Press release of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Brussels, 11 April 1999
N° 4

The proposal of the Parliament of the Russian Federation to include an emergency supplementary item in the agenda of the 101st Inter-Parliamentary Conference ("The situation in the Balkans and parliamentarians' role in putting an end to the escalation of the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia and in normalising the situation in the region") was rejected by 625 votes to 438, with 315 abstentions.

"The fact that the proposal of the Russian Federation was rejected does not means that MPs are refusing to debate the situation in Kosovo", declared Mexican Senator Fernando Solana. On the contrary, this situation, which is a matter of grave concern for the delegates in attendance at the 101st Conference taking place in Brussels at the European Parliament from 10 to 16 April 1999, will be discussed in the general debate on the political, economic and social situation in the world on Monday, 12 April and Wednesday, 14 April, as well as on the afternoon of Tuesday, 13 April.

During the Inaugural Ceremony of the 101st Conference, held this morning in the presence of Their Majesties the King and Queen of the Belgians, Mr Miguel Angel Martínez, President of the Inter-Parliamentary Council, declared that "the international community - the men and women of our societies - will not accept that massacres and genocides can occur with total impunity, or atrocities of the kind we call ethnic cleansing - cleansing which irremediably sullies its perpetrators. We can no longer accept such crimes, under the pretext that they have occurred in so-called sovereign States. There is no place at the close of this century for a sovereignty which serves as a bastion for such exactions, or subsequent immunity for those guilty of them. Nor is it any solution - at least, not in the medium term - for a State or group of States, individually or together, to intervene on their own account when they deem it appropriate or necessary".

The other topics on the agenda are parliamentary action to encourage countries to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and the problem of metropolitan areas.

The Conference also decided to include on its agenda a third, so-called "supplementary item". This topic, proposed by the South African Group and entitled "Writing off the Government debt of highly-indebted poor countries", polled 969 votes to 201, with 367 abstentions.

Another subject which will certainly be covered in the general debate by the 645 MPs from 126 countries meeting in Brussels is the coup d'Etat which just took place in Niger. This event was also mentioned this morning during the Inaugural Ceremony of the 101st Inter-Parliamentary Conference by the President of the Inter-Parliamentary Council, Mr. Miguel Angel Martínez, who stated that "we cannot fail to be deeply troubled at the news from Niger reporting a military putsch whose authors have allegedly assassinated the Head of State and dissolved Parliament, once again pitting the country (...) against the tide of history and the progress of humanity".

Journalists wishing to meet MPs (among those in attendance are Yegor Stroyev, President of the Council of the Russian Federation; Srdja Bozovic, President of the Chamber of Republics of the Yugoslav Federal Assembly, and Abdelkader Bensalah, President of the Algerian National People's Assembly) may contact Mrs. Luisa Ballin, Information Officer of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (in Brussels), tel. (322) 28 41479, e-mail ipac773@skzpro.be or Mr. Patrick Peremans, Press Attaché of the Belgian Senate, tel. (322) 501 73 37 or 0477 797901, e-mail pp@senate.be.

With a view to preparing a scrapbook of press clippings, we request that journalists kindly send us all articles published on the proceedings of the 101st Inter-Parliamentary Conference. Many thanks in advance!