Supporters believe a unanimous vote would send a strong signal to Belgrade to offer a political solution to the Albanians

Supporters believe a unanimous vote would send a strong signal to Belgrade to offer a political solution to the Albanians.. “It says to Belgrade that repression in Kosovo will not be tolerated by the international community.” The resolution was also a clear signal to Kosovo Albanians “that terrorism – in whatever guise and for whatever end – is unacceptable”.Russia agreed to accept the resolution after the other council members agreed to delete a reference to the situation in the province constituting “a threat to international peace and security in the region”.During his speech, the acting Russian ambassador Yuriy Fedotov said that although events in Kosovo had an “adverse regional impact”, Moscow did not believe they “constitute a threat to regional or even international peace and security”.China’s deputy ambassador, Shen Guofeng, said that security council involvement in Kosovo “may create a bad precedent and have wider negative implications”.The embargo is generally believed to be largely symbolic, since both the Yugoslav government and Albanian extremists are already well armed. It said the best way to defeat terrorism in Kosovo is for Yugoslavia “to offer the Kosovar Albanian community a genuine political process”.”In adopting this resolution, the Security Council sends an unmistakable message,” British envoy David Richmond said. Referring to the sluggish response to wars elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia, Mr Richardson said: “We must avoid the mistakes of the past when the international community waited too long before taking decisive action.”Yugoslavia is composed of Serbia and the smaller province of Montenegro. Both have republic-level governments but are governed on the federal level by a single government.Yugoslavia has sought to block independence for Kosovo and refused to restore the autonomy that Mr Milosevic rescinded in 1989.The crackdown by Serb police in March killed more than 80 people and stoked fears of a wider war in the Balkans.Last week, the foreign ministers of the US, Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Italy set a deadline of yesterday for the council to vote on a weapons ban following the crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.The resolution called on Kosovo’s Albanian leadership to condemn all forms of terrorism. Envoys of both Russia and China said they did not consider unrest in Kosovo a threat to international security – the traditional justification for the council to become involved in an internal dispute.
United States ambassador Bill Richardson said the resolution sent an “unambiguous signal” to the Yugoslav government in Belgrade that the world “will not tolerate violence and ethnic cleansing” in the Balkans. China abstained, saying the resolution would not facilitate negotiations.

THE UNITED Nations Security Council imposed an arms embargo on Yugoslavia last night to press President Slobodan Milosevic to make concessions to ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, including talks leading to substantial autonomy for the troubled province. Nkosinati Biko said the five had not made a full disclosure to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.- Reuters, Cape Town. Lebanon toll

Five Lebanese civilians were killed when a roadside bomb exploded inside Israel’s south Lebanon occupation zone, pro-Israeli militia sources said. A sixth Lebanese civilian was severely wounded in the blast near the village of Kawkaba.
- Reuters, Marjayoun.

Feminist dies

BELLA ABZUG, a feminist who fought against the Vietnam war and found that a woman’s place can be in the House of Representatives, died, aged 77, of complications following heart surgery -AP, New York. Biko family

unforgiving
THE family of the South African black activist Steve Biko said the nation’s truth commission should not grant amnesty to five former security officers for their role in his death 20 years ago. But they said that it should not be forgotten that they had never been able to bury their own relatives.. In any case, Papon will appeal and will almost certainly never go to jail. His wife of 60 years died last week.The 50 civil parties to the trial, relatives of the Jews Papon helped to deport, said they had no objection to Papon going home to bury his wife.

He was budget minister when his role in deporting Jews was unmasked in 1981.In this sense, the second undeclared defendant in the Papon trial, has been Gaullism as much as Vichyism. The Papon hearings are ending when many of the same issues are dangerously live in French politics. Vichy politicians and officials collaborated because they convinced themselves that this was the best way to rebuild French strength and pride.Much the same arguments are deployed by those politicians of the traditional Right, including some low-ranking Gaullists, who have made deals with the Vichy-apologising National Front in recent days.The likelihood is that the jury will feel constrained to convict Papon because to acquit him would be to acquit Vichy, to acquit the Holocaust, and to acquit the post-war policy of official amnesia. He survived the post-war purges to take posts of ever-increasing importance under Charles de Gaulle and Valery Giscard d’Estaing. Can there be such a thing as lesser crimes against humanity? The jury, composed of nine jurors and three judges, must wrestle with these philosophical-political questions, as much as with the facts.Papon survived from left-leaning pre-war governments to thrive in the Nazi puppet Vichy regime of 1940-44. However, it emerged that he had not helped either the Jews or the Resistance as much as he claimed.Even the prosecution has not asked for a life sentence against Papon but instead for a 20-year jail term Given his great age, this amounts to the same thing It also amounts to an admission that his guilt was relative.