Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities

Fiftieth Session

3 - 28 August 1998

Agenda item 2

Country situations (Question of the violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including policies of racial discrimination and segregation and of apartheid, in all countries, with particular reference to colonial and other dependent countries and territories)

Statement by the Transnational Radical Party

NGO in general consultative status

5 August 1998

delivered by Olga Cechurova

Mr Chairman,

When attempting to reach a comprehensive peaceful agreement in Balkan area, the international community has not given careful consideration to the question of the final status for Kosova. The long-lasting political vacuum has led to brutal repression, violent police actions and the excessive use of force against people whose simple goals are freedom and their right to decide about their own future.

The paramilitary and police intervention of Belgrade regime, in which hard artillery has been employed in the pretexts of hunting terrorists, and in which the torture and ill treatment of civilians is not a rare practice, resulted so far in several hundreds deaths of civilians, and about three hundred thousands of displaced persons. Both those who still remain in their homes and those who where pushed to flee the region are suffering the lack of basic goods and medicines; the humanitarian aid is just rarely delivered to them, due to different reasons from the sizing by the Yugoslav military to the lack of finance and logistics.

Despite several meetings of contact group, arms embargo against FRY (whose efficiency is questionable due to the existing huge military equipment of FRY), presence of the NATO in the region, United Nations Security Council's resolutions (whose real implementation is blocked by the approach of Russian Federation), no sufficiently decisive steps were taken by the international community to let Mr. Milosevic understand that the world will do anything effective to deter further violence.

Meanwhile, the brutal ethnic cleansing of Albanians - the majority population in Kosova - continues.

This year's Commission has adopted a strong resolution, insisting among others that the Government of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia take immediate action to put an end to the continuing repression of the ethnic Albanian population; ensure the complete withdrawal of its special police from Kosova; release all political detainees and respect fully all human rights and fundamental freedoms; allow the establishment of democratic institutions in Kosova. The Commission also called upon authorities in the FRY to comply with their obligation to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia, including with regard to events in Kosova and strongly recommended that the Office of the Prosecutor of the Tribunal begin gathering information relating to the violence in Kosova that may fall within its jurisdiction (Commission on Human Rights resolution 1998/79).

The Transnational Radical Party endorses fully these demands, emphasising the urgent necessity for the international community to take decisive steps to implement them in practise. The TRP is furthermore convinced that it is a high time that the Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia put Mr. Milosevic under investigation.

Mr. Chairman,

All the possible solutions of the Kosova problem have been already discussed and pronounced. Now it is urgent to find a political will to take an urgent and strong action.

It is not by chance that we have decided not to use the entire time set for our statement. This minute represents for us an imaginary moment of silence for the victims of the atrocities that we have just spoke about, and for their right to life and thre life of right. And a minute more to decide and act.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.