United Nations Daily Highlights, 97-11-06

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Thursday, 6 November 1997

HEADLINES

• United Nations envoys resume talks with Iraq as Iraqi officials continue to bar weapons inspectors.
• Security Council authorizes Inter-African Mission in Bangui to ensure security of its personnel.
• The Security Council expressed regret that there has been no progress in the peace process in Abkhazia, Georgia.
• Secretary-General recommends that UN Mission observing human rights agreements in Guatemala remain through 1999.
• Without education people cannot recognize universality of human aims and aspirations says Kofi Annan.
• Judge Haopei Li of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia passes away at age 91.
• UN-sponsored meeting of Arab States calls for international efforts to end landmine tragedies.
• At UNESCO Conference, States examine draft declaration on human genome which would ban human cloning.
• Some areas of Sierra Leone are tense and depressed, according to a United Nations security mission.

According to United Nations Spokesman Fred Eckhard, the Iraqi delegation has promised to give the reply to the envoys before their departure. The diplomats are tentatively scheduled to leave Baghdad on Friday afternoon.

Regarding the inspection of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, Mr Eckhard on Thursday said that "for the fourth day in a row the inspectors were unable to carry out their work because of Iraq's objections to the presence on the teams of American inspectors."

The Spokesman also confirmed that the President of the Security Council received a letter from the Iraqi Foreign Minister, Mohammad Said Al-Sahhaf confirming that some equipment has been moved to distant sites. He said the Foreign Minister stated in the letter the equipment had been moved to avoid military attacks as happened in 1993.

The Executive Chairman of UNSCOM, Ambassador Richard Butler had written a letter to the Security Council alleging that Iraq had moved the equipment and that there had been tampering with UNSCOM cameras.

The Iraqi Foreign Minister denied that there had been tampering with the cameras.

Asked about the Security Council's reaction to the allegation that cameras have been tampered with, the President of the Security Council Qin Huasun told reporters that he thought "the important thing for the Security Council is to wait until the team of three persons returns to New York and then the factual story must be told by them."

By unanimously adopting resolution 1136 (1997), the Council approved the continuation of the operation in a neutral and impartial way in order to restore peace and security in the country. The Mission is charged with monitoring the implementation of the Bangui Agreements in the Central African Republic, including the supervision of the surrendering of arms by former mutineers, militias and all other persons unlawfully bearing arms.

The Council also urged all States, international organizations and financial institutions to assist in post-conflict development in the Central African Republic.

In other provisions of the resolution, the Council welcomed MISAB's efforts as well as the support provided by the United Nations Development Programme to the International Committee for the follow-up to the Bangui Agreements. Member States participating in MISAB were requested to provide periodic reports to the Security Council at least every month, and the Secretary- General was requested to provide a report before the end of the three-month authorization period, including recommendations on further international support for the Central African Republic.

In a presidential statement read out on Thursday by Ambassador Qin Huasun of China, the Council said that the mines have already caused several deaths and injuries among the civilian population and the peacekeepers and observers of the international community.

It called on the parties to take all measures in their power to prevent mine-laying and intensified activities by armed groups and to cooperate fully with the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia (UNOMIG) and the peacekeeping force of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)

The Council also strongly condemned the kidnapping of personnel of UNOMIG and the CIS peacekeeping force.

The Security Council expressed regret that despite strenuous efforts to reactivate the peace process, there has been no visible progress on the key issues of the settlement: the future political status of Abkhazia and the permanent return of refugees and displaced persons.

The Security Council said it attached particular importance to the more active role for the United Nations in the peace process, and encouraged the Secretary-General to continue his efforts to that end, with the assistance of the Russian Federation as facilitator and with the support of the group of Friends of the Secretary-general on Georgia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

It said it regretted the adjournment of the high level meeting on the conflict which was to be held in Geneva, and welcomed the intention of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to resume the meeting on 17 November 1997. The Council called on all concerned to do their utmost for the resumption of this meeting "with the constructive engagement, in particular, of the Abkhaz side."

