United Nations Daily Highlights, 97-10-13

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Monday, 13 October 1997

HEADLINES

• Military advisers of Security Council permanent members will discuss contingency plans for Congo-Brazzaville.
• UN High Commissioner for Refugees appeals to governments to respect humanitarian principles.
• First medical equipment flown to Iraq since sanctions began arrives with UN health agency observers on hand.
• UN civil aviation agency says Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Republic of Korea agree on flights.
• Concern over deadlock on nuclear issues in Conference on Disarmament voiced in UN disarmament committee.
• Least developed countries are further marginalized in global economy, Tanzania tells UN economic committee.
• Sanctions should be used sparingly, speakers tell General Assembly's Legal Committee.
• Draft resolution requesting that work of UN Scientific Committee on Effects of Radiation continue is introduced.
• United Nations Secretary-General reports evidence of significant trafficking in women and girls.
• UN Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organization proposes action programme for culture of peace.
• UN refugee agency awards nun from United States with Nansen medal for her work with Guatemalan refugees.
• Mexican states of Oaxaca and Guerrero ask UNICEF for assistance following destruction by hurricane Pauline.

United Nations Spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters on Monday that the military advisers are also expected to meet with African members of Security Council to discuss the situation in the Republic of Congo. Mr. Eckhard said he was fairly certain that "this is the first time that a meeting between the military advisers of the permanent five and the African members has taken place". He added that there would also be a meeting of potential troop contributors to discuss contingency plans for the conflict- torn Congo-Brazzaville.

Last Friday, the United Nations Secretary-General met with the five permanent members of the Security Council on the same issue.

The Special Representative of the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was in Paris on Monday on his way to consult with French authorities on Congo-Brazzaville, the Spokesman said.

Opening the forty-eighth annual meeting of the UNHCR Executive Committee in Geneva on Monday, Mrs. Ogata also expressed her deep concern at the absence of progress towards peace and reconciliation in such areas as Burundi, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, she said, continued civil conflict and measures restricting human rights, particularly the rights of women, had virtually halted repatriation efforts. She added that new refugee flows in recent weeks were a worrying development, including the arrival of at least 40,000 Cambodian refugees in Thailand.

This year's central theme of the 53-member Executive Committee is the "challenge of refugee repatriation".

On UNHCR's activities in the Great Lakes region of Africa, Mrs. Ogata said that if States had fulfilled their responsibilities as stipulated by the Executive Committee, and supported UNHCR's actions more firmly and decisively, some of the problems encountered by her agency there could have been avoided.

"The rights of refugees -- asylum and non-refoulement -- are the foundation of my mandate and I wish to reaffirm our non-negotiable commitment to defend and promote them."

On a number of positive developments during 1997, UNHCR said that the agency recently completed the repatriation of almost 300,000 Togolese refugees, assisted 20,000 internally displaced Chechens to return to their homes, and helped refugees to go back to countries as diverse as Myanmar, Tajikistan and Guatemala.

On Sunday, medical equipment was flown by a German aircraft to Habbaniya airport, 125 kilometres west of Baghdad, according to the United Nations Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq.

The flight was authorized by the committee monitoring the sanctions against Iraq because of the fragile nature of the medical equipment involved. Iraqi officials of the Ministry of Health received the 30 tonnes of magnetic imaging resonance equipment in the presence of observers from the World Health Organization (WHO). According to a United Nations spokesman, UN personnel will also observe the equipment's installation.

The equipment was sent under the "oil for food" programme set out in Security Council resolution 986 (1995) and cleared by the sanctions committee set up under Security Council resolution 661 (1990). On Monday in New York, a spokesman for the Secretary-General announced that he had decided to establish the Office of the Iraq Programme to consolidate the management of United Nations activities being carried out in accordance with those two Council resolutions. "He has also decided to appoint Benon V. Sevan, a national of Cyprus, as the Executive Director of the Iraq Programme, effective 15 October", the spokesman added.

Assad Kotaite said on Friday that the agreement guarantees that civil aircraft from any State can operate along designated routes with the support of both countries. "I consider this agreement, which has been initialled by the two parties and the ICAO, a milestone in the further development of international civil aviation", said Mr. Kotaite, who initiated the bilateral talks in 1981 and who took an active part in the early negotiations.

Other speakers joined Mexico's representative in expressing concern over the deadlocked deliberations on nuclear issues in the Conference of Disarmament, the sole multilateral negotiating body on disarmament. They said this reflected the impasse of the international community on the nuclear question.

The representative of Malaysia, Hasmy Bin Agam, said "the continued paralysis of the Conference on Disarmament will not only undermine the usefulness and relevance of this single multilateral negotiating forum on disarmament but also increase the risks of it being sidelined". He said the opportunity for breakthroughs in nuclear disarmament must not be lost. "We owe it to ourselves and to our future generations to take advantage of this rare historic opportunity so as to pave the way for the realization of the vision of a nuclear-free world into a reality, perhaps in the not-too- distant future".

Speaking on behalf of the "Group of 77" developing countries and China, Ambassador Daudi Mwakawago said that the least developed countries had not been able to attract any significant amount of foreign investment. Their debt burden had increased while external assistance had diminished, he added.

