The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
Views expressed in this archived message are those of the author, not of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
[Main archive index/search] [List information] [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq Homepage]
To save space, I'm including 3 items here:
i) Minister of State Tony Lloyd's claim that Iraq's Distribution Plan
allocates less money now for food & medicine than before;
ii) The frequent UK claim that the UN Special Rapporteur, Max van der
Stoel, places the blame on the Iraqi government for malnutrition &c.
iii) The UN Minorities Commission's condemnation of economic sanctions on
Iraq.
i) Tony Lloyd said in the House of Commons on 25 Jan 99: ³Let us look at
the way in which Iraq tries to prioritise spending of oil for food money.
The Iraqi distribution plan for the present six-month phase in the
programme allocates less food than it did when the programme was worth
only $2 billion; it is now worth some $5.3 billion. It reduces the daily
food ration from 2,200 calories to 2,050, and reduces spending on
medicine.²
Dr Herring's comments, posted earlier, do not directly address this claim.
Distribution plans are devised by the Iraqi government, and confirmed by
the Secretary-General. The current plan (DP5) has been in operation since
December 1998 (after the S-G's last report). In this plan, the daily
food ration is 2150 kcal not 2050kcal (Tony Lloyd's first mistake), and
spending on food is $906 million. Lloyd is right to point out that this is
actually a reduction from the Fourth plan (DP4) which ran from May98; DP4
allocated $1.113 bn to food, and gave a ration of 2300kcal. Similarly,
with medicine: $308million under DP4, and $240 under DP5. Lloyd is
absolutely correct when he says that things are in fact getting worse
again for most Iraqis. But he is absolutely wrong to claim that this is
all evil Saddam's fault: the actual amount of money available to the
Iraqi government thru the escrow account for humanitarian supplies has
dropped, from $3.1bn in DP4 to $2.596 in DP5. I hope the following table
can be read by all:
Total (mills) Food Medicine Intake (kcal)
DP2 (July97) 1320 807 210 2030
DP3 (Nov97?) ? ? ? 2030
DP4 (May98) 3100 1113 308 2300
DP5 (Dec98) 2596 906 240 2150
Of course, the decrease is due to the fall in oil prices.
ii) Max van der Stoel, UN Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur.
As far as I know, the last report he gave was on 10 March 1998, almost a
year ago. A recent letter from the UK government mentioned a report of
'October 1998', but the UN have no record of a report from this month on
Iraq. I imagine it's just the usual FCO incompetence.
Stoel does strongly criticise the Iraqi government on a wide range of
human rights counts, not only on the usual torture- mass execution-
deportation score. A third of his long report deals with how the Iraqi
government is not ordering the right goods under Oil-for-Food.
He begins by mentioning that Iraq had excellent food availability prior to
the Gulf War & its reliance on food imports; then goes on to devote a
large section to how Iraq did not accept oil-for-food until it was too
late for many; and the intermittent stoppages in Iraq's oil production. By
drawing information selectively from WHO / UNICEF / the
Secretary-General's reports, he criticises only the Government of Iraq for
not implemented UN-advised projects.
Two points: his selective use of UN agencies' reports is very misleading,
ignoring their comments on external delays to the delivery of goods. More
importantly, Special Rapporteurs can only comment on the responsibility of
the government they are sent to investigate; to blame other governments
would be outside his terms of mandate. Nowhere, despite what the UK
government says, does he state 'it's more to do with Saddam than
sanctions', and neither can he in terms of his mandate.
iii) again, this is a bit old. Last August, the UN Subcommission on
Minorities reached a very strongly worded decision on economic sanctions
in Iraq. As it hasn't been posted previously on CASI, here it is in full -
an ample source of quotes. See the part especially on complementing the US
humanitarian groups (ie Voices) who take supplies into Iraq - I hope
Voices have a copy for their forthcoming trial?
'Humanitarian situation in Iraq. Sub-Commission decision 1998/114
At its 35th meeting, on 26 August 1998, the Sub-Commission on Prevention
of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, recalling its decisions
1996/107 of 20 August 1996 and 1997/119 of 28 August 1997 and its
resolution 1997/35 of 28 August 1997, believing that measures such as
embargoes should be limited in time and should be lifted even if the
legitimate objectives of the measures have not yet been attained,
affirming once again the need to respect the Charter of the United
Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International
Covenants on Human Rights, and the relevant provisions of the Geneva
Conventions of 12 August 1949 and the two Additional Protocols thereto;
noting with grave concern the immense suffering endured by the Iraqi
people, and by children in particular; drawing attention to the alarming
accounts in numerous reports by the United Nations, the report of the
Special Rapporteur of the Commission on Human Rights on the situation of
human rights in Iraq (E/CN.4/1998/67), and reports of specialized agencies
concerning the situation of innocent people who are suffering an
unacceptable decline in levels of health, nutrition, health care and
employment and in agriculture; pointing out in that regard that the
Secretary-General stated in his report to the Security Council on the ³oil
for food² programme in February 1998 (S/1998/90) that infant mortality in
Iraq was rising, that the water supply situation continued to deteriorate,
and that farm output would be able to meet only 10 per cent of required
nutritional levels; noting with satisfaction that many non-governmental
organizations and personalities from a variety of countries, including the
United States of America, have organized humanitarian convoys for Iraq,
thus displaying their disapproval of the adverse consequences of an
embargo that deprives an entire population of food, care and education;
having in mind general comment No. 8 (1977) adopted by the Committee on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; considering any embargo that
condemns an innocent people to hunger, disease, ignorance and even death
without attaining the objectives for which it was declared to be a
flagrant violation of the economic, social and cultural rights of the
people concerned and of international law, the Sub-Commission decided,
without a vote, to appeal to the international community and, in
particular, to the Security Council for the embargo provisions affecting
the humanitarian situation of the population in Iraq to be lifted. It also
decided to urge the international community and all Governments, including
that of Iraq, to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi population, in
particular by facilitating the delivery of food, medical supplies and the
wherewithal to meet their basic needs.
[See chap. XIV.]'
If anyone wants a copy of any of the documents mentioned here, please
email & I'll send them a formatted version; otherwise to be found on the
UN website. All corrections appreciated.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the
whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html