United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-07-01

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From: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: [email protected]

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Wednesday, 1 July, 1998

HEADLINES

• Further Security Council sanctions against UNITA take effect, banning diamond trade under areas it controls.
• Secretary-General meets with traditional leaders in Nigeria, who recommend release of Moshood Abiola.
• UN World Food Programme reports grim food situation in Guinea- Bissau.
• Executive Director of UN International Drug Control Programme heads to Iran to witness burning of narcotics.
• Experts recommend that UN environment and housing efforts strengthen links to civic groups and businesses.
• Decolonization Committee continues discussion of East Timor over Indonesia's objections.
• International Court of Justice gives Nigeria until next March to file documents in case brought by Cameroon.

Specifically, UNITA did not meet the Council's deadline for compliance in the immediate extension of State administration throughout Angola, including in particular Andulo, Bailundo, Mungo and N'Harea.

Under the new measures, enacted through Security Council resolution 1176 (1998), States are required to freeze UNITA funds within their territory and ensure that those funds are not made available -- directly or indirectly -- to the organization and its leaders. States must also prevent any official contacts with UNITA leadership and prohibit the receipt of diamonds from areas not under State administration in Angola. Further, they will have to prohibit the sale or supply of mining equipment and motorized vehicles to areas outside the Angolan State administration.

"The members of the Council express regret, in view of the fact that UNITA has not taken advantage of Security Council resolution 1176, and therefore the corresponding sanctions went into force," said the current Council President, Ambassador Sergey Lavrov of the Russian Federation.

Addressing the press on behalf of Council members, he called upon Member States to fully implement the additional measures against UNITA. "They reiterate the demand to UNITA to complete its obligations under the Accordos de Paz, the Lusaka Protocol and relevant Security Council resolutions," he said. The members of the Council called on the Government, and in particular UNITA, to preserve the peace process, and they reaffirmed the Council's readiness to consider its next steps if necessary.

In response to a question, Ambassador Lavrov said that it was hoped that additional measures would not be necessary, "but if UNITA doesn't implement its obligations then the Council would have to consider the situation."

The Secretary-General, who is in Nigeria on an urgent mission to promote the release of political prisoners, met with the Traditional Rulers' Consultative Council, which is made up of the country's eight most senior traditional leaders. Among their recommendations, the leaders called for the release of Moshood Abiola, who is widely thought to have won the 1993 elections.

According to United Nations Spokesman Juan Carlos Brandt, the Consultative Council expressed the view that the current military government could not reasonably conduct a transition to civilian rule by 1 October. Instead, the traditional leaders recommended that the transition take place by 1 January 1999, at which point Chief Abiola could run in presidential elections.

While in Nigeria, the Secretary-General has also contacted people who had recently been released from prison. On Tuesday, he telephoned Olusegun Obasanjo, the former head of State, and met with Chirstina Anyanwu, publisher and editor-in-chief of "The Sunday Magazine", who had been imprisoned for three years and who was recently awarded the World Press Freedom Prize by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

On Wednesday, Mr. Annan also met separately with President Charles Taylor of Liberia and President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of Sierra Leone, who were in Nigeria for a "mini-summit" at the invitation of the country's current head of State, General Abdulsalem Abubakar. After meeting the two leaders, the Secretary-General joined the mini-summit, which was convened to address subregional security issues.

While in Nigeria, the Secretary-General also met with the heads of United Nations agencies in the country. "He encouraged the group to continue cooperating with each other to make the UN's presence in Nigeria as strong and as effective as possible," Mr. Brandt said.

WFP is part of a United Nations inter-agency humanitarian mission currently assessing humanitarian needs and access to aid in Guinea- Bissau. The agency painted a "grim picture" of the food situation in the two towns visited so far -- Bafata and Gabu, which are both northwest of the capital Bissau, according to a United Nations spokesman. He said the population of Bafata, which is 150 kilometres away from the capital, has swelled from 160, 000 to 300,000. In Gabu, some 35 kilometres from Bissau, the team found people eating rice seeds, which are meant for planting.

The three-day mission, which began work on Monday, is comprised of representatives from the Office of the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, WFP, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund and the United Nations Development Programme. They are visiting areas across Guinea-Bissau where groups of displaced persons have assembled.

The ceremony will take place in Tehran at 5 pm local time, according to Mr. Arlacchi's Spokesman, Sandro Tucci. Mr. Tucci said that 50 tonnes of opium, heroin and morphine -- with a street value of some seven hundred million dollars -- would be destroyed during the event. Iran's President, Mohammed Khatami, is scheduled to attend together with Mr. Arlacchi, who was invited by the President.

Before the ceremony, Mr. Arlacchi is expected to meet privately with President Khatami. He will also meet with the country's Foreign Minister, Kamal Kharazi, as well as the Secretary of the Anti-Narcotics Headquarters, Mohamed Hossein-Zedeh Fallah.

"The Task Force recommends that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT) examine, together with representatives of business, industry and other economic interests, ways of involving that community constructively in their deliberations," according to the Task Force report, released on Wednesday. The recommendation is made in view of the fact that environment and human settlements policy must be more integrated with economic decision- making. "This means that there must be a well-balanced and effective continuing dialogue with business, industry and other economic interests," the report notes.

The report also calls for developing the Earthwatch system for assessing the condition of the global environment. Monitoring and assessment are closely linked to predicting possible environmental emergencies which could threaten security. The Task Force recommends that UNEP and HABITAT maximize their ability to provide early warning of possible environmental and human settlements emergencies.

Presenting the report, UNEP Executive Director Klaus T�pfer said its recommendations "provide the first important building blocks to allow us to begin to shape the institutions of the next century."

The Task Force designed its recommendations to address the problems of institutional fragmentation and the lack of policy coherence which were hampering the work of the United Nations in the area of the environment and human settlements. It called for the establishment of an inter-agency environment management group to take a problem-solving, results-oriented approach to joint action.

The Task Force emphasized the importance of strengthening the United Nations presence in Nairobi, and stressed the need to make the status of the United Nations Office there commensurate with other major UN centres, such as those at Vienna and Geneva.

The Task Force is made up of ministers, senior government officials, senior United Nations officials and NGO representatives.

Indonesia's delegate to the Committee, Tito Dos Santos Baptista, on Tuesday objected to the inclusion of the East Timor question on the agenda, saying that the territory had ceased to be the subject for decolonization; it was therefore inappropriate for the Special Committee to take up the matter. Consideration by the Committee contributed nothing to the dialogue currently being held under the auspices of the Secretary-General, he added.

That objection was entered into the record, but the Committee continued its consideration of the issue, hearing from a number of petitioners representing non-governmental organizations.

Richard Tanter of the Kyoto East Timor Association said Indonesian President Habibie had conceded the need to change the country's policy on East Timor. In the midst of Indonesia's economic and political crisis, he stated, it was becoming clear to all how little there was to lose by a properly orchestrated withdrawal from the Territory. He recommended that the United Nations monitor the phased withdrawal of Indonesian troops.

Nigeria had originally raised a number of objections related to the case. In response, the Court decided on 11 June that it has jurisdiction to deal with the merits of the case, and that Cameroon's claims are admissible.

Cameroon had asked the Court to determine the question of sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula and the islands in Lake Chad, and to specify the course of the land and maritime boundary between itself and Nigeria. The Court indicated that, contrary to Nigeria's assertions, a dispute exists between Cameroon and Nigeria regarding the legal basis of the boundary as a whole.

From the United Nations home page at <http://www.un.org> - email: [email protected]

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