United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-05-05

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 5 May, 1998

HEADLINES

• Security Council members express concern about humanitarian situation in Sudan.
• UN Secretary-General says he is encouraged by work and direction of Rwanda Tribunal.
• Head of United Nations Foundation outlines plans for $1 billion gift from Ted Turner.
• Under-Secretary-General for Public Information says to get message out, UN must understand today's media culture.
• UN refugee agency reports 17,000 Cambodians have fled into Thailand.
• Africa emerging as major transit route for drug traffickers, according to study by UN drug agency.
• UN food agency protests seizure of food aid by armed men in Liberia.
• UN development agency contributes more than $2 million to help impoverished Vietnamese.
• Secretary-General expresses sadness at death of veteran foreign correspondent.

Speaking to correspondents after Council consultations on Tuesday, Ambassador Mahugu, who is President for the month of May, said the Council had been briefed on the situation in Sudan by Kevin M. Kennedy, the Director of the Emergency Liaison Branch of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The Ambassador welcomed the Sudanese Government's recent decision to allow additional humanitarian flights into the Bahr el-Ghazal region in southern Sudan. He described the speedy response to the United Nations request for the additional flights and the granting of access as "good news". The Council urged the Government to continue to give the UN every assistance, he added.

Members of the Council also hoped the progress made was not contingent on the peace talks currently taking place in Nairobi, he continued. They supported the talks sponsored by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and urged all sides to commit to a political settlement, which was essential to end the suffering of the Sudanese people.

Ambassador Mahugu said the Council had called for a sustained and positive response to a UN appeal for resources to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan. The Council had also reiterated the IGAD call for an immediate ceasefire to enhance the peace process and to allow the delivery of humanitarian assistance to continue.

So far, the United Nations has received pledges for only 20 per cent of its $109 million appeal to fund humanitarian assistance for thousands of people threatened by famine in southern Sudan. On Monday, in Kenya, Secretary- General Kofi Annan appealed for the international community to respond urgently and generously to the humanitarian crisis Sudan.

The Secretary-General, who is on an official tour of Africa, was speaking to UN staff at the Tribunal's seat in Arusha, Tanzania. The Tribunal was set up three years ago to try people charged with participating in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.

Mr. Annan told the UN staff, it was for ultimately for the victims of the genocide that "we seek and will find justice". Their efforts, he said, were critical to ensuring an end to the culture of impunity and to restoring justice in the aftermath of the genocide. He urged them to continue their commitment in order to establish a new relationship between Rwanda and the United Nations and to send "a message around the world that impunity can no longer be allowed to go unpunished".

The Secretary-General said the Tribunal's budgetary, financial and staffing difficulties had been "ironed out" and he was able to tell United Nations partners throughout Africa that the Tribunal was moving ahead towards the fulfilment of its promise.

The Tribunal had indicted 25 individuals, many of whom were leaders of the genocide and 23 of them were in custody in Arusha, he continued. The last six months, he said, had seen a fundamental change in the effectiveness of the Tribunal's work and a judgement in its first trial was expected next month. He said he was urging the Security Council to provide funding for a third Trial Chamber to accelerate the Tribunal's work. "If approved, we may finally see the Tribunal working to our, and Rwandan people's satisfaction and that of the victims of the genocide".

Earlier, the Secretary-General met with the Tribunal's President, judges and Registrar. "I have been able to tell all who will listen that our commitment to the future of the region begins with the pursuit of justice," he said.

Timothy Wirth, the President of the Foundation, which will oversee the administration of the gift, reiterated that the money will not go directly to the United Nations, but will fund its causes.

Mr. Wirth said at a Geneva press conference on Tuesday, that the focus of the Foundation will be on prevention, and urgent issues. It will also focus on what he called a grass roots "bottoms up" commitment, rather than just governments' top-down. It would engage, wherever possible, the private sector.

According to Mr. Wirth, the Foundation has assured Secretary-General Kofi Annan that it wanted in every way to support his reform efforts to strengthen the United Nations. "We would like to help him strengthen the weaker UN agencies or those that have not received the resources that may be necessary to do their job."