Ambassador Mwakawago said that the total share of official development assistance (ODA) in the gross national product (GNP) of donor countries dropped sharply from 0.33 per cent in 1992 to 0.25 per cent in 1996, "the lowest ratio recorded since the United Nations adopted in 1970 the overall target of 0.7 per cent of donor GNP". In order to effectively and meaningfully accelerate the development process of developing countries, there was an imperative need to reverse these declining trends in the ODA flows, he stressed.

Meanwhile, the representative of the United States said, "globalization does have costs". Victor Marrero told the Committee that "sound economic and social policies mitigate these costs". He said that developing countries were increasingly benefiting from global integration, "and the experience of the past few years has shown that even the poorest countries can do so with sound, outward-oriented policies".

On the implementation of Security Council sanctions, many representatives expressed the view that they should only be used as a last resort when all other means of settling disputes had been exhausted. Special attention should be given to their adverse effects on vulnerable groups.

Cuba's representative, Cairdad Yamira Cueto Milian, said it was the responsibility of the Security Council, as the body that imposed sanctions, to assist those States affected by them.

Encyla Sinjeal of Zambia said that, although sanctions were a useful instrument for responding to threats to peace, the Security Council should use other mechanisms to settle disputes and only impose sanctions as a last resort.

On the effects of sanctions on third States, Volodymyr Yel'chenko of Ukraine said his country had paid a high price for the implementation of sanctions on other States and said specific proposals on a fair distribution of unavoidable economic losses should be elaborated.

The text was introduced by Cord Meier-Klodt of Germany, who said "for the past 42 years, the reports of the Scientific Committee have made an important contribution to the quest for a safe radiation environment".

Speaking for the Marshall Islands, Jakeo Relang, expressed "lingering concerns" about the effects of radiation. "In our view, the scope of the work of this Committee must be further elaborated to undertake studies that could assist those populations who are suffering from the effects of atomic radiation". The Government of the Marshall Islands, he said, would be "more than willing" to assist the Committee in obtaining declassified documents on atomic testing in his country. "From these tests, a sophisticated understanding of nuclear weapons and the health effects of human exposure to excessive doses of nuclear radioactive fallout was gained at the expense of the Marshallese people", he noted.

According to its report to the General Assembly, the Committee is preparing an extensive assessment of information on radiation exposures worldwide and a comprehensive review of the biological effects of radiation.

In a new report to the General Assembly, the Secretary-General also points out that the strategies that have been introduced so far to combat the problem of trafficking in women and girls have been predominantly legal measures and bilateral agreements. Such strategies, he said, are often affected by the international nature of the activity and the reluctance of the victims to complain or to be involved in measures to address the problem. He also noted that further data on trafficking are needed before effective strategies can be designed and implemented.

The Secretary-General's findings are based on reports from 30 Member States, authorities and bodies within the United Nations system and intergovernmental organizations.

This statement is contained in a new report to the General Assembly which contains suggested elements for an action programme to promote a culture of peace.

According to the report, the challenge of promoting a culture of peace is so broad and far-reaching that it can only be accomplished if it becomes a matter of priority for the entire United Nations system. The report recommends that the Assembly declare a year and a decade for a culture of peace and non-violence.

"Changing the concept and practice of power from violence and force to non- violence and respect for human rights is at the heart of the transformation to a culture of peace." The report calls for a global effort led by the United Nations which provides people with peacemaking skills, such as dialogue, respect for human rights, mediation, consensus building and cooperation.

The UNESCO Director-General also points out that, "New and meaningful partnerships can be developed between the United Nations and the thousands of other intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and individuals whose efforts contribute to a culture of peace". By helping to link the various efforts together, the United Nations can promote a global movement, which draws strength from the many successful examples of non- violent social change that have become more frequent during the twentieth century, he adds. Partnerships for a global movement should include educators, journalists, parliaments and mayors, religious communities and organizations of youth and women.

High Commissioner Sadako Ogata presented the medal to Sister Joannes Klas of Wisconsin, United States, at a ceremony in Geneva on Monday.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan paid tribute to the nun, saying "Sister Joannes is an example of civil society -- and humanitarianism -- at its very best". In a statement delivered on his behalf by Yves Berthelot, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the Secretary-General noted that she has been a staunch advocate for the rights and well-being of Guatemalan refugees since 1982.

A member of the Sisters of Saint Francis, Klas came to El Tesoro camp for Guatemalan refugees in Honduras after almost three decades of teaching in primary and secondary schools and working with children with psychological and emotional problems in the United States. In 1991, she was asked by refugees to go back with them to Guatemala, where she has since been involved in community programmes to improve the lives of returnees.

The medal is named for Fridtjof Nansen, the first High Commissioner for Refugees under the League of Nations. In New York on Monday, an exhibition on his life and humanitarian work was inaugurated at the United Nations Library.

The exhibition of his life and work is a result of cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway, the Norwegian Folk Museum and the United Nations Library.

According to a Situation Report of the United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA) issued on Monday, the two states requested assistance in the form of drinking water tanks, water purification equipment, pumps and construction material, especially corrugated metal sheets for reconstruction.

The hurricane left 15 people dead, 22 missing, and 41,000 persons affected in Oaxaca, according to the report. In some areas it cut off the supply of electricity, drinking water and telecommunications. The hurricane also destroyed two bridges, and caused flooding in 50 municipalities.

In the state of Guerrero 123 people died, three were reported missing, and 35 were rescued, according to the information provided by the Government. The hurricane also damaged houses, bridges, the electricity supply, the telecommunications network, and systems for supplying drinking water.

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

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