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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 17 - 23 February 2000 Issue No. 469
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Focus Profile Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Despair over Iraq's fate
By Salah Hemeid
In a move that will certainly embarrass the United States, Hans Von Sponeck, the head of the United Nations humanitarian programme in Iraq, resigned after he publicly criticised the economic sanctions imposed on it. Von Sponeck, a German career UN official, who assumed office in Baghdad in 1998, has asked to leave his post as of 31 March, one month before his term would have ended.
On Monday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who has consistently defended Von Sponeck, said he had accepted the resignation of the UN official "with regret". Annan also praised Von Sponeck as an international servant "who has served the United Nations well for 36 years". Annan did not explain why he agreed to let his man in Baghdad leave, although he had previously rejected an American request to remove him from the post after Washington declared him persona non grata. Diplomats, who asked not be identified, said Von Sponeck decided to go after the United States expressed impatience with Annan because of his employee's repeated criticism of Washington's Iraqi policies.
Von Sponeck has repeatedly slammed the impact of the sanctions, imposed on Iraq following its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, and the oil-for-food programme, which he said had failed to meet even the most basic needs of Iraq's 22 million people. Last year, he told the United Nations that the $10.5 billion programme, which allows Iraq to sell oil and use the revenues for humanitarian purposes, "is not dealing with Iraq as a nation and it hampers its future as a nation". Von Sponeck himself was responsible for administering the scheme which was designed to ease civilian suffering that had resulted from the sanctions. But his most outspoken criticism was when he accused American and British delegates of delaying contracts of badly needed humanitarian supplies.
The United States and Britain have accused Von Sponeck of mishandling the world body's humanitarian programme in Iraq and exceeding his mandate by calling for an end to UN sanctions against Baghdad. In November, State Department spokesman James Rubin said Washington had no confidence in Von Sponeck whom he accused of supporting softer sanctions and acquiescing in Iraq's stockpiling of massive humanitarian supplies.
Von Sponeck's latest blast against the sanctions came in an interview with the Cable News Network last Thursday in which he said the UN Security Council should separate Iraq's humanitarian needs from its disarmament. Both the United States and Britain insist that the sanctions can only be lifted when Iraq proves it has destroyed its non-conventional weapons.
Von Sponeck's resignation is expected to underscore the debate about the devastation and the sufferings the embargo has caused in Iraq. It will also give moral and political support to governments and organisations which have repeatedly called for lifting the sanctions which have crippled the Iraqi economy, leaving ordinary Iraqis struggling to feed and clothe themselves. Last week, his predecessor, Denis Halliday, who also resigned in 1998, lashed out at the United Nations involvement in Iraq, saying the sanctions system was futile. Halliday told Al-Ahram Weekly that the continuation of the sanctions was serving the strategic interests of the United States and that it would undermine the UN's credibility.
The UN's own agencies -- FAO, UNICEF, WHO and WFP -- have been reporting heartbreaking accounts about the impact of the sanctions on ordinary Iraqis who line up once a month for rations bought with the oil money: a few pounds of rice, sugar, cooking oil and other staples. What they receive at a subsidised eight cents per person is too meager to live on. Last year, UNICEF's first surveys since 1991 of child and maternal mortality in Iraq revealed that in the heavily populated regions of southern and central Iraq, children under five were dying at more than twice the rate they were 10 years ago. Other agencies have given similar saddening accounts, all indicating a desperate situation in a country once considered one of the richest in the world.
The United States insists that the regime of Saddam Hussein is solely responsible for the tragedy and refuses to consider any lifting of the sanctions as long as Saddam is in power. Its argument is that Iraq's resources should be under control, otherwise, the Iraqi leader will use it to re-arm and threaten the region.
