07 June 1999
U.N. LOOKING TO STEP UP ENFORCEMENT OF SANCTIONS AGAINST UNITA
(Sanctions chairman recommends roving monitors) (620) By Judy Aita USIA United Nations Correspondent UNITED NATIONS -- The chairman of the Security Council's Angola Sanctions Committee has recommended that U.N. monitors be sent to southern Africa in an effort to stop the sanctions busting that is supplying UNITA with arms and petroleum in its war against the Angolan government. Canadian Ambassador Robert Fowler, who is one of the 10 non-permanent members of the council this year as well as sanctions committee chairman, briefed the Security Council June 7 on his 20-day trip to south and central Africa. His report included 14 recommendations to strengthen the sanctions regime against UNITA and its leader Dr. Jonas Savimbi. He also announced plans to visit diamond industry centers in London and Antwerp, Eastern European capitals, and the August summit of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to stress the importance of their strict application of Angolan sanctions. Fowler and other members of the Canadian delegation to the U.N. visited Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, and the Democratic Republic of Congo from May 10 to 28. "My purpose was to impress upon the countries I visited their obligation under U.N. sanctions...that they needed to pass legislation which would allow them to give legislative effect and impose legal penalties to anybody accused of sanctions busting in their countries," Fowler told journalists after the closed Security Council meeting. "I also urged countries in the region to bring forward information relating to sanctions busting to the attention of the committee," he said. Fowler added that he will also spread that same message to the entire U.N. membership. "The purpose of my visit was not to investigate but rather to bring home to the countries of the region...the fact that this murderous war has gone on for far, far too long," the ambassador said. "A million people have been killed in this war. There are 1.6 million internally displaced and half that number -- 820,000 -- since December of last year alone." "Those realities very much suggest that we need a different approach, and very particularly that we need to look at radical new means of seeking to impose, expand, or otherwise bolster" sanctions against UNITA, the ambassador said. Fowler said that he expects the entire sanctions committee to study his recommendations and by the end of the year adapt the suggestions into a plan of action that will be most effective in ending the supply of weapons, petroleum products, and financial assets to UNITA, effectively strangling the rebel group's ability to continue the war. The key recommendation is sending sanctions monitors to the region in a different way than the past. The monitors -- customs administration experts as well as border monitoring experts -- would not be stationed in fixed locations, but would "travel widely, discussing with police, citizens, airports managers, gas station owners what was happening along roads and from airports and air strips to get a better understanding of exactly what is happening," Fowler explained. Also recommended were increased air surveillance, improved interdiction of flights, and a variety of recommendations relating to the diamond trade, including ways to improve diamond business management. "There are persistent accusations that arms from Eastern Europe are reaching Africa, and Angola in particular. This is one of my purposes in the next trip: to see if I can discover more and indeed urge countries in Eastern Europe to be much more vigilant to the possibility of arms transfers," Fowler also said. Fowler hopes he can "encourage those countries with significant intelligence reach to make sanctions busting a priority and therefore to significantly improve the information available to the committee."
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
