SECRETARY-GENERAL'S REPRESENTATIVE CALLS INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS HIDDEN SIDE OF KOSOVO TRAGEDY

HR/99/29
16 April 1999


The following statement was issued today by the Representative of the Secretary-General on internally displaced persons, Francis M. Deng:

“The current situation in Kosovo has spotlighted the dismal lack of international response to the protection and assistance needs of those forcibly displaced within their own countries. The scenes of several hundred thousand refugees fleeing into Albania, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Montenegro, horrifying as they are, reveal only one side of the tragedy. Those trapped inside Kosovo beyond the range of television cameras remain under the grip of a terrorizing and brutalizing regime.

I draw attention to their plight and call upon the international community to take bold steps to address this perilous gap in the international protection system

Over the last decade, some progress has been made in developing a legal and institutional framework for protecting the internally displaced. Since the appointment of the Representative in 1992, my mandate has developed a set of Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, which were presented to the Commission on Human Rights in 1998. The Principles, which have been widely disseminated and have been well received by the international community, provide protection against arbitrary displacement, protection and assistance during displacement, and in the return or resettlement phase.

This past year has also witnessed improvement in the institutional response to internal displacement. The Secretary-General has given the Office of the Emergency Relief Coordinator the responsibility of coordinating the UN system to effectively address the plight of internally displaced persons. International humanitarian agencies have also expanded their activities in this area, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has been extending protection through its field staff.

But the development of a clear and consistent international approach for protecting and assisting the 20 to 25 million internally displaced persons in over 40 countries remains at a nascent stage. As the case of Kosovo shows, internally displaced persons receive little or no attention. The international response is still ad hoc and selective. Access to the victim population is often blocked.

It is time for the international community to create a mechanism or designate an existing agency with the requisite capacity to advocate the cause of the internally displaced and ensure that their needs for protection and assistance are adequately met.

Until such steps are taken, I call on the international community to support and reinforce the role of the Office of the Emergency Relief Coordinator to mobilize a concerted and effective international response to the protection and assistance needs of the internally displaced.”