Robinson supports pause in bombing

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, said last night she would support a pause in the NATO bombing campaign as part of the latest diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis.

Questioned before she delivered a lecture in NUI Galway last night, she said she would favour the diplomatic efforts proposed by the Russian mediator, Mr Viktor Chernomyrdin, and the G8 diplomats' draft UN resolution aimed at ending the conflict.

In her address at the university, she said she was "more than ever convinced" that the UN and its Security Council were the appropriate vehicles for determining Europe's response to the Kosovo crisis.

"The response to violent abuse of human rights must not entail more human rights violations," Mrs Robinson warned, in a direct reference to the continued NATO bombing campaign.

She also repeated her call for Ireland to take in extra refugees and said that Macedonia, a poor country, was bursting at the seams.

Kosovo, regrettably, was "far from unique", the UN Commissioner said. "Before that, there was Bosnia. Genocide has taken place in Cambodia and Rwanda. A war is raging between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a war which has cost hundreds of lives. The human rights situation in East Timor is critical. There are reports of large-scale abuses in Sierra Leone."

"One thing is certain," she said. "If we are to be serious about promoting and defending human rights, the message must go out that there can be no impunity for such crimes. Human rights monitors from my office are already in the region working with international partners, including the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, to establish accountability and to ensure that crimes being committed do not go unpunished."

The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, published a plan yesterday for the post-conflict return of Kosovo refugees and displaced persons to their homes.

The document sets out a fourstage strategy to be implemented after the end of the conflict and warns that the entire population still in Kosovo could need humanitarian help.