United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-03-30

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 30 March, 1999

HEADLINES

• Secretary-General expresses profound outrage at reports of "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo.
• UN refugee agency appeals to keep borders open for tens of thousands fleeing Kosovo.
• UN food agency delivers emergency aid to hungry Kosovar refugees, prepares for growing crisis.
• Security Council backs Secretary-General's proposal to set up inquiry into UN actions during Rwanda genocide.
• Security Council extends mandate of UN Mission in Western Sahara until 30 April 1999.
• UN panel urges new approach to inspections of prohibited weapons in Iraq.
• UN observation mission reports Iraq-Kuwait border generally calm.
• In address to student conference, Secretary-General urges youth to join UN in working for a better world.
• Secretary-General sends message of condolences to Suu Kyi, Myanmar democracy leader, on her husband's death.

Once again, a civilian population was paying the price for an unresolved political dispute, said the Secretary-General. Civilians must never come under indiscriminate and deliberate attack. Such actions were a flagrant violation of established humanitarian law.

The United Nations was doing everything possible to alleviate the suffering of displaced persons and refugees fleeing Kosovo by the thousands every day, Mr. Annan said. He appealed to Kosovo's neighbours to give shelter and comfort to civilians driven from their homes. Borders must be kept open, he said.

Mr. Annan called on the international community to give immediate financial, material and logistical support to the authorities in countries where the refugees were arriving, particularly in Albania, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as well as in Montenegro, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Any solution to the conflict must allow those people to return voluntarily to their homes in full security and dignity, the Secretary- General said.

The UN agency, which is leading refugee operations in the region, urged countries to keep their borders open to all Kosovars seeking refuge as it braced for the possible arrival of hundreds of thousands in the largest flight of people in Europe since the war in Bosnia earlier this decade.

Since NATO airstrikes began on 24 March, around 100,000 refugees have fled Kosovo, the majority of them women, children and the elderly, according to UN estimates. Many arrivals reported that they had been forcibly expelled, often within minutes and with little more than the clothes they wore. Because there were no longer any international observers in Kosovo, the whereabouts of many men were unknown.

To date, the Kosovo conflict has driven more than half a million people from their homes, said UNHCR.

As part of the international aid effort, UNHCR has appointed an envoy to Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and sent a 12-person emergency team with vehicles and other equipment to Albania. The agency also convened an emergency meeting of donor countries in Geneva, and identified aid priorities as shelter, transport and medical assistance.

Meanwhile, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday that the Albanian government has been moving refugees from the extremely poor northern border areas to the more affluent south and UNHCR staff were being moved to Albania from other countries in the region. Contacts were underway with the Albanian authorities to identify sites for possible tented camps.

At a press conference in New York, the Permanent Representative of Albania to the UN, Agim Nesho, said that the refugees were crossing the border into his country at the rate of 4,000 an hour. Up to 200,000 people were expected to arrive over the next two days.

Ambassador Nesho said his Government was doing its best to cope with the refugees, but the numbers were just too great for Albania to deal with by itself. It had appealed to all Albanians around the world as well as the international community to help to deal with what he described as the worst humanitarian catastrophe since World War II.

According to Robert Hauser, head of WFP operations in Eastern Europe, the influx of refugees into Albania alone had exploded. Tens of thousands of other refugees are expected to flee to Montenegro and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

"We've immediately moved into action so that they begin receiving food," said Mr. Hauser. A WFP truck convoy carried nearly 10 tons of high protein biscuits to the northern Albanian town of Kukes where some 70,000 refugees have gathered. A further 40 tons of wheat flour and another 10 tons of biscuits were on their way. The supplies were sufficient to feed the current refugee population for two weeks.

WFP also began delivering relief supplies into the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, where 20,000 refugees have reportedly gathered along the border.

"This is just the beginning of a potential humanitarian catastrophe and we are gearing up to prepare for the worst," said Hauser. He warned that given refugee numbers, transport difficulties and a NATO flight ban in the area, the aid response would have to be flexible.

In a letter to Mr. Annan, Security Council President Qin Huasun said that members of the Council supported the proposal in "this unique circumstance".

The Secretary-General wrote to the Council on 18 March that in view of the enormity of the Rwanda genocide, questions continued to surround the UN actions immediately before and during the crisis.

