S/PV.2952 Security Council

As this is the first meeting of the Security Council in the month of November, I should like to take this opportunity to pay a tribute on behalf of the Council to His Excellency Sir David Hannay, Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the United Nations, for his service as President of the Security Council for the month of October 1990, Iam sure that I speak for all members of the Security Council in expressing deep appreciation to Ambassador Hannay for the great diplomatic skill and unfailing courtesy with which he conducted the Council's business last month. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA The agenda was adopted. CENTRAL AMERICA: EFFORTS TOWARDS PEACE REPORT OF THE SECRETARY~GENERAL (S/21909)

The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. The Security Council is meeting in accordance with the understanding reached in its prior consultations. Members of the Council have before them document S/21909, which contains the report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Observer Group in Central America. They also have before them document S/21927, which contains the text of a draft resolution prepared in the course of the Council's prior consultations. It is my understanding that the Council is“ready to proceed to the vote on the draft resolution before it. Unless I hear any ‘objection, I shall take it that that is the case, There being no objection, it is so decided. Before putting the draft resolution to the vote, I shall cali on those members of the Council who wish to make statements. Mr. ALARCON de QUESADA (Cuba) (interpretation from Spanish): I am pleased to congratulate you, Sir, at this first meeting in November, on your assumption of the presidency of our Council. We are sure that you will conduct the Council's work with your customary skill and elegance. Allow me also to express our appreciation to the Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the way in which he conducted our activities last month, My delegation wishes to thank the Secretary-General for the report he has submitted on the work of the United Nations Observer Group in Central America (ONUCA). We express our support for the observations and conclusions it contains. We agree with the proposal that ONUCA's activities should continue under the mandate originally given to it by the Security Council, and with the definitions and clarifications contained in the Secretary-General's report now before us. We also agree that this Observer Group should continue its activities in the five countries of Central America, and that its strength should be reduced by 40 per cent, as proposed. We also share the Secretary-General's view regarding the separation between the activities of ONUCA and those which may derive from the efforts the Secretary-General and his Representative, Mr. de Soto, are currently exerting with a view to achieving a negotiated political solution to the conflict in El Salvador. Accordingly, we fully support the statement in paragraph 32 of the report that “As regards my current efforts to achieve a negotiated political solution to the conflict in El Salvador, members of the Security Council will recall that, in my statement at the Council's informal consultations on 3 August 1990, I said that I had concluded that verification or observation of the implementation of the various aspects of such a settlement would most appropriately be carried out as an integrated whole rather than as separate enterprises. It would follow that verification of the military aspects would be undertaken by a military component in that integrated whole rather than by ONUCA." (S/21969, para. 32) In addition, my delegation wishes to refer to the explanation contained in paragraph 17 of the Secretary-General’s report, where he alludes to certain events which occurred in the city of Managua on 23 October, when Nicaraguan officials, accompanied by ONUCA observers and by representatives of the Government of El Salvador enquired into certain allegations by the Salvadorian authorities that at three locations near the Nicaraguan capital radio transmitters had been instal? :d and were being used by the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN). In paragraph 17 of the report the Secretary-General states that "No transmitters were found at any of the three locations” (ibid, para. 17). In the report published by the Ministry of the Interior of the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua, after describing the operation, headed by Dr. Jose Pale, acting Minister of the Government of that country, the following is stated: “it was observed that at none of the three locations indicated did there exist radio equipment, weapons or subversive materials." The Managuan newspaper La Prensa, reported as follows on 24 October: "The Nicaraguan and Salvadorian authorities found in the places described a centre of the Popular Church of £1 Salvador organized jointly with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), an office of the Ministry of Construction and a house of the daughter of Arturo Cruz." In the record prepared by the officials of the Nicaraguan Ministry the objects found in the oniy one of the three places in which there were persons of Salvadorian nationality ~ that is, the location of the Comunidades Eclesiales de Base Ecumenica y de Servicios (CEDES). According to that report the following items were found: "Office furniture, typewriters, a computer and a bookshelf containing a variety of books of ecclesiastical content and some Ei Salvador newspapers or journals of social content." It is clear that these materials - ecclesiastical books, a computer, typewriters and office furniture can hardly be characterized as materials with which to commit terrorist or criminal activities. Equally noteworthy is the similarity of what was publicly noted by the United Nations dbservers and by the Government of the Republic of Nicaragua, as well as by leaders of the Salvadorian ecclesiastical communities resident in Nicaragua, namely, that in two of the three places visited not even Salvadorian citizens were found, while in the third place the dangerous objects described in the report of the Nicaraguan Ministry of the Interior were found. After the publication of the Secretary-General's report, moreover, a communiqué of the Government of the Republic of El Salvador was distributed as official Security Council document S/21912, dated 29 October 1990. That communiqué indicated in, to say the least, a tendentious way what was found in that religious centre, and the activities were characterized as criminal in nature. The fact that Salvadorian military personnel participated in such searches, took photographs and recorded data concerning those Salvadorian refugees and religious personnel should be the cause of concern by members of the Council, in view of the fact that this would not be the first time that religious persons in that country, whether priests or nuns, had suffered the consequences of repressive policies; some, indeed, have met their death, as in the case of Ignacio Ellacuria, Rector of the Central American University, and five other Jesuits. Those crimes have yet to be clarified, but it has been recognized that high officials of the Salvadorian army participated in them. We wish to calli the Council's attention to this and to the fact that the Salvadorian Government found it necessary to provide a version that differs from that of the United Nations observers and that of the Nicaraguan authorities, and in such a way as to justify the fears about the security and even the life of some religious persons of that country, within or outside El Salvador, bearing in mind the background known to us all. fhe PRESIDENT: I thank the representative of Cuba for the kind words he addressed to me. I shall now put the draft resolution in document §$/21927 to the vote. A vote was taken by show of hands. In favour: Canada, China, Colombia, Céte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Malaysia, Romania, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Daited Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United States of America, Yemen, Zaire

There were 15 votes in favour. The draft resolution has thus been adopted unanimously, as resolution 675 (1990). There are no further speakers inscribed on my list. The Security Council has thus concluded the present stage of its consideration of the item on its agenda. The meeting rose at 5.10 p.m.