United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-05-25

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Tuesday, 25 May, 1999

HEADLINES

• Signalling new wave of ethnic cleansing, thousands of refugees pour out of Kosovo.
• UN report describes ordeals of rape and abduction among Kosovar women.
• Secretary-General calls for world community to work with Central Americas on peace and reconstruction.
• Former Swedish Prime Minister to lead inquiry into UN response to 1994 Rwanda genocide.
• Secretary-General calls for restraint as India and Pakistan exchange fire in Jammu and Kashmir.
• General Assembly authorizes $35 million for UN mission in East Timor.
• UN health agency outlines plan to fight iodine deficiency disorder.
• UN meeting in Bangkok explores ways to combat social ills caused by financial crisis.
• UNHCR concerned over Sierra Leone rebel attack on refugee camp in Guinea.

Well over 20,000 have crossed into the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, putting a new strain on the country's ability to house the latest influx. On Monday alone, 8,000 people came by train and 20 buses to the border at Blace and several hundred crossed at other points. Similar numbers were expected to flood across the borders on Tuesday.

The new arrivals, who were mostly from Pristina, Urosevac and Vitina, said Serb forces were conducting a systematic ethnic cleansing operation in these areas. Many told UNHCR they had been originally from Podujevo, the strategic town along the Pristina-Belgrade road, and they claimed there had been massacres in their villages.

During the same period, 5,000 refugees were evacuated from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to third countries, according to UNHCR. As the new arrivals threaten to overwhelm the already crowded camps, anxious authorities in Skopje are insisting some refugees be transferred to Albania.

The UN agency said it understood the difficult situation in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as well as the importance of keeping the country's border open, but it believed transfer of Kosovars to Albania, while not excluded, should be voluntary and based on an informed decision by the refugees themselves.

The report prepared by Dominique Serrano-Fitamant, a psychologist specializing in sexual violence and trauma counselling, is based on her interviews in early May with women refugees and health providers in camps around Tirana and Kukes in Albania.

The women, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Ms. Serrano-Fitamant of rape, abductions, detentions and torture. "The women reported being individually raped by many men, during a few hours but sometimes even for days. Women who were released had lacerations on their chests and evidence of beating on their arms and legs," she said. Some women were taken to unknown places and have not yet reappeared.

Ms. Serrano-Fitamant said some women described themselves as being forever "dead" to their families for having suffered a violation, which carries tremendous stigma in their society. Many fear being divorced or excluded from their community or family, or that their husbands will seek revenge for the rapes, she said.

Dr. Nafis Sadik, UNDPA's Executive Director said, "It is of the utmost importance that the international community offer support to these women and their families after their horrific ordeals. We must help the victims regain their dignity as human beings, in spite of the violence they have been subjected to."

UNFPA is providing training in counselling and psychological support to health professionals so they can help victims of sexual violence. Local Albanian women's groups will also receive counselling training in coordination with other UN agencies and local and international non- governmental organizations.

Contrary to previous reports, Ms. Serrano-Fitamant said, many women wanted to talk about their experiences, but needed appropriate circumstances to do so.

The Secretary-General, who began today his official visit to Sweden, was speaking in Stockholm at a donors' Conference on Central America. His address touched on two main themes: the unfinished political and human rights agendas of the peace process in the region, and the reconstruction agenda following the loss of life and devastation caused by Hurricane Mitch.

The two agendas of peace and reconstruction both addressed the pivotal questions of poverty, social inequity, population pressures and environmental sustainability, said Mr. Annan. Both involved crucial issues such as local development, decentralization, transparency, good governance and institution-building.

The donors' meeting was attended by the Presidents of Honduras and Nicaragua, delegates from all Central American countries and representatives of donor countries and multilateral aid agencies.

Later in the day, the Secretary-General spoke about the need for expanded contacts between the business community and the United Nations in an address to the Svenska Dagbladet's Executive Club. He said the UN needed business as an advocate for international cooperation, to promote development by investing in developing countries, and as a partner in the dialogue on economic, social and related issues.

As part of his official programme in Stockholm, the Secretary- General also attended a working lunch hosted by Swedish Prime Minister Goran Persson. The two leaders discussed various aspects of the Kosovo crisis, as well as the role of the United Nations and the ongoing reform process inside the Organization.

