN FOR THE SECRETARY-GENERAL
UN HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK

• In a statement attributable to the Spokesman, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he is gratified that the military operation to bring to safety the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) peacekeepers -- surrounded for two and a half months by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) -- has been completed successfully.

• Annan highly commends UNAMSIL Force Commander, Maj. Gen. Jetley, his military staff and all troops engaged in the operation for the high degree of professionalism and effectiveness with which this operation was planned and conducted.

• He deeply regrets that one Indian UNAMSIL peacekeeper lost his life during the operation and that six others were wounded. He extends his sincere condolences to the family of this brave Indian soldier and wishes those wounded a speedy recovery. [UNAMSIL updated the casualty toll after the briefing to at least one dead and seven wounded.]

• The Secretary-General now hopes that all efforts can be directed toward establishing conditions conducive to a resumption of the peace process in Sierra Leone and an early end to the prolonged suffering endured by its people.

• Elaborating on the operation, the Spokesman said that UN peacekeepers forcefully broke out of the base at Kailahun and made it to UN-secured areas with their vehicles, weapons and essential equipment and with only minimal casualties.

• Resistance by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) was determined but relatively disorganized; they fired repeatedly on the retreating UN convoy and there were a number of skirmishes and ambushes. During one such ambush, the RUF hit a UN truck with a rocket-propelled grenade, injuring two Indian peacekeepers, one of whom subsequently died of his wounds.

• The break out, carried out on the ground and in the air, was spearheaded by Indian soldiers, backed up by Nigerian and Ghanaian elements of UNAMSIL as well as by Russian pilots flying UN-chartered helicopters.

• The British military, which is in the country in support of, but not as part of, the UN mission, provided airlift, placing these assets under UN command for this operation.

• The complex extraction maneuver had been in the planning stages for weeks, while the UN pressed the RUF to allow the peacekeepers to leave peacefully. These diplomatic efforts were not successful, and the RUF had become increasingly obstructive in allowing the UN to resupply the Kailahun base.

• The operation began at 5:45 a.m. Saturday morning, when about 80 members of the Indian Special Forces unit were airlifted to Kenewa, about five kilometers south of Kailahun. They were flown in on British transport helicopters, which had air cover from Indian helicopter gunships. One British helicopter then went into Kailahun and extracted 11 unarmed Military Observers and 29 injured or non-combatant military staff.

• At 7 a.m., the remaining 193 Indian peacekeepers boarded their vehicles, which had been loaded with all essential equipment, and broke out of the camp, taking the road to Kenewa, which had then been secured by Indian Special Forces.

• Meanwhile, an extraction force, which had formed in Daru, secured key points along the extraction route from Daru to Kailahun, and met up late Saturday with the Kailahun force at Pendembu, where they spent the night.

• On Sunday, the Indian Special Forces and about 150 members of the Kailahun force were airlifted to Freetown, while the remainder of the extraction force completed the road journey to Daru. They dealt robustly with occasionally significant RUF opposition along that route.

• The Security Council held consultations this morning to review the text of the draft resolution on HIV/AIDS and international peacekeeping operations.

• Following that, Council members were briefed on Sierra Leone by Hedi Annabi, Assistant Secretary General for Peacekeeping Operations, who gave a full account of the events this weekend. Council members will continue that discussion tomorrow.

• Once those consultations concluded, the Council went into an open meeting on HIV/AIDS and peacekeeping, which included a briefing by Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

• Piot noted the active discussions with the Peacekeeping Operations on responsible behavior and protection of peacekeepers and humanitarian staff, including training before and during deployment, and the development of a UN medical policy on HIV/AIDS for peacekeeping staff.

• Piot also said that voluntary HIV testing, accompanied by counseling, &quot;has a vital role to play in HIV prevention&quot;, but it must be combined with other prevention and support services. &quot;Above all, HIV testing without informed consent and confidentiality should be avoided. Such practices often drive the epidemic underground and complicate other prevention measures,&quot; he said.

• In response to a question, the Spokesman said that the UN did distribute condoms to peacekeepers so that everyone could have maximum protection.

• Today, officers from the UN Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and members of the Lebanese Army began an inspection tour of the withdrawal line along the border with Israel.

• So far, the visit has been successful with most of the violations, alleged on the Israeli side, having been corrected, although Lebanese army officials did raise questions about two points along the border. One-third of the line had been inspected today.

• The Secretary-General's report on the UN mission in Lebanon is due out on Friday.

• The Head of the UN planning team, led by Major General Timothy Ford (Australia), is briefing the Head of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), Salim A. Salim, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the results of his just concluded mission to the region.

• Following consultations with Ethiopian, Eritrean and OAU officials, a report containing a concept of operations for a prospective UN peacekeeping operation will go to the Security Council sometime next week.

• Meanwhile, the first four military liaison officers, two each in Asmara and in Addis Ababa, are expected to arrive in those two capitals this week to assist in the planning of the mission.

• For the week ending 14 July, the Security Council’s Sanctions Committee on Iraq approved 27 new contracts for the sale of Iraqi oil with a total volume of 74.6 million barrels, bringing the total number of approved contracts for the current phase of the Oil-for-Food Programme to 318.6 million barrels. During the same week, Iraq exported 15.3 million barrels with an estimated value of $378 million, bringing the revenue so far for Phase Eight to about $1.5 billion.

• Celebrating 50 years of international development cooperation by the UN system, a high-level panel chaired by Ambassador Bernd Niehaus (Costa Rica), Vice-President of the Economic and Social Council, will take place today from 4 to 7 p.m. in the ECOSOC Chamber. The Panel is part of the high-level portion of the operational activities segment of ECOSOC’s substantive session for 2000. Panelists include Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme and Chair of the UN Development Group; Dr. Wang Qiming, Minister of Science and Technology of China; and Ms. Mary Chinery-Hesse of Ghana, former Deputy Director-General of the International Labour Organization. The US Secretary of Agriculture, Dan Glickman, will also speak.

• This morning, Bosnia and Herzegovina became the 98^th State to sign the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

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