United Nations Daily Highlights, 97-10-21

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 21 October 1997

HEADLINES

• UN Secretary-General recommends extension of UN Mission in Angola until 31 January 1998.
• United Nations team arrives in Brazzaville to assess humanitarian needs.
• UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women visits Rwanda to study sexual violence and rape in conflicts.
• UN Secretary-General calls on Governments to halve the number of hungry and malnourished people by 2015.
• UN's Disarmament and International Security Committee considers expert recommendations on curbing small arms.
• United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention returns from China after meeting government officials.
• Afghan delegate describes Taliban's oppression of women in UN's Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee.
• Director-General of UNESCO calls for new ethical foundation, as General Conference opens in Paris.
• UN food agency calls for greater international response to needs of Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
• UN High Commissioner for Refugees calls for attention to growing protection crisis for refugees.
• UN's Legal Committee begins discussion of proposed establishment of international criminal court.

In his latest report on the MONUA, the Secretary-General also recommends a slight postponement of the withdrawal of United Nations military units from the country. The Secretary-General said he remained concerned by the very slow pace of the demilitarization of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). Demilitarization of UNITA "is absolutely essential for the successful implementation of the provisions of the Lusaka Protocol", he stressed.

Equally, the Secretary-General pointed out, the recent slow-down of the extension of state administration into the areas controlled by UNITA "is worrisome". He called on UNITA to urgently finalize arrangements for the transfer of all areas to government control and to ensure that local UNITA structures "cooperate unequivocally with the newly installed government administrations".

The Secretary-General said it would be difficult to consider that UNITA has taken all steps necessary to comply with the provisions of Security Council 1127 (1997) -- which imposed diplomatic sanctions against the UNITA leadership -- unless additional concrete steps are taken to accelerate the implementation of the remaining tasks, including the transformation of radio Vorgan into a non-partisan broadcasting facility.

The Secretary-General once again strongly urged the Angolan Government and UNITA to take a number of specific steps to enhance mutual trust and confidence, and to improve prospects for national reconciliation. He appealed to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and Dr. Jonas Savimbi to meet as soon as possible inside Angola in order to give impetus to the earliest conclusion of the implementation of the Lusaka Protocol.

He also urged the Government of Angola to notify MONUA of any movements of its troops. The Secretary-General added that reports of the presence of Angolan armed elements in the Republic of the Congo "are a source of serious concern". He called on all concerned to avoid any action that could exacerbate tensions in this conflict-torn country.

The mission is composed of field representatives of the United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and non- governmental organizations.

According to a United Nations spokesman, the mission reported that the airport in Brazzaville has been destroyed except the tower, which is still functioning. Juan Carlos Brandt also reported that the centre of the city has been destroyed and the looting is still going on. "Bodies are still lying on the streets some of them in advanced stage of decomposition", he said.

The mission, which has set up its base at the offices of the World Food Programme, visited the Kintele Hospital in the north of Brazzaville and reported that the hospital is in poor condition. However, Mr. Brandt added, local authorities in Kinshasa and Brazzaville have authorized provision of supplies to the hospital from Kinshasa.

The members of the assessment mission are discussing with local authorities security guarantees for the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Brazzaville.

Radhika Coomaraswamy of Sri Lanka, who is expected to leave for Rwanda on Wednesday, will also study the consequences of violence and the status of women in the post-conflict period.

The Special Rapporteur plans to meet with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, United Republic of Tanzania. While in Tanzania, the Special Rapporteur will observe the opening of the trial of Jean Paul Akayesu, who has been charged with sexual violence committed when he was the Bourgmaster of Taba Commune during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

The Special Rapporteur will also meet with non-governmental and women's organizations, women survivors as well as with relevant UN agencies, including the Human Rights field operation and representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The Secretary-General noted that 800 million people are chronically hungry, including more than 200 million children under the age of five, while millions suffer from ailments related to hunger and malnutrition.

