unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/04/89)
UN SECURITY COUNCIL -- TAKE 2
The President, HOCINE DJOUDI (Algeria), called the meeting to order at
4:11 p.m.
In accordance with decisions of the Council taken at its earlier
meetings, the PRESIDENT invited the representative of Ghana to take a seat at
the Council table, and the representatives of Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh,
Burundi, Cameroon, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Federal Republic of Germany, Guatemala,
India, Indonesia, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan,
South Africa, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe to take
the seats reserved for them at the side of the Council chamber.
The PRESIDENT said he understood that the Council was ready to vote on
the draft resolution.
Sir CRISPIN TICKELL (United Kingdom) said that in the Council's recent
debate and in the consultations which had led up to the tabling of the
resolution, two themes had been prominent. First had been the need for the
Council to be even-handed in overseeing the process leading up to independence
in Namibia. The Council must not only be impartial, but be seen to be
impartial. Second had been the need to uphold consensus in the Council: to
demonstrate undivided support for the Secretary-General and for the
implementation of resolution 435 in all its aspects by all parties. The
Council was united in its aims, and it was vital that it should show the same
unity as it pursued them.
However, he said, the United Kingdom retained considerable doubts about
the even-handedness and impartiality of the draft resolution before the
Council. As it stated, the provisions of resolution 435 have not been fully
complied with; and since 1 April, more than one party to the settlement plan
had flouted its provisions. All parties had an equal responsibility to put
those events behind them, and to honour scrupulously the commitments into
which they had entered under the settlement plan and the related
understandings. But as it stood, operative paragraph 1 of the text referred
specifically only to one party: South Africa. He assumed that that was an
acknowledgement of the special responsibilities which all recognized that
South Africa should uphold under the United Nations settlement plan.
Members of the Council had vital common objectives which should not be
put in jeopardy, he said. On the basis that he had outlined, and to sustain
the unanimity which gave the Council's resolution particular force, he would
vote for the resolution.
The draft was adopted by a vote of 15 in favour to none against, with no
abstentions, as Security Council resolution 640 (1989).
* Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501)
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Patt Haring | UNITEX : United Nations
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