United Nations Daily Highlights, 97-11-13

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

Thursday, 13 November 1997

HEADLINES

• Security Council demands that Iraq immediately revoke its decision to expel UN weapons inspectors of a specified nationality and warns of "serious consequences" for non-compliance; UNSCOM Executive Chairman decides to withdraw team.
• New Executive Director of United Nations humanitarian programme leaves for Iraq.
• At resumed emergency special session on illegal Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, General Assembly repeats its call for meeting of parties to Geneva Convention.
• UN expert on Cambodia says impunity persists there four months after coup d'‚tat.
• Federal Republic of Yugoslavia disregards basic human rights, according to UN Special Rapporteur.
• People in Afghan region of Hazarajat risk starvation, says UN Coordinator for Afghanistan.

In a statement read out by Council President Qin Huasun of China on behalf of the members, the Security Council demanded the immediate and unequivocal revocation of that action. It further demanded that Iraq comply immediately and fully with its obligations under the relevant resolutions and recalled its statement of 29 October warning of the "serious consequences" of Iraq's failure to do so.

The Security Council expressed its full support for UNSCOM and for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and stressed the importance of their ensuring the implementation of all aspects of their mandates, including their vital work in monitoring and verification in Iraq.

"The Security Council stresses that the Government of Iraq has full responsibility for ensuring the safety and security of the personnel and equipment of the Special Commission and the IAEA and their inspection teams", the President concluded.

Earlier on Thursday, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, had informed United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan that weapons inspectors of United States origin would be expelled from Iraq. United Nations Spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters that the Iraqi authorities had said that UNSCOM inspectors should leave by road to Jordan.

In response, UNSCOM Executive Chairman Richard Butler decided to withdraw all UNSCOM staff from Iraq on Friday. "I have decided to continue to resist this segregation of UNSCOM staff according to nationality", Ambassador Butler said, adding that he had also decided to leave a skeleton staff at the UNSCOM Centre in Baghdad.

Ambassador Butler added that UNSCOM would restart its work as soon as conditions in Iraq were acceptable.

According to Mr. Eckhard, the Iraqi official had indicated that the United Nations could continue its normal work, but had added that the U-2 flights must cease, and that Iraq hoped to avoid a military confrontation.

Benon Sevan, who is also the United Nations Security Coordinator, is expected to arrive in Iraq on Friday on his first visit to the country.

According to a United Nations Spokesman, Mr. Sevan's trip, which was planned several weeks ago, is aimed at familiarizing himself with the oil- for-food operation on the ground, and to prepare for the next 180-day report on the implementation of the programme. He will also meet with the heads of various United Nations agencies in Baghdad.

Under the oil-for-food programme, Iraq, which is facing United Nations sanctions following the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, is allowed to import up a limited quantity of oil in order to purchase food and humanitarian supplies.

After 180 days the programme is reviewed and a report on its implementation is submitted to the United Nations. The current 180-day period comes to an end on 5 December.

The Assembly took that action by adopting a resolution by a vote of 139 in favour to 3 against (Federated States of Micronesia, Israel, United States), with 13 abstentions.

The Assembly also called for reinjecting momentum into the stalled Middle East peace process, and for the implementation of the agreements reached between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The principles of the process, including the exchange of land for peace, must be upheld, according to the resolution.

The Assembly condemned Israel's failure to comply with the resolutions it had adopted when the emergency special session convened in April and July. By those texts, the Assembly had demanded the immediate and full cessation of the construction in Jebel Abu Ghneim and of all other Israeli settlement activities, as well as of all illegal actions in Jerusalem. Further, the Assembly had demanded that Israel accept the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, and that it comply with relevant Security Council resolutions.

By the resolution adopted Thursday, the Assembly reiterated its call to end assistance and support for illegal Israeli activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem. Israel was also called upon to ensure respect for the Convention. The Assembly further recommended that Member States actively discourage activities which contribute to any construction or development of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including Jerusalem.

Addressing the General Assembly, the Permanent Observer of Palestine, Nasser Al-Kidwa, said the severe deterioration in the peace process in the Middle East resulting from Israeli actions gave the Assembly's session greater urgency and importance. "The [Israeli] Government has resumed its colonial settlement campaign through the confiscation of more Palestinian land, the theft of natural resources, the construction of settlements and the transfer of more settlers to the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967." In addition to suffocating the Palestinian economy and grossly exploiting the Palestinian market, he said, Israel was using such oppressive measures as the demolition of homes, kidnappings, collective administrative detentions and even killings and assassinations. "Only yesterday, a nine-year-old boy in the city of Bethlehem was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier", Mr. Al- Kidwa said.