He recalled that at last November's World Food Summit in Rome, world leaders pledged to reduce the number of hungry and malnourished people by half by the year 2015. "This is a practical, attainable target", he said. "I call on Governments to rise to this challenge. The private sector and civil society must be our close partners in this effort. Their resources and expertise are indispensable."

The report, which was prepared by the Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms, states that, "In one way or another, virtually every part of the United Nations system is dealing with the direct and indirect consequences of recent armed conflicts fought mostly with small arms and light weapons". It contains a series of recommendations for dealing with the problems presented by such small arms as revolvers, pistols, rifles, sub-machine guns, anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank guns, ammunition, hand grenades, landmines and explosives.

The Chairman of the Panel, Ambassador Mitsuro Donowaki of Japan, said the Panel's work was breaking new ground. Addressing the Committee on Tuesday, he called attention to the report's recommendation that the United Nations carry out studies on the feasibility of establishing a reliable system for marking all such weapons from the time of their manufacture; on the feasibility of restricting the manufacture and trade of such weapons to the manufacturers and dealers authorized by States; and on all aspects of the problem of ammunition and explosives.

Among other recommendations, the Panel said that all such weapons which are not under legal civilian possession, and which are not required for the purposes of national defence and internal security, should be collected and destroyed by States as expeditiously as possible.

Further, the Panel recommends that the United Nations consider convening an international conference on the illicit arms trade. "It may be still premature to consider an international conference for the purpose of concluding a universal convention on the illicit arms trade, but it might be high time to hold an international conference in order to keep up the momentum that already exists and in order to sort out issues by considering all aspects of the illicit arms trade", Ambassador Donowaki said.

In his forward, the Secretary-General says that the unanimity with which the Panel made its proposals "deserves equally strong endorsement by the General Assembly".

The mandate of the Working Group is to examine the legal status of persons deprived of their liberty. The delegation visited prisons in Lhasa (Tibet) and Shanghai; a juvenile delinquents penitentiary in Chengdu; a pre-trial detention centre and a 're-education through labour' administrative centre for women in Shanghai; and custody cells in a Beijing tribunal. In all these places, the delegation had access to suspects, administrative detainees and convicted persons whom it selected at random and interviewed without the presence of any official.

The Chairman of the Working Group, Mr. Kapil Sibal, and its Vice- Chairman, Mr. Louis Joinet, visited China from 6-16 October. During the trip, they visited Beijing, Chengdu (Sichuan Province), Lhasa and Shanghai. The two United Nations experts were received by the local authorities and held talks on subjects related to their mandate with officials representing the Supreme Court, the Supreme Procuratorate, the Chief Prosecutor's office, and the Ministries of Justice, Public Security and Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Sibal and Mr. Joinet also met with judges, prosecutors, lawyers and law academics, and attended a trial in Beijing.

The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention will present its report on the visit to the next session of the Commission on Human Rights in March 1998.

Schools for girls which had existed for 70 years had been closed by the Taliban, Ghizal Younos said. Women were not allowed to work or to participate in social, economic or political life. Many women had lost their husbands in war and were forced to work in support of their families, "however under the Taliban regime, the Afghan woman is not allowed to work; she is humiliated and attacked publicly".

The Taliban "unjustly use the name of Islam and impose on women a life in which she is unable to leave the home", she continued. Socalled Islamic codes imposed by Taliban ran counter to Islam; "they mean that the Afghan women are victims of the tyranny of an erroneous interpretation of Islamic law". The Taliban had two victims: "peace and women", she added.

Describing the Taliban's strict regulations concerning the veil, she said, "if a woman is seen with an inappropriate veil, her house is marked, her husband is punished and she is publicly flogged".

The Government strongly believed that the thinking and practice of the Taliban were incompatible with the country's religion and its people, she said. On behalf of all Afghan women, she appealed to the international community to help make known their plight to the world.

