United Nations Daily Highlights, 99-06-28

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

DAILY HIGHLIGHTS

Monday, 28 June, 1999

HEADLINES

• UN Mission in Kosovo moves to re-establish judicial system and deploy international police contingent.
• UNHCR begins organized repatriation of refugees to three towns in Kosovo.
• Secretary-General rejects "clash of civilizations" concept in lecture at Oxford.
• UN presence in East Timor bolstered with arrival of new civilian police monitors.
• Both parties cooperate in voter identification process in Western Sahara - - UN report.
• UN mission finds signs of malnutrition in rebel-held areas of Sudan's Nuba mountains.
• UN commission set to approve international guidelines for organic food.

On Monday, the Secretary-General's Acting Special Representative in Kosovo, Sergio Vieira de Mello, swore in a panel of seven legal experts to advise him on the appointment of new judges for Kosovo. First appointments of interim judges are expected within the week.

"The appointments are an important step forward towards building an independent and multi-ethnic judiciary for Kosovo," said Mr. Vieira de Mello who is in charge of setting up the UN Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Ultimately, the UN is looking for judges and prosecutors for 29 first district courts and five second district courts.

Five members of the panel were selected from a list of jurists compiled by the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe.

Judges are needed quickly to deal with people arrested and held by KFOR, the international military force. According to European Commission standards, detainees must be brought before a judge within 48 hours and, since there are none, KFOR has been releasing people it has arrested, a UN spokesman said on Monday.

To help with policing, 35 international police from the UN mission in Bosnia arrived on Sunday and will be deployed tomorrow, Spokesman Fred Eckhard said. The UN estimates it needs about 3,000 international police officers to maintain law and order. Although several countries have indicated their willingness to supply police, so far there had been no substantive commitments.

Meanwhile, in the wake of tensions in the main hospital in Pristina between Serb and ethnic Albanian medical staff, a UN-chaired joint civilian commission made up of representatives from both communities, will meet on Tuesday to address health issues. UNMIK has set up several civilian commissions to deal with such matters as education, health, public utilities, justice, the economy and the media.

The refugees from two camps north of Skopje made their trip aboard 10 buses organized by UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration. Some of the returnees had been in the camps since early April.

The organized returns are to Kosovo's capital Pristina, Prizren and Urosevac. The three towns are secure, relatively undamaged and easily accessible from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Organized returns from Albania are expected to begin on Tuesday.

In one of the fastest spontaneous returns in decades, over 400,000 refugees have already gone back to Kosovo on their own despite warnings of uncertain security, heavy damage in many areas and the lack of an international support system. Dozens have been wounded or killed by mines and many have found their towns and villages destroyed.

Meanwhile, UNHCR is looking into the condition of Serbs who remain in Kosovo. The UN agency is also examining the situation of the 5,000 to 7,000 Krajina Serb refugees who were in Kosovo before the NATO action. Many are believed to have left and others have asked for help to leave Kosovo. UNHCR plans to transport them to Serbia from where they can decide whether to repatriate to Croatia, stay in Serbia or resettle in a third country.

"Modern societies are too closely linked with each other, and modern weapons are too terrifyingly destructive, for interaction between modern 'civilizations' to take the form of armed conflict, as that between past civilizations often did," the Secretary-General said in a lecture to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies. Mr. Annan arrived in Oxford on Sunday after a series of meetings with top United Kingdom officials in London.

Calling for a dialogue of mutual respect between different civilizations, such as the West and the Islamic world, the Secretary- General stressed that the aim was not to eliminate differences between human beings, but to preserve and even celebrate them as a source of joy and strength.

"People must be able to follow their own traditions without making war on each other," Mr Annan said. "They must have sufficient freedom to exchange ideas. They must be able to learn from each other."

The Secretary-General recalled that it was on the suggestion of a "far- sighted" Muslim leader, President Mohammed Khatami of Iran, that the year 2001 had been proclaimed as the UN Year of the Dialogue among Civilizations.

All the great religions and traditions, Mr. Annan said, overlap when it comes to the fundamental principles of human conduct. "That is what has made it possible for states in all parts of the world, representing many different religious and cultural traditions, to espouse the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other more detailed international agreements which flow from it," the Secretary-General said.

The new arrivals are expected to further stabilize the security situation, a spokesman for the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) said Monday.

Spokesman David Wimhurst, told a news briefing in East Timor's capital Dili that he had received no new reports of activities meant to intimidate voters prior to the August ballot on an autonomy proposal for the territory. He attributed the improved security situation in the capital, as well as in the town of Baukau, to the presence of the UN police, who have been working with and advising the Indonesian police.

Last Saturday, the Secretary-General's Personal Representative for East Timor, Ambassador Jamsheed Marker, said at a news conference that after speaking with the Indonesian authorities, including the President, he believed that the security situation could be solved very quickly and that conditions on the ground would permit the ballot to go forward.

Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly's main finance committee has approved wording for a draft resolution that would authorize $52.5 million for UNAMET operations until 31 August.

In May, Morocco and the POLISARIO accepted a UN-brokered package of measures to allow preparations for the referendum to go ahead. The identification process resumed on 15 June.

The Secretary-General stresses the importance of the parties staying the course leading up to the 15th of July -- the date when the first part of the provisional voters' list will be published and the appeals process will begin.

According to the Secretary-General's report, over 2,300 people have been interviewed since 15 June, bringing the total number identified since the process began in August 1994 to nearly 150,000.

Meanwhile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is preparing to repatriate refugees to the Territory in accordance with the Settlement Plan. Pre-registration has begun to determine their willingness to return and their final destination in the Territory.

Under the Settlement Plan of August 1988, the United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) was established to monitor a ceasefire and identify and register qualified voters for the referendum on whether the former Spanish colony will gain full independence or become a part of Morocco.

The UN mission -- the first in 10 years to an area controlled by the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) -- visited five villages where it found "significant humanitarian needs in the areas of food security, water, health and basic education."

Reporting on the results of the mission, UN Assistant Emergency Relief Coordinator, Ross Mountain, told a press conference in Geneva on Monday that although the team had not found evidence of massive famine, there were signs of malnutrition among children and people displaced by fighting. However, most people would make it though the winter if the rains were good, he said.

The UN negotiated access to the area with the Sudanese Government and the SPLM/A, which declared a four-day ceasefire to allow the team to investigate conditions. Mr. Ross said follow-up arrangements must be made to supply goods and services and the UN was relatively optimistic it would be able to gain access to the people in greatest need.

The Mission, which took place from 19 to 27 June, included representatives from the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint body of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the UN World Health Organization (WHO), will take up proposals that would clearly define the nature of organic food production and prevent claims that could mislead consumers about the quality of the product or the way it was produced. The Commission, which meets every two years, comprises both FAO and WHO members making up 98 percent of the world's population.

Worldwide consumer demand for organically produced food products is on the rise and provides new market opportunities for farmers and agribusiness in developing and developed countries, according to FAO. Organic agriculture, as it would be defined by the Commission, is based on avoiding the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

The proposed trade guidelines take into account current regulations in several countries, as well as the standards applied by producer organizations, and would govern the production, processing, labelling and marketing of organically produced food.

In response to the recent international crisis over dioxin- contaminated animal products, the 165-member Commission will also discuss the possibility of setting up a task force to accelerate the adoption of a draft Code of conduct on good animal feeding.

Other topics on the Commission's agenda during its week-long session include maximum residue limits for the controversial cow hormone Bovine Somatotropine (BST), food additives, biologically-engineered foods and a recommendation to increase involvement of non-governmental organizations in the Commission's work.

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

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