28 June - 4 July 2001
Issue No.540
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 28 June - 4 July 2001 Issue No.540 |
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'Smart' strangulation
US-proposed "smart sanctions" will exacerbate rather than relieve the plight of Iraqi citizens, writes Michael Jansen
Washington's attempt to replace the sweeping 1990 embargo on Iraq with so-called smart sanctions is facing serious problems in the UN Security Council and the region. Accusing the US of trying to tighten rather than ease sanctions, Russia forced the council to postpone for a month a decision on the US proposal that Washington had hoped would be incorporated into the oil-for-food programme renewal resolution on 3 June.
Moscow is threatening to table a counterproposal on 3 July, the new deadline for the roll-over of the programme, that will include a timetable for lifting sanctions. Walid Khadduri, chief editor of the authoritative Middle East Economic Survey (MEES), reporting from New York, said