Linda Tarr-Wheelan of the United States said her country joined the "international outcry" over Taliban restrictions against women and girls. "We have raised our concerns directly with Taliban officials, as well as with representatives of other Afghan groups, and have repeatedly urged them to moderate their policies", she said.

Opening the UNESCO General Conference in Paris on Tuesday, Director- General Federico Mayor said that although the entire United Nations system shares a single mission, UNESCO gives that message its intellectual resonance. "The conscience of humanity must be called upon when old injustices continue to be perpetrated and when new issues demand a new response", he said.

The General Conference, which is UNESCO's highest decision-making body, is expected to consider several ethical questions: the concept of a 'human right to peace' as well as draft declarations on the responsibility of present generations to future generations and on the human genome.

"The human genome draft declaration actually came from a lot of concerned scientists from around the world several years ago; with genetic research, the use of genetic mapping, and the replication of genes both in agriculture and in science, they began to feel that there has to be some kind of international standard set", UNESCO Senior Information Officer Andrew Radolf said in an interview with UN Radio. Issues of concern include whether or not genetic research should be patented or commercialized, "in which case would the impoverished be shut out from genetic treatment?" Other issues related to genetic engineering, "and what happens to those of us who are not genetically engineered -- do we become discriminated against?"

The draft declaration, he added, comes out against human cloning. If the draft is approved by the General Conference during its three-week session, it will be sent out for ratification, eventually becoming a UNESCO convention.

The WFP Country Director in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Douglas Coutts, told reporters in Geneva that the overall tonnage needs are much greater than the international community could begin to meet at current levels. "You have to keep in mind that there are many, many countries around the world that do not produce enough food to feed their populations, but they have economies that produce other products that they can sell on the market, earn foreign exchange and pay for their foreign food import bill", he noted. Such a solution would be "very difficult" for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, he said.

Sadako Ogata, on an official visit which will take her to Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, made her appeal to Denmark's Foreign Policy Society. Noting that those who sought asylum in Europe may not be refugees in need of protection, Mrs. Ogata said that was no reason to treat them inhumanely.

The United Nations refugee agency says that the Nordic countries are particularly supportive. The Spokeswoman of UNHCR said on Tuesday that these countries accept significant numbers of asylum seekers and are among the agency's biggest donors. They are also among a small group of countries which offer annual quotas for refugee resettlement. So far this year, Denmark and Finland have resettled 500 people each, while Norway gave asylum to 1,000 and Sweden 1,800.

UNHCR said that those countries have been particularly generous in settling refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran and Iraq.

The United Nations first considered the idea of a permanent international court to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression in the context of the adoption of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. In 1992, the General Assembly directed the International Law Commission to elaborate a draft statute for an international criminal court. Two years later, it established an Ad Hoc committee to review the draft statute.

The Assembly subsequently established the Preparatory Committee and charged it with the task of drafting a text of a convention for an international criminal court for consideration by a conference of plenipotentiaries. At its last session, the Assembly urged the Preparatory Committee to complete the drafting of a widely acceptable consolidated text of the convention to be submitted to the diplomatic conference, which, it said, should be held in 1998.

Addressing the Legal Committee on Tuesday on behalf of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Ambassador Khiphusizi J. Jele of South Africa said SADC members supported the early establishment of the international criminal court. He stressed that the future court should be independent, unfettered by the veto of the Security Council.

Portugal's representative, Paula Escarameia, said the court's prosecutor should have the power to trigger an investigation on the basis of a complaint presented by any source, including the Security Council. Park Soo Gil of the Republic of Korea said the Security Council should have minimum influence over the court.

On behalf of the European Union and associated States, Harry Verweij of the Netherlands welcomed the General Assembly's decision to convene a diplomatic conference in 1998 to finalize and adopt a convention on the establishment of the court. The Union was confident that negotiations would lead to the finalization of a widely acceptable, consolidated text of the convention, he said.

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

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