Israel's Ambassador, Dore Gold, said, "This meeting of the emergency special session, like those which preceded it, is a masquerade. It claims to be concerned with advancing the prospects for peace. It claims to be concerned with increasing humanitarian protection. But in fact it will serve only to undermine the prospects for peace, to undermine the instruments of humanitarian protection, and, ultimately, to undermine the United Nations itself."

The General Assembly met in accordance with the 1950 General Assembly resolution 377 (V), which allows for an emergency special session if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity among the permanent members, fails to exercise its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security "in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression". The Assembly's special session began in April following a series of Security Council meetings concerning Israel's decision to build Har Homa, a 6,500-unit housing project in East Jerusalem. On two occasions, the Council had failed to adopt a draft resolution that would have expressed deep concern about the decision and would have called on Israel to refrain from such settlement activities.

Addressing the General Assembly's Social, Humanitarian and Cultural (Third) Committee, Thomas Hammarberg, the Secretary-General's Special Representative on human rights in Cambodia, said the problem of impunity remained "a most crucial challenge". Under Cambodian law, he said, no civil servant may be arrested or prosecuted for any crime with Government consent. He said this "contravenes the basic principle of equality of all persons under the law and creates a climate of lawlessness in which persons in the police or military are not held accountable for their acts, even when such acts include murder, rape, robbery or arson." Human rights violators were effectively shielded from prosecution, he added.

"Judges and prosecutors have expressed their frustration over the difficulty to prosecute military or police offenders, in spite of evidence that they are responsible for most of the human rights violations in the provinces and of the criminal offences dealt with by the court", Mr. Hammarberg continued.

Mr. Hammarberg noted that the most serious human rights violators in recent Cambodian history had been the Khmer Rouge and that no Khmer Rouge leader had been arrested or prosecuted. In response, he suggested that the United Nations Secretary-General appoint experts to evaluate the existing evidence of responsibility for the Khmer Rouge human rights violations. Prime Ministers Prince Ranariddh and Hun Sen, as well as King Sihanouk, had all declared their support for that proposal.

Elisabeth Rehn, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, said that heavily armed police, acting on the basis of a ministerial decision, recently dismissed the legally elected City Assembly in Novi Pazar after a Muslim party won a two-thirds majority. "One can ask: why should there be elections at all, if an unfavourable outcome can be annulled so easily by a country's ruling party?"

Addressing the General Assembly's Social, Humanitarian and Cultural (Third) Committee, Ms. Rehn said the situation in Kosovo remains tense. While she commended the discipline of the ethnic Albanian students who demonstrated for education rights "without violence, without provocation", she added that "unfortunately, the police did now always show the same discipline". She stressed that a greater international presence in Kosovo was needed, because "this situation cannot be fully understood from an office in Belgrade".

Ms. Rehn also reported that there seemed to have been serious violations of the human rights of several Albanians accused of terrorism, "including torture and hidden detention".

Regarding Croatia, the Special Rapporteur said the Government had made efforts to meet the human rights demands of the international community. But, she said, "there is still too much hate between Serbs and Croats". She added that it was generally clear that "Serbs in Croatia still do not enjoy the same rights in reality as Croats, and their suffering, which I have personally seen, is heartbreaking".

The Special Rapporteur recalled that she had decided to exclude The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia from her mandate since the Government had responded positively to most of her recommendations. "But something I do want to mention is the state of the police forces. During the incidents last summer in Gostivar, the national police showed an appalling brutality against civilians, even children, resulting in three deaths and some 200 injuries."

Alfredo Witschi-Cestari said on Thursday that he had written to the Taliban authorities in Kandahar repeating the request that they lift the four-month blockade in the region.

According to the Coordinator, Hazarajat faces food shortages every year, but normally aid agencies are able to truck in supplies to help alleviate the situation. For example, by this time last year, the World Food Programme (WFP) had brought in 2,000 tonnes of wheat. This year, the food agency's plans to bring in food from the north were thwarted by fighting, as well as the looting of the Mazar-I-Sharif and Hairaton warehouses. On Wednesday the agency tried to bring in the last remaining 190 tonnes of wheat from Hairaton but was turned back by Northern Alliance troops.

WFP has been able, however, to bring and distribute 22.5 tonnes of locally produced potatoes to the most needy, and efforts are under way to buy more potatoes.

The trade ban has prevented the import of dry goods, such as tea, sugar and clothing, and has led to a 50 to 75 per cent increase in prices. The cost of diesel has shot up by 100 per cent. The ban has also crippled the export of livestock and other products, such as handicrafts which are a traditional supplement to household incomes. According to a United Nations survey conducted last week, livestock prices have dropped by 50 per cent since last year.

The blockade of the Ghazni-Kabul trade and aid route compounded food shortages created by an estimated 50 per cent failure in the wheat harvest due to weather conditions.



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

United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article