United Nations Daily Highlights 96-05-01

United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Wednesday, May 1, 1996

HEADLINES

• Secretary-General meets with Israeli Prime Minister and French President, in Paris.
• Clarification of "modalities" of new UN Rwanda office and of misunderstandings made by Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs in visits to Rwanda and Burundi.
• UNCTAD'S IX slogan: "Partnership for development", to be given real significance by helping less equipped to cope with new environment, UNCTAD's Secretary-General tells Conference.
• UN Observer Mission in Liberia on heightened alert due to increase in fighting, car hijacking, harassment of civilians and banditry.
• Upsurge in number of UNITA soldiers entering quartering sites and registering.
• Review and Appraisal of World Population Plan of Action: 1994 Report, published.

The new Office would continue working towards national reconciliation, the return of refugees and the strengthening of the judiciary powers in Rwanda, Mr. Goulding said. During his visit to Rwanda, he had clarified the "modalities" of the new Office and the Government of Rwanda had accepted its establishment. In addition, the misunderstanding related to the equipment left by UNAMIR had been clarified. Unlike what the Rwandan Government had been originally told, the value of the equipment was much less than the $8.7 million it had cost 12 years ago. After clarification of the issue, the Government of Rwanda had accepted the equipment, he added.

Following his trip to Rwanda, he had spent a couple days in Burundi in order to observe the situation there, Mr. Goulding said. The situation in that country was very tense with troops of Hutu rebels attacking various targets, including Tutsis. The on-going violence was causing great concern to the Government of Burundi.

His trip to Burundi had also helped to clarify to the Government of Burundi, the misunderstanding that the Secretary-General was planning a political military intervention or a change of Government in the country. The purpose of a possible intervention was exclusively humanitarian, he emphasized. The international community needed to do some contingency planning to avoid a "real disaster" from occurring in Burundi.

UNCTAD must and will remain the guardian of the world's development conscience, Mr. Ricupero said. Since the growing disparities in the world may be exacerbated by globalization and liberalization, new tools needed to be developed for developing countries and those dependent on one or two commodities. UNCTAD must offer practical advice to assist the poorest countries in their development and integration into the new economy, Mr. Ricupero said.

South Africa's Minister for Trade and Industry, Alec Erwin, who was elected President of UNCTAD IX, said the Conference must look beyond its institutional history and re-examine its rationale and precise location in a changing world economy. "Partnership", a theme of this session, meant a clear definition of each other's role and function, a clear understanding of the reasons for forming the partnership, and a definition of common work towards common objectives.

Meanwhile, speaking on behalf of the European Union, Mario D'Uurso from Italy, said in the future, the idea of "partnership for development" must be combined with the concepts of "effective management" both at national and international levels. UNCTAD's activities needed to be geared to clearly identified objectives within strict deadlines and subject to rigorous monitoring. The latter was necessary, in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the results obtained and their relevance to the development of the recipient communities.

Although a number of developing countries had undertaken painful economic reforms and structural adjustments, the economies of most of these countries had continued to decline, Secretary of Commerce of Bangladesh, Mofazzal Karim, said, speaking on behalf of the least developed countries. For that reason, UNCTAD needed to continue as the focal point for the integrated treatment of development and interrelated issues such as trade, finance, technology, investment and sustainable development.

At the initiative of UNCTAD, a private investment venture for micro- enterprises in developing countries was launched at the Conference. Through the fund -created by the Banque Internationale a Luxembourg (BIL) - micro- banks will be able to offer micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries, loans at cheaper rates. The public and private sector are, for the first time, pooling financial resources for a potential market which has so far been ignored by international financial markets, according to UNCTAD.

Even though yesterday's shelling of the Barclay Training Centre had died down, fighting continued with factions deployed throughout Liberia. The fighting was particularly heavy around the executive mansion. The Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) had suffered a number of casualties since the fighting flared up again on Monday afternoon, Ms. Foa said.

The UN Special Representative Anthony Nyakyi had met with Charles Taylor of the National Patriotic Front for Liberia (NPFL), yesterday, and had prevailed upon him to go along with the cease-fire and withdraw his fighters from the city, Ms. Foa said. Mr. Taylor had said that as long as the clan forces remained deployed outside the camp, he would continue to take action against them.

Meanwhile, the World Food Progamme (WFP) has reported that one Save the Children-UK vehicle was stolen while three separate attempts to steal UN vehicles were thwarted. Furthermore the Programme's commercial warehouses at the port had been broken into and it was not clear how much food had been stolen.

Compared to last Friday's arrivals of only 290, the following Tuesday, 1352 soldiers had entered quartering sites while 949 had entered the day before. Such upsurges were not unusual when the renewal of a mandate was about to be taken up, Ms. Foa said. In this case, the mandate of the UN Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM III) was scheduled to expire on 8 May. As of the end of April, there were 26,169 UNITA soldiers registered. However, there were only 24,005 in the quartering sites. The gap was due to the fact that some soldiers had deserted and 18 had died of various illnesses. There were currently 10 quartering sites out of the planned 15 that were to be opened, Ms. Foa said.

On the Government side, there were 3,878 rapid reaction police out of a declared strength of 3,977, Ms. Foa said. Even though the scenario was good, a firmer commitment to the peace process, from both sides, was necessary. In addition, a faster quartering of soldiers, particularly on the UNITA side, was needed, Ms. Foa emphasized.

The report has been prepared by the Population Division of the Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis. It covers the main topics of the World Population Plan of Action adopted at the 1974 UN World Population Conference while following the structure of the Cairo Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. By providing an overall assessment of the level of implementation of the Plan of Action during the past two decades, the report serves as the stepping-off point for monitoring the Programme of Action of the Cairo Conference.

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

United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article