Peace watch.

• Author: Rutsch, Horst
• Position: United Nations Security Council actions worldwide

KOSOVO

Security Council mission visits Yugoslavia

A Security Council mission-the first to include all 15 members and be headed by the Council President-visited Kosovo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 16 to l8 June. During its visit, the delegation met with Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica in Belgrade, as well as with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, who visited Kosovo to review the 3,000-strong Russian contingent at Pristina airport. The delegation further held meetings with representatives of all Kosovo communities, met with members of the Interim Administrative Council and the Kosovo Transitional Council, and visited the divided city of Mitrovica where it met with human rights activists.

Discussing the mission on 22 June, the Council stressed that involving all communities in the political process and guaranteeing multi-ethnicity in the province remained a major challenge for the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK). Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Marie Guehenno stressed that all Kosovars needed to "accept their share of the responsibility". The Kosovo Albanians had to respect the rights of the minority communities, and these communities needed to accept "the risk of participation". He said the November elections in Kosovo would establish provisional self-government and create legitimate interlocutors for discussions on a final settlement.

The current political process in Kosovo was crucial to combating extremism and encouraging moderates on all sides, according to the Council mission's report. The mission "sent a strong message to all communities to reject all violence, extremism and terrorism", Council President Anwarul Chowdhury of Bangladesh said. It recommended that "more intensified efforts should be put into the issue of the missing of all communities and detainees", which continued to be a major impediment to reconciliation. Participation by all communities in the 17 November elections, the return of refugees and displaced persons, and their participation in elections should be encouraged, the report observed. For its part, UNMIK should continue its dialogue with the Yugoslav authorities, "whose influence in Kosovo is key on the implementation of resolution 1244".

On 15 May, Secretary-General Kofi Annan welcomed the conclusion of the Constitutional Framework for Provisional Self-Government in Kosovo, saying that he believed that adequate guarantees were built into the Constitutional Framework to protect the rights and interests of all of Kosovo's communities. Encouraging all communities to participate in the electoral process, he called on the Kosovo Serb community to register and participate in the elections, adding that he supported the holding of Kosovo-wide elections later in the year. He hoped that these would help consolidate democracy and show that the future of Kosovo lies in the peaceful pursuit of the political process, not in acts of violence and extremism.

On 4 June, UNMIK announced the end of the weapons amnesty period aimed at encouraging people to turn in illegal arms. From then on, anyone caught with an unauthorized weapon would be subject to fines and imprisonment of up to ten years. The regulation on illegal border crossing also went into effect, with UNMIK and KFOR having designated 19 legal border and boundary crossing points with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Montenegro. Anyone found crossing at other locales would be subject to a fine or jail term.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

Mission extended for another year

The Security Council on 2l June extended the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) for twelve months, simultaneously authorizing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led Stabilization Force (SFOR) to continue operating in the country. The mandate of UNMIBH, which includes the International Police Task Force (IPTF), will run through 2l June 2002. The tasks of IPTF include training law enforcement personnel and providing help in forming a multi-ethnic police force in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Council noted that "the continued willingness of the international community and major donors to assume the political, military and economic burden of implementation and reconstruction efforts will be determined by the compliance and active participation by all the authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina in implementing the Peace Agreement and rebuilding a civil society". The Council reminded the parties of their obligation to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the F ormer Yugoslavia and to surrender all indicted persons.

FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Ceasefire agreement welcomed

Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 26 June expressed support for the ongoing efforts of the European Union to resolve the crisis in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and welcomed the recent ceasefire. He called upon the parties to fully honour the ceasefire agreement and "to reinvigorate their efforts" towards a political settlement.

Hundreds of people continued to arrive in Kosovo from the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as they fled fighting along the border areas, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported on 22 June. UNHCR on 26 June appealed to Governments for urgent financial support to cope with the growing humanitarian consequences of the conflict. The agency is seeking $17.5 million to provide emergency assistance over the next six months to more than 65,000 refugees in Kosovo, some 6,000 refugees in Serbia and thousands more who are internally displaced within the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

MIDDLE EAST

Secretary-General visits region

Following a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Authority announced on 4 June 2001, Secretary-General Kofi Annan travelled to the region on l2 June, and met with leaders in Cairo, Damascus, Amman, Beirut, Tel Aviv and Ramallah. Concluding his trip on 18 June, Mr. Annan issued a broad appeal to all involved in the Middle East conflict "to work actively for peace, for the sake of the people and for the sake of the region". He urged the parties to seize the fleeting opportunity for peace by adhering to the ceasefire and returning to the negotiating table to settle their differences by implementing the recommendations of the international fact-finding committee headed by former United States Senator George Mitchell. "The end of the process must be a comprehensive peace settlement, negotiated by the parties on the basis of Security Council resolutions 242 and 338, and the principle of land for peace-and the road that leads back to such negotiations has been clearly traced by the Mitchell Committee."

On 14 May, the Secretary-General had endorsed the report as "a fair and balanced analysis of the causes of the present crisis" and singled out the Committee's emphasis on the need for a halt to all settlement activity, to support the call for maximum effort to control violence in all its forms, and to stress the economic and social crisis facing the Palestinian people. On l5June, Mr. Annan urged rigorous respect for the line of Israeli withdrawal-known as the "Blue Line"-noting that the region could not afford an outbreak of violence there.

On 30 May, the Security Council renewed the mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF)...