United Nations Daily Highlights 96-08-29

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Thursday, August 29, 1996

HEADLINES

• The UN General Assembly extends the mandate of the UN component of the International Civilian Mission to Haiti until 31 December 1996.
• UN Secretary-General says Croatian Serbs remain by far the most common victims of violent assaults.
• The World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children adopts a Declaration and Agenda for Action.
• An armed group of policemen attack Moslem returnees in the Republika Srpska.

The Assembly reaffirmed the commitment of the international community to continue its technical, economic and financial cooperation with Haiti in support of its economic and social development efforts.

During the meeting, the representative of Haiti Ambassador Pierre Lelong said Haiti had reached a turning point in its history and now aspired to a set of fundamental reforms.

He said the Government was able to stem the unfortunate effects of the political crisis and was setting forth the basis for the state of law. "In the field of justice, the government has adopted a host of measures to reform the judiciary and to provide better training for judges, the agents of law and order and all those who have turned the rule of law not only into something we speak about, but something we act in accordance with," Ambassador Lelong said.

The representative of Canada Ambassador David Karsgaard described MICIVIH as one of the principal architects of the programme of assistance to Haiti in its consolidation of democracy and in the building of public confidence. He said the range of issues on which MICIVIH consulted and provided support to the Haitian authorities was indeed impressive.

"It is evident that the Government still has not taken adequate measures to provide an effective police presence in the region," the Secretary-General said in the report.

He said much progress remained to be made by the Croatian authorities as regards the investigation and prosecution of past violations of international humanitarian law and human rights against the local Serb population.

The Secretary-General underlined the concern of the International Tribunal that the Croatian authorities had not executed arrest warrants transmitted to them relating to prominent accused persons known or believed to be in areas under their control.

On the issue of the return of refugees, Dr. Boutros-Ghali said the process was moving slowly, noting that while the Government had authorised the return to Croatia of more than 9,000 Croatian Serbs, fewer than a quarter of those individuals had returned.

While some positive steps had been taken such as the establishment of various government bodies to promote human rights and reinforced cooperation with international human rights mechanisms, the overall approach of the government to the rights of Croatian Serbs in Croatia had so far failed to encourage confidence within the Serb population, the Secretary-General said.

The Declaration proclaimed that every child was entitled to full protection from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. It stated that the commercial sexual exploitation of children constituted a form of violence against children and amounted to forced labour and a contemporary form of slavery.

In the Agenda for Action, States and participants made commitments to improve children's protection against commercial sexual exploitation. The commitments required States to criminalize the commercial sexual exploitation of children; and review and revise laws, policies and practices to eliminate the sexual exploitation of children. States were also required to protect the child and promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of the child victim.

Citing reports from the area, the Spokesman said policeman apparently opened fire and beat up some of the villagers. The International Police Task Force (IPTF) had met with senior Serb officials to find out the motive "behind what was evidently an unprovoked attack", the Spokesman said.

Meanwhile, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) said the Implementation Force (IFOR) still had concerns as to the continued harassment and intimidation and the obstruction to freedom of movement and freedom of return to home of origin.

In a report on IFOR, NATO drew attention to continued tension within the Federation although it said that the agreement to abolish Herzog- Bosnia was welcome news. It stated that there had been some indications of an intention to restrict IFOR's inspection access. However, the report pointed out, IFOR would continue to provide general security and substantial logistics support especially to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the International Police Task Force (IPTF).

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

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