Mr. Annan said the purpose of the inquiry was to establish the facts and draw conclusions as to the Organization's response to the tragedy. Investigators would be expected to interview any person with knowledge of the events and would enjoy full access to UN records, including internal documents and cables.

MINURSO was established under the Settlement Plan of August 1988 to monitor a ceasefire and identify and register qualified voters for a referendum to decide whether the former Spanish colony of Western Sahara will gain full independence or become a part of Morocco.

In a resolution adopted unanimously the Council said that the extension was granted to allow an understanding to be reached between all concerned on modalities for the implementation of the identification and appeals protocols in a manner that would preserve the integrity of the Secretary- Generalūs package of measures.

It requested the parties - the Moroccan Government and the POLISARIO Front - to move ahead with the necessary discussions to reach an agreement on the refugee repatriation protocol. Towards that end, the Council welcomed the decision of the POLISARIO Front to allow the resumption of pre-registration activities of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Tindouf.

The Settlement Plan provides for a referendum under United Nations auspices, in cooperation with the Organization of African Unity (OAU). A package of measures to implement the Settlement Plan includes a proposal for a referendum in December this year. The package was presented to the parties last October.

In a report made public at UN Headquarters on Tuesday, the disarmament panel recommends that the Security Council adopt a refocused approach in its disarmament activities in Iraq as laid down under Council resolutions.

The panel on disarmament is one of the three panels formed at the beginning of February in order to re-establish the UN presence in Iraq after the interruption of disarmament activities in particular since mid- December. The other two panels deal with humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people and issues of prisoners of war and Kuwaiti property. The report of the disarmament panel was submitted to the UN Secretary-General on Monday by Ambassador Celso Amorim of Brazil, the chairman of the three panels on Iraq.

The report says that the 20-member panel had concentrated a great part of its work on the technical feasibility of a reinforced monitoring and verification system capable of addressing remaining unresolved disarmament issues. The panel concludes that such a system, which should include intrusive inspections and investigations of relevant elements of past activities, is viable.

According to the report, the longer inspection and monitoring activities remain suspended, the more difficult will be the comprehensive implementation of Security Council resolutions, increasing the risk that Iraq might reconstitute its prohibited weapons programmes or retain proscribed items. It says that rigorous implementation critically depends on full and free access in accordance with Security Council resolutions.

At the same time, the report adds, mandates should be carried out objectively in a technically competent and thorough manner with due regard to Iraqi sovereignty, dignity and sensitivities, including religious and cultural ones, as well as those related to commercial confidentiality.

In his latest report to the Security Council on the United Nations Iraq- Kuwait Observer Mission (UNIKOM), UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the mission had contributed to the "maintenance of calm and stability along the border" and he therefore recommended that the mission be maintained.

According to the report, despite several violations during the reporting period of 24 September 1998 to 23 March 1999, UNIKOM had continued to receive the cooperation of the Iraqi and Kuwaiti authorities.

The report said UNIKOM operations had not been significantly affected by the air strikes conducted by the United States and United Kingdom and the subsequent skirmishes between coalition and Iraqi forces over the southern "no-fly" zone, although the mission suspended the use of its fixed-wing aircraft and restricted helicopter flights to the Kuwaiti side of the border after warnings by both sides.

The 1,300-person UNIKOM was established by the Security Council in 1991 following the Persian Gulf war to maintain a demilitarized buffer along the Iraq-Kuwait border.

In his opening remarks to the National Model United Nations (NMUN) Conference meeting at UN Headquarters in New York, the Secretary-General said the commitment, imagination and idealism of today's youth would be the difference between success and failure in all the enormous challenges facing the world in the 21st century.

"There are so many ways you can contribute: through teaching, through medicine, through law, through diplomacy, or as a member of the business community," Mr. Annan said. "Whichever walk of life you choose, I hope you will find the UN a valued partner and a useful instrument in your efforts to improve the human condition."

The Model UN conferences are a non-governmental activity that provides a forum for college students from around the United States to discuss global concerns in a context which closely parallels the deliberations of the United Nations.

Dr. Michael Aris, the husband of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the National League of Democracy and Nobel Prize Laureate, died over the weekend in London.

Spokesman Fred Eckhard said the Secretary-General was dismayed that, "despite efforts with the authorities in Myanmar," the couple were not able to meet during Dr. Aris' illness.

"The Secretary-General sends his heartfelt condolences to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her sons at this time of irreparable loss," Mr. Eckhard said.

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

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