United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-09-20

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Monday, 20 September, 1999

Latest Developments

"Humanitarian intervention" to pose challenge in new century, Secretary- General tells General Assembly as it opens top-level annual debate.

The United Nations can succeed in combating war and poverty only by adapting to a world with new actors, new responsibilities and new possibilities for peace and progress, Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the UN General Assembly on Monday as the Organization's main deliberative and legislative body opened its annual top-level debate on the most crucial issues facing humanity.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan addressing Assembly at opening of general debate

HEADLINES

• First troops of UN-authorized multinational force arrive in ravaged East Timor capital.

Addressing the Assembly before the start of the general debate, which every year brings scores of world leaders to UN Headquarters in New York, the Secretary-General focused special attention on the prospects of human security and intervention in the next century.

The Secretary-General said that the recent crises from Sierra Leone to Sudan to Angola to the Balkans to Cambodia and to Afghanistan, have cast in sharp relief the dilemma of so called "humanitarian intervention" between the legitimacy of action taken without a UN mandate and the need to stop violations of human rights with grave humanitarian consequences.

Noting that the events in Kosovo have prompted some to question the suitability of the UN Charter as a guide in today's world of ethnic wars and intra-state violence, Mr. Annan refuted that view, stressing that the Charter was a "living document" and that nothing in the Charter precluded a recognition that there were rights beyond borders.

"In short, it is not the deficiencies of the Charter which have brought us to this juncture, but our difficulties in applying its principles to a new era; an era when strictly traditional notions of sovereignty can longer do justice to the aspirations of peoples everywhere to attain their fundamental freedoms," the Secretary-General said.

"Just as we have learned that the world cannot stand aside when gross and systematic violations of human rights are taking place, so we have also learned that intervention must be based on legitimate and universal principles if it is to enjoy the sustained support of the world's peoples." This developing international norm in favour of intervention to protect civilians from wholesale slaughter, the Secretary-General told the Assembly, would no doubt continue to pose profound challenges to the international community.

During the two-week general debate, which according to tradition opens with a statement by a representative of Brazil -- this year Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia -- 183 speakers, including many heads of State and Government, are expected to address the Assembly.

About 2,300 troops arrived on a dozen flights starting at dawn. Under the command of Australian General Peter Cosgrove, the largely Australian force, which includes a company of British Gurkhas from Nepal, first secured the airport and then the Port of Dili. Five hundred more troops may arrive by Wednesday, the spokesman said.

Ian Martin, the Secretary-General's Special Representative and the head of the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET), visited the UN compound and described it as being "in pretty good shape," the spokesman said, adding that there was no evidence of militia in the capital amidst tight security by the Indonesian military.

Meanwhile, UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Sadako Ogata met with Indonesian President B.J. Habibie on Monday. Mrs. Ogata, who arrived in Jakarta over the weekend, yesterday visited West Timor, where several thousands of East Timorese have been reportedly relocated against their will.

In her meeting with President Habibie, Mrs. Ogata was told that UNHCR staff would get access to displaced persons in East Timor, the UN spokesman said, although the refugee agency says the test will be on the ground when a three-person emergency team will be deployed there.

The World Food Program (WFP) is preparing to start "snow drops" of high- protein biscuits tomorrow to an estimated 50,000 people living in mountain areas of East Timor after suspending air drops yesterday and today because of congestion at the airport due to incoming aircraft.

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

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