ACTION ALERT!!!

FOR THE COMMISSION OF NARCOTIC DRUGS, VIENNA, MARCH 16-20, 1998

The March 16-20, 1998 session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs will be the final preparatory body meeting for the Special Session of the General Assembly - to be held in New York, June 8-10, 1998 - devoted to the fight against the illicit production, sale, demand, traffic and distribution of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances. This session of the Commission will be the last formal meeting before the June event, and it will be charged of drafting all the documents that will be submitted to the GA. One of the texts at stake regards crop eradication programmes. Recently UNDCP planned to finance the Taliban guerrillas for such a project in Afghanistan.

The Transnational Radical Party believes that funding a group that perpetrates the systematic drastic and violent discrimination against women goes against the principles set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Moreover, it also goes against women's rights, and clashes with the spirit of other UN projects in the region, like for instance those of UNICEF. Lastly, Talibans, who do not allow any other belief to be professed in the country, do not give any guarantee that the project will be carried out properly, both because of the unofficial role that the guerrillas have gained with the use of force since 1996, and the total lack of the rule of law in the region.

Therefore, we ask each and every NGO, committed to the fight for human rights and dignity, particularly those on women-related issues, to send the following resolution to the UN specialized agencies asking them to forward it to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs:

We the undersigned,

- welcoming European Commissioner Emma Bonino's Campaign "A flower for the women of Kabul" that dedicates March 8, 1998, to Afghan women;

- having considered GA resolution 52/92 in which it "urges organs, organizations and the specialized agencies of the United Nations system, including multilateral development banks, to contribute fully to the preparation for the special session, in particular by submitting, as soon as possible, to the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, acting as the preparatory body for the special session, through the Executive Director of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme, concrete recommendations on the issues to be addressed by the special session.";

- having considered the systematic violation of women's rights in Afghanistan;

- having considered UNDCP plan to finance Talibans for a crop eradication project;

propose the following paragraph to be taken into consideration, at the March 16-20, 1998, session at which the crop eradication document for UNGASS will be finalized, and therefore ask the competent UN agencies to forward it to the Executive Director of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme in Vienna,:

"The General Assembly, in the framework of crop eradication projects, urges UN competent bodies and agencies to avoid the financing of regimes that are not officially recognized by the international community as a whole and that systematically perpetrate violations of fundamental human rights".

Te be urgently faxed to:

Pino Arlacchi, Director of UNDCP (Vienna): +43-1-213.45.58.66

Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (Geneva): +41-22-917.0202

Noeleen Heyzer, Director of UNIFEM: (212) 906.6705

Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF: (212) 888.7465

cc to TRP: (212) 980.1072

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