UN official demands lifting of sanctions !

September 20, 1999
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/092099iraq-un-sanctions.html (to access this document, you will have to subscribe, for free, to New York Times' web site).

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. (emphasis added)

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. (emphasis added)

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. (emphasis added)

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.

Note:

Les parties suivantes décrivent la politique de la situation (Conseil de Sécurité), mais pour sauter ceci est vous rendre a d'autre commentaires de von Sponek, cliquez ici.

The following parts describes the politics of the situation (Security Council), but to skip this and reach more comments from von Sponek, click here.

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." (emphasis added)

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.