United Nations Daily Highlights, 98-11-10

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 10 November, 1998

HEADLINES

• "Culture of Peace" to be theme of next millennium's first decade.
• Protection of humanitarian aid to refugees in conflict discussed in Security Council.
• General Assembly proclaims 2002 the International Year of Mountains.
• General Assembly approves first report of Credentials Committee to the current session.
• Federal Republic of Yugoslavia continues to block investigations in Kosovo: UN tribunal official.
• United Nations refugee agency resumes repatriation of Liberian refugees from Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire.
• United Nations agriculture agency reports drastic decline in food production in the Russian Federation.

By a resolution adopted without a vote, the General Assembly called on United Nations bodies, particularly the Economic and Social Council and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), as well as non- governmental organizations, religious bodies and groups, educational institutions, artists and the media to actively support the Decade for the benefit of every child of the world. The Assembly also invited Member States to take the necessary steps to ensure that the practice of peace and non-violence is taught at all levels in their respective societies, including in educational institutions.

Under the terms of the resolution, the Secretary-General would submit a report to the Assembly at its fifty-fifth session and a draft programme of action to promote the implementation of the Decade at local, national, regional and international levels, and to coordinate the Decade's activities.

Briefing the Security Council on the protection of humanitarian assistance to refugees and others in conflict situations, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata said that conflicts forcing civilians to flee were increasing. She pointed out that even when political settlements were reached and problems of displacement resolved through voluntary return, the peace established could "at best be described as fragile."

Mrs. Ogata focused in particular on the difficulty in seeking solutions to refugee problems in Africa. She said that factors which have directly contributed to blocking solutions to refugee problems included violence against civilians as seen in mutilations and killings by rebel forces in Sierra Leone. She also identified a strong ethnic component in some conflicts, particularly in the Great Lakes region as another factor which made it difficult to solve refugee problems in Africa. Mrs. Ogata said that the third factor which blocked solutions to refugee problems on the continent was the regionalization of military action.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees called for a regional approach to address the issue of forced population movements in Africa. She said that the efforts of the Southern African Development Community to stop the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo must be given stronger support and encouragement.

Noting that Central Africa had been plagued by forced population movements for decades, Mrs. Ogata said that a peace framework for this region should ensure that ethnic and nationality problems were addressed as a matter of priority. "In a region affected by several conflicts in the last few years, another issue that needs to be urgently addressed is the disarmament and demobilization of ex-combatants," Mrs. Ogata said.

The High Commissioner's presentation at an open meeting of the Security Council was followed by an extensive discussion period during which Mrs. Ogata answered questions from Council members.

Adopting without a vote a resolution that was sponsored by 136 countries, the Assembly called upon Governments, national and international organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and the private sector to make voluntary contributions and to lend other forms of support to the International Year of Mountains.

The Assembly also invited the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to serve as the lead agency for the Year and called on other United Nations agencies and programmes to collaborate in the effort.

The resolution, based on the recommendations of the Economic and Social Council, made a particular reference to Agenda 21 -- the action plan adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro which contained specific provisions on sustainable mountain development.

In its report, the nine-member Committee informed the Assembly that as of 19 October, 127 Member States had submitted formal credentials of their representatives in accordance with a rule of procedure that requires credentials to be issued either by Heads of State or Government or by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and to be submitted to the Secretary-General not less than one week before the opening of the session.

Noting that in the case of Afghanistan two sets of credentials for two different delegations to represent the country at the current session had been received, the nine-member Committee decided to defer a decision on that matter on the same basis as that of the decision taken at the previous session. Faced with a similar situation at the fifty-second session, the Committee had then decided to defer a decision on the credentials of Afghanistan on the understanding that the country's current representative to the United Nations would continue to participate in the work of the Assembly.

As for the representatives participating in the current session whose formal credentials had not been received at the time of the Committee's first meeting on 20 October, the Secretary-General would report to the Credentials Committee at a later date.

At the outset of this morning's meeting, the Assembly observed a minute of silence in tribute to the memory of the late head of State of the Comoro, Mohamed, Take Abdoulkarim, who passed away on 5 November.

In a letter to the President of the Security Council released at United Nations Headquarters, Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald said that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had failed to issue visas to investigators of the Office of the Prosecutor so that they may conduct investigations in Kosovo. "In doing so, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has stated that it does not accept any investigation of the International Tribunal in Kosovo and Metohija," Judge Kirk McDonald said.

She pointed out that the position of the Yugoslav authorities contravened the explicit decisions of the Security Council. She recalled that in a resolution adopted in March 1998, the Council urged the Office of the Prosecutor to begin gathering information related to the violence in Kosovo. In other resolutions the Council found that events in Kosovo constituted a threat to peace and security in the region and that the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia were obliged to cooperate fully with the Prosecutor of the Tribunal in the investigation of possible violations within its jurisdiction.

Kris Janowski said in Geneva on Tuesday that a ship used previously by UNHCR for repatriation from several West African countries brought 179 Liberians to Monrovia from Tabou in western Cote d'Ivoire. 252 refugees arrived in Gbarnga by road from south-eastern Guinea.

Mr. Janowski said that in the past year the United Nations refugee agency had assisted over 80,000 Liberians to return home. He added that an estimated 150,000 had gone back spontaneously during the same period.

According to UNHCR, Guinea and Cote d'Ivoire have hosted the bulk of the 480,000 Liberians who were refugees at the beginning of 1998.

"Total 1998 cereal output is forecast to have fallen by 43 per cent from the 1997 level," the Rome-based agency said, adding that low-income urban populations were most at risk from food insecurity.

"On this projection, cereal stocks will fall to critically low levels if consumption is to be maintained at current levels," said Abdur Rashid, Chief of FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System which produced the report.

According to the report, commercial cereal imports will be constrained because of low profitability and tight supplies in countries that traditionally export to Russia. The FAO report projects that cereal stocks will fall from 20 million tonnes last year to 6 million tonnes by the close of this year. The United Nations agency adds that imports on concessional terms could play an important role in relieving the pressure on the domestic market and ensuring adequate levels of carry-overs into the 1999/2000 marketing year.

The report also says that no major declines in national availability of basic foods are anticipated. However, it points out, internal trade barriers could provoke local shortages in the months ahead.

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

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