The recommendation is contained in the Secretary-General's latest report on the Guatemala mission, which is charged with monitoring the peace agreements signed by the Government of Guatemala and the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG). According to the report, there has been a steady drop in the number of human rights violations committed by public officials. "However, verification revealed that there had been little progress with regard to the observance of due process and that most unlawful acts went unpunished."

The Mission also found that in some instances the indigenous people were not given proper access to the justice system. MINUGUA also noted that certain institutions which did not have the authority to do so, were engaging in operations to prevent kidnapping, even though such efforts may have been intended to counter organized crime. The Mission concluded that overcoming institutional weaknesses required not only political will but also a gradual strengthening of institutional capabilities.

Speaking at the ceremony where he received an honorary degree from the University Chile, in Santiago, on Thursday, the Secretary-General said that the "university is the fountain of knowledge and understanding - - the very conditions for human co-existence."

By learning about the world from books and teachers, he added, "we become both curious about the world and connected to it. We become not spectators but also participants and leaders in the development of our countries and communities."

The Secretary-General said that without education, people cannot see beyond themselves and their narrow surroundings to the reality of global interdependence, nor can they realize how peoples of other races and religions share the same dreams and hopes. "Without education, we cannot recognize the universality of human aims and aspirations."

Mr. Annan said that democracy, development, and pursuit of peace and protection of human rights "are universal values" and that the people at the United Nations believe this as a matter of fact and faith. "We seek to promote these universal values not because we believe all humans are the same, or that all cultures are identical, but because we know that all humans need food, need freedom, need a sustainable future."

The Secretary-General said that as the international community celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights next year, it will do so universally, acknowledging the roots of those rights in every culture and on every continent.

Judge Li of China, who was elected in 1993 as one of the first eleven judges of the Tribunal died in the early hours of Thursday 6 November after a brief illness at the Red Cross Hospital in The Hague. He was a member of the Appeals Chamber.

Prior to his appointment to the ICTY, Judge Li was Legal Adviser to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Beijing, a part-time Professor of International Law at Beijing University, and a member of the Institute of International Law and of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

The President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Judge Antonio Cassese expressed "his deep sorrow at the loss of a wonderful colleague whose contribution to the work of the Tribunal, and more specifically the Appeals Chamber has been invaluable."

Judge Cassese said that the late judge was an "extremely" wise and perceptive judge as well as a scholar with an "unparalleled" experience of international law.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia was established by the Security Council in February 1993 to try people accused of having committed or ordered serious violations of international humanitarian law during the conflict when the former Yugoslavia disintegrated.

Hostilities in the former Yugoslavia broke out in June 1991 when Croatia and Slovenia declared independence.

Adopting the "Declaration of Sana'a" on Tuesday, participating States invited governments to consider signing the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti- Personnel Mines and Their Destruction, which will be opened for signature in Ottawa from 3 to 4 December.

The Declaration also expressed the wish that those countries unable to sign the Treaty would continue to benefit from assistance provided for demining activities. It appealed to the international community, particularly landmine exporting countries, to shoulder their humanitarian responsibilities in assisting affected countries in general, and Yemen in particular.

The Declaration states, "Everyone has a right to respect for their dignity and for their human rights regardless of their genetic characteristics. That dignity makes it imperative not to reduce individuals to their genetic characteristics and to respect their uniqueness and diversity." It also prohibits cloning and other "practices which are contrary to human dignity".

The draft was elaborated by UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee, which consulted universities, national ethics committees and experts from around the world.

The cross-border United Nations Inter-Agency Security Mission which went to Sierra Leone on Monday and returned on Wednesday, reported that some of the places it visited were tense, economically depressed and have "invisible sparse population." According to the mission this situation was in areas where the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) were present.

By contrast, areas under the Economic Community of West African States Observer Group (ECOMOG) are thriving with trade and agricultural activity continuing and local services, including schools and clinics, functioning.

The mission, which visited Kambia District and Port Loko, was unable to visit some of the worst hit places and therefore did not have an overall view of the situation.

Sierra Leone is ruled by a military junta which overthrew the democratically elected Government of Tejan Kabbah on 25 May 1997. The military junta, which is facing pressure from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to reinstate constitutional rule recently agreed to step down early next year.

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

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