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United Nations Daily Highlights 96-11-01United Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleFrom: The United Nations Home Page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.orgDAILY HIGHLIGHTSFriday, 1 November 1996This document is prepared by the Central News Section of the Department of Public Information and is updated every week-day at approximately 6:00 PM. HEADLINES
The Security Council has said that it was gravely concerned at the deteriorating situation in the Great Lakes region, in, particular eastern Zaire, and at the effect which the continued fighting was having on the inhabitants of that region. In a Presidential statement on Friday, the Council President, Ambassador Nugroho Wisnumurti of Indonesia said the Council underlined the urgent need for a comprehensive and coordinated response by the international community to prevent any further escalation of the crisis in the region, adding that the Council called for an immediate cease-fire and a complete cessation of all fighting in the region. Calling on all States to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of neighbouring States in accordance with their obligations under the UN Charter, the Council urged all parties to refrain from the use of force as well as cross-border incursions and to engage in a process of negotiation. The Council said it agreed with the Secretary-General that the situation in eastern Zaire constituted a serious threat to the stability of the Great Lakes region. "It is convinced that the complex problems at issue can only be resolved through early and substantive dialogue. The Council urges the Governments of the region to pursue such a dialogue without further delay in order to defuse the tension," the President of the Council said. Reiterating that the present situation in eastern Zaire underlined the need to organise a conference on peace, security and development in the Great Lakes region under the auspices of the UN and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), the Council called on the Secretary-General to ask his Special Envoy to promote the convening and to encourage the adequate preparation of such a conference on an urgent basis. The continuing efforts of the UN to further the cause of global disarmament had taken a significant step with Hungary ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention on Thursday, thereby enabling the Convention to enter into force. Welcoming the move towards ending the entire category of mass destruction weapons, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said the Convention would enter into force within six months. The Chemical Weapons Convention is the first disarmament agreement negotiated within a multilateral framework that provided for the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. Under the terms of the Convention, each State party would undertake to destroy chemical weapons and production facilities. Specifically, the Convention prohibits State parties from engaging in the development, production or acquisition, stockpiling and retention of chemical weapons. The President of the General Assembly, Ambassador Rizali Ismail of Malaysia, has appealed to the international community to provoke action to provide safe areas for the victims of the conflict in the Great Lakes region. "We must provide emergency assistance in the form of food and medical supplies. All governments, particularly those in the area, must in clear conscience give assistance to people, irrespective of which side of the border they come from," he said. He said the grotesque scale and nature of the brutality and violence against innocent people was chillingly familiar, and that the bleeding wounds of ethnicide committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Rwanda were still open. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Sadako Ogata, on Thursday called for an immediate end to the fighting in eastern Zaire, and warned that refugees fleeing for their lives were in grave danger in a rapidly deteriorating situation. She also expressed her shock at the assassination of a Roman Catholic archbishop. She said the refugees in Mugunga and Lac Vert are so tightly packed in a very small volcanic region that unless basic assistance was provided to them, they would be facing a terrible situation where people fleeing for their lives would end up dying because humanitarian aid failed to reach them. Ms. Ogata said some 100 expatriate workers, including 14 with the UNHCR, are trapped in their offices by the fighting in the Goma area, unable to proceed to build the basic infrastructure of new arrivals at Mugunga and Lac Vert in the midst of the rainy season. Food distribution at the two camps which began on Wednesday had been discontinued, she added. Cultural criteria should be included in any early warning system developed to help foresee and prevent incipient conflicts, the representative of Canada told the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) as it began its consideration of cultural development issues. Canada was addressing recommendations in the report of the World Commission on Culture and Development, which was introduced in the Committee. The independent Commission, which began work in 1993, was established at the request of the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Canada's representative added that such criteria could take into account threats to a culture or minorities, or such things as the denial of the right to education. While supportive of the idealism of the report, he said he was concerned by the report's emphasis on making violations of cultural rights criminal. Although countries had an obligation to advance respect for cultural rights, it would not be easy to make such violations criminal, he said. Although there had been a small reduction in the number of refugees compared to last year, the international environment remained highly volatile, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Sadako Ogata, told the Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural). She said it was difficult to find solutions to humanitarian crises in the face of bitter and divisive conflicts when political will to initiate and sustain true reconciliation was lacking. She said in the last few months, people had been uprooted by armed conflict in Burundi, the Caucasus, Iraq, Liberia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, and most recently Zaire, which was on the brink of calamity, she said. Earlier, the Committee approved a draft resolution which would ask the General Assembly to adopt an International Code of Conduct for Public Officials and recommended that states use it as a tool to guide their efforts against corruption. The General Assembly would be asked to authorise the Secretary- General to commit $12.5 million to provide support to and for the liquidation of the combined UN Peace Forces in the former Yugoslavia for the period 1 November to 31 December, by the provisions of one of four texts approved without a vote by the Fifth Committee, (Administrative and Budgetary). Also approved without a vote were drafts on the UN Mission in Haiti (UNMIH), the UN Support Mission in Haiti (UNSMIH) and peace-keeping liabilities. By the text approved on the forces in the former Yugoslavia, the Assembly would also urge the Secretary-General to ask some governments to reimburse the UN Protection Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNPROFOR) for its payment of at least $37 million as excise duty on petroleum, oil and lubricants since 1 October, contrary to the status-of-forces agreement and UN general conditions on contracts. The Government of Norway on Friday made a contribution of US$24 million to UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) for its 'Education For All' programme in Africa. The contribution, largest ever received by UNICEF for education initiatives, would be used to develop a learning environment that not only ensured that girls stay in school but also enhanced their performance. Thanking Norway for the generous contribution, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said it was essential that girls' education be made an immediate priority around the world. "Education is the key to empowerment of girls and improvement of the situation of women. This donation is a signal to the world not to let girls down and will benefit whole societies in Africa," she said. Girls in Africa have had significantly poorer access to education than boys. In 1990, the net enrolment for girls' education was 25.2% for girls and 32.7% for boys and the percentage of girls of school age not attending school was as high as 80 - 85% in some African countries. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) on Thursday ended its 150th session with an urgent call for all concerned parties to lay down their arms and seek peace in the strife-torn region of Bukavu, Zaire. Summing up the Board's 150th session, which began on 14 October, Executive Board Chairman, Tidjani-Serpos said it had acted as a laboratory of ideas, a forum of reflection regarding the implications of the information highway, and on UNESCO's role as organiser and anticipator of the large intellectual mutations that the future holds. Among the decisions adopted, the Board expressed its concern over the delay in the implementation of the Oslo Agreement and requested that Israel reopen the Palestinian educational and cultural institutions in Hebron and East Jerusalem it had closed. It asked the Director-General to do his utmost to obtain free movement of Palestinian students from Gaza to attend colleges and universities in the West Bank, and vice versa. It also invited him to provide assistance to schools in the occupied Arab territories to preserve Syrian Arab cultural identity, and to create a special fund from voluntary contributions for Palestinian higher education. For information purposes only - - not an official record From the United Nations home page at <http://www.un.org> - email: unnews@un.orgUnited Nations Daily Highlights Directory - Previous Article - Next Article |
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