The Secretary-General made the announcement at a news conference in Stockholm following his meeting with the Swedish Prime Minister, Goran Persson.

The Secretary-General named former Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson to head the team. The panel's other members are Han Sung-Joo, the former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea, and Nigerian General Rufus Kupolati, who served three years as head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission based in Jerusalem.

The team will begin work immediately and is expected to present its report to the Secretary-General in six months, according to a UN spokesman.

Back in March, the Secretary-General informed the Security Council of his intention to set up an independent inquiry into the actions the United Nations had taken at the time of the Rwanda genocide. The Secretary-General said the panel's primary purpose was to establish facts and to draw conclusions as to the Organization's response to the tragedy.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the Secretary-General called on the parties to exercise restraint and cease the fighting which had repeatedly caused a number of casualties among the civilian population and displaced others from their villages in the area. These events, Mr. Annan stressed, again highlighted the need for a political solution to the dispute over Kashmir.

The United Nations has been continually concerned with the decades- old dispute over Kashmir. The issue dates back to the 1940s, when the State of Jammu and Kashmir was one of the princely states which became free, under the partition plan and the India Independence Act of 1947, to accede to India or Pakistan. The accession became a matter of dispute between the two countries and fighting broke out later that year.

The Line of Control was defined by the 1972 India-Pakistan agreement, which followed, with minor deviations, the same course as the ceasefire line established in the Karachi Agreement of 1949.

The General Assembly's action, taken without a vote, is in line with the recommendation of its administrative and budgetary committee which was based on a report by the Secretary-General detailing the financial requirements of the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET).

On Monday, the Secretary-General submitted to the Security Council a separate report recommending the mandate, size, structure and budget of the mission, which is expected to be formally endorsed by the Council later this week. UNAMET is being created to organize and conduct a popular ballot on the future of East Timor in accordance with agreements between Indonesia and Portugal signed at UN Headquarters in New York earlier this month.

Speaking at the World Health Assembly in Geneva, WHO Director-General Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland said the agency will seek to eliminate IDD through an intense salt iodization and iodine delivery programme.

"When elimination of IDD is achieved it will be a major and total public health triumph, ranking with smallpox and poliomyelitis," Dr. Brundtland told WHO's governing body. IDD currently affects 740 million people a year and can cause brain disorders, cretinism, miscarriages and goitre, according to WHO.

In backing WHO efforts, the Assembly adopted a resolution calling for the Director-General to work with several institutional partners in support of the "efficient and effective iodization of salt" by the salt industry. The resolution also recommended WHO provide countries with technical support to determine the iodine status of their populations and the quality of iodized salt.

WHO said that from 1990 to 1998, the number of salt iodization programmes around the world more than doubled to 93. Two-thirds of households in IDD- affected countries now have access to iodized salt.

"All Governments in the region have an inescapable responsibility to play a crucial role in ensuring social protection and in sustaining social stability," Adrianus Mooy, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) told the conference that was convened to discuss new initiatives aimed at combatting complex social problems caused by the on-going economic crisis.

The three-day event, which brings together more than 30 senior-level government officials and social policy experts, was jointly organized by ESCAP and UN departments and agencies concerned with development issues.

In his remarks, Mr. Mooy emphasized the vital need for providing social safety nets to the unemployed in countries affected by the financial crisis, adding that there should be more careful targeting of government programmes for alleviating social stress. Civil society should be more involved in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of such programmes, he said.

The meeting's final report is expected to serve as the region's input to next year's special session of the UN General Assembly which will review progress since the landmark 1995 World Summit for Social Development.

The cross-border attack into the Forecariah area came on the eve of the announced entry into force of a ceasefire between Government forces and the rebels in Sierra Leone.

Immediately after the attack which killed 11 people, UNHCR sent a mission to Tassin, the site of a Sierra Leone refugee camp -- one of seven to be shifted further from the border area in Forecariah. UNHCR is working urgently to ready new sites as there are rumours of further rebel incursions. Guinea and Liberia host more than 400,000 Sierra Leonean refugees.

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

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