For example, he said, the Foundation has a special interest in helping Klaus Topfer, the new head of the United Nations Environment Programme and Mary Robinson, the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and to help in various "specific aspects that the Secretary- General may wish to pursue."

Mr. Hogen was speaking on Monday at the beginning of the 1998 session of the Committee on Information. He said a communications aspect must get high priority when planning and implementing UN programmes. That required collaboration between DPI staff and other UN staff members and with representatives of Member States. DPI must also keep up with the latest communications trends and acquire the latest technologies.

The Under-Secretary-General said he was establishing a strategic communications planning group to assist and advise him on critical issues which had a direct bearing on the UN's image and to give him a direct link to the DPI staff.

The Department's use of the Internet and electronic mail to provide press materials during the Secretary-General's current trip to Africa had resulted in outstanding media coverage, Mr. Hogen said. DPI was also giving priority to traditional media, particularly in the developing world and was preparing to launch a pilot project for a direct broadcasting schedule for selected regions in Africa and Europe.

Around 12,000 of the arrivals were at Huay Samran camp in Surin province about 9 kilometres from the border, the Agency report on Tuesday. An even- member UNHCR team is at the camp to coordinate relief activities. The new arrivals bring to 87,000 the total number of Cambodian refugees in Thailand.

The UNHCR describes the fresh exodus as "particularly worrisome" since it increases the already large number of people, who unless they go back to Cambodia quickly, will not be able to vote in the country's elections in July.

Most of the new arrivals are women and children, the Agency reports. Many came on foot, but a sizable number also arrived in trucks, cars, and on bicycles, carts and all-purpose vehicles mainly used for ploughing. They were in relatively good health, although there are a few cases of diarrhoea, malaria and measles. At least 8 people showed injuries caused by the fighting in Cambodia.

Weak law enforcement structures, acute economic, political and social problems in Africa and the strengthening of legal controls in other parts of the world, were all factors in the continent's emergence as a drug conduit. The study found that already South Africa, Kenya and some West- African countries were being used by international drug trafficking syndicates.

The study also said that resource and technical constraints made it difficult for law enforcement agencies to take effective action against drug traffickers. Leakage from drug trafficking through sub-Saharan Africa into local communities and major cities is exacerbating the social problems associated with poverty, political and tribal conflicts and the spread of HIV/AIDS infection.

According to the WFP, on Saturday, men armed with cutlasses, knives, sticks and bows and arrows, seized and looted three trucks loaded with 13 metric tons of food near the village of Loyoa in Nimba country. The relief supplies had been destined to feed more than 2,000 vulnerable people in the town of Zwedru in northwest Liberia.

The incident was the second in ten days involving the seizure of WFP food aid in Liberia. On 23 April, members of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) seized food aid in the town of Tubmanburg near the capital Monrovia. Despite protests by WFP staff, the soldiers unloaded the trucks and divided the food, which was destined for returnees and schoolchildren, among themselves.

The WFP regional manager in West Africa, Paul Ares, said the Agency was stopping all food deliveries to the area near Tubmanburg. "We have lodged an official complaint, and we expect the Liberian authorities will take strong measures to avoid the repetition of such deplorable acts".

The project, which is also being financed by two other United Nations agencies and the Government of Sweden is aimed at boosting incomes and reducing hunger among the households. It includes improvements in basic social services and food-production techniques and support for community- based development initiatives.

According to the United Nations Development Programme, more than one-third of the families in Ha Giang Province live in abject poverty.

In the statement, the Secretary-General said that Mr. Cioffi's distinguished career, first at CBS News, then at ABC news, included extensive reporting on the United Nations.

Mr. Cioffi brought to that assignment, the same fairness and thoroughness with which he covered war, famine, and other events on several continents, the Secretary-General said. "The news-world has lost a much-admired foreign correspondent, and the United Nations community has lost a friend and contributor to the cause of peace".

The Secretary-General extended his condolences to Mr. Cioffi's family and friends.

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

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