Military

SHAPE News Morning Update

19 December 2003

IRAQ

• Secretary-General Kofi Annan wants the key players in Iraq to meet on Jan. 15 and decide exactly what role they want the United Nations to play as the country moves from U.S. occupation to a democratically elected government. Clearly frustrated at not getting specific answers from either the Iraqi Governing Council or the U.S.-led coalition running the country, Annan said Thursday it was time for him to sit down with representatives from both bodies to pin down what they want from the United Nations. (AP 190445 Dec 03)
  
  
• U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte briefed the UN Security Council on the new Iraqi war crimes tribunal which will try members of Saddam Hussein’s regime - but said no decision has been made on whether it will try the deposed dictator himself. Negroponte distributed the statute creating the Iraqi Special Tribunal at a closed-door meeting where UN envoy Yuli Vorontsov reported on the discovery of graves in Iraq containing the remains of Kuwaitis missing since the 1991 Gulf War who had been executed. The U.S. envoy called the killings “war crimes” that could be punished by the tribunal. (AP 190415 Dec 03)

AFGHANISTAN

• Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned UN member states that “We may lose Afghanistan” unless they help improve security there. He strongly backed the serious concerns about security expressed by the top UN envoy in Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, in an interview last Friday with The Associated Press. In the interview, Brahimi warned that the UN - already forced out of Iraq by suicide bombers - may have to abandon its two-year effort to stabilize Afghanistan because of rising violence blamed on the Taliban. Kofi Annan renewed the UN call for governments to contribute troops to an expanded international force that would operate beyond Kabul, and for countries with influence on Afghanistan’s warlords to use it “to calm them down” so the UN and others can work in a relatively “risk-free environment.” (AP 190053 Dec 03)
  
  
• The United Nations has granted protection to a delegate, Malalai Joya, after her outburst against warlords at Afghanistan’s historic constitutional convention sparked fears for her safety, a UN spokesman and other delegates said in Kabul. The controversy threatened to overshadow the work of the loya jirga. (AP 190137 Dec 03)

AFRICA

• The UN warned of a crisis next year in getting enough peacekeepers for Africa unless nations focus now on staving off death and suffering in such countries as Ivory Coast, Burundi or Sudan. “We will have a crisis if member states don’t take some decisions now,” said Jean-Marie Guehenno, the undersecretary-general for peacekeeping. He would not name a figure but some diplomats estimate another 10,000 troops, observers and police might be required. He said he understood fully that many NATO countries were stretched in the Balkans, in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. But he said African conflicts should not be allowed to fester. (Reuters 181203 GMT Dec 03)

BALKANS

• Ultra-nationalists led by a war crimes suspect from behind bars may become the biggest group in Serbia’s parliament. Three small parties are fielding candidates who have been indicted by the UN tribunal in The Hague. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, urging Serbs not to choose the past, told reporters in Belgrade that having accused war criminals as election candidates could be seen as a “provocation” by people outside the country. Laurie Wiseberg, who heads the mission of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, expressed concern that local people and media appeared to accept it as something normal. “This is a kind of an anti-Hague referendum,” said Sonja Biserko of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. (Reuters 190203 GMT Dec 03)