--- Forwarded Message from Peace and Justice Works <pjw@agora.rdrop.com> ---
>Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 07:56:57 -0700 (PDT)
>Subject: UN Official in Iraq Call for Lifting of Sanctions (? 9/20/99)
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 13:07:04 +0000 (GMT)
From: Rania Masri <rmasri@leb.net>
September 20, 1999
U.N. Official in Iraq Calls for Lifting of Sanctions
By DOUGLAS JEHL
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Weighing in on renewed discussions among Western powers
on Iraq, the senior United Nations official here called on Sunday for an
immediate and unconditional lifting of many sanctions that would open the
way to bigger flows of food, medicine and most other Iraqi imports.
The official, Hans von Sponek, said a dispute over plans to revive
international weapons inspections in Iraq now posed increasing risks to
the social fabric in a country that has already borne more than nine years
of United Nations sanctions.
"Don't play the battle on the backs of the civilian population by letting
them wait until the more complex issues are resolved," Sponek, a German
who is the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, said in an
interview here.
Sponek and his predecessor, Denis Halliday, have long tried to turn
international attention toward the suffering of ordinary Iraqis, even as
the United States and Britain have focused on the intransigence of the
Iraqi Government, and blamed that Government for the travails of its
citizens.
But Sunday, on the eve of expected talks about Iraq at the United Nations,
Sponek spoke in unusually impassioned terms about what he called the
dangers of "using the human shield" in hopes of coaxing Iraqi concessions
on arms issues.
"Please remove the humanitarian discussions from the rest in order to
really end a silent human tragedy," Sponek said.
The remarks seemed intended at least in part as a reply to a State
Department report issued last week that held the Iraqi leader, Saddam
Hussein, wholly accountable for the suffering of his people.
The talks at the United Nations, among the five permanent members of the
Security Council, are intended to seek agreement on a plan that would ease
sanctions on Iraq in exchange for Baghdad's submission to a new system of
weapons inspections to replace one that collapsed late last year.
The collapse was caused by bitter disputes between Iraq and the United
Nations over access to suspected weapons sites, and it was followed last
December by four days of heavy punitive air strikes by the United States
and Britain. Air strikes that the Iraqi Government says have killed nearly
200 people have continued sporadically in the nearly 10 months since.
In that time, members of the Security Council have been unable to agree
even among themselves over how any new system should function and on what
terms it should be introduced. And throughout, the Baghdad Government has
turned a deaf ear to all proposals, insisting instead that the time has
come to lift all of the United Nations sanctions, which have been in force
since the Persian Gulf war of 1991.
The stalemate has left a United Nations special monitoring commission
known as Unscom unable to carry out its work. Reviled by the Iraqi
Government for its intrusive methods, the commission is now paying the
price -- in Baghdad, its headquarters within a United Nations compound
remain padlocked and shuttered.
France, Russia and China, among the five permanent Security Council
members, have been sympathetic to Iraq's contention that its Government
has essentially carried out its obligations to the weapons inspectors.
Those Governments now appear to support a plan that would allow an
immediate end to the sanctions in return for Iraq's agreement to a new and
less intrusive system of weapons inspection.
But the United States and Britain, which believe that Iraq may still be
concealing an illicit weapons program, have argued for tougher terms.
Together with the Netherlands, Britain has called for a plan that would
allow only a moderate easing of the sanctions -- and only after a test
period of several months that would be intended to gauge Iraq's
cooperation with a new inspection regime.
The United States is seen as likely to support such an approach, but so
far it is still opposed by the other three Council members. Senior
officials from the five countries, who met in London last week, have
reported progress toward a deal, but they also have cautioned that an
agreement might not be possible.
Sponek, the United Nations representative here, has responsibility only
for humanitarian issues, and not the arms inspections. But even among
those who disagree about weapons inspection, he noted, there is a
consensus that ordinary Iraqis have suffered under the embargo; all, he
argued, should move now to halt what he called their "continuing
deprivation."
Pointing to increases in crime, including prostitution, and the
deteriorating quality of education, Sponek said he believed that Iraq
should be given broad latitude to import any goods that did not also have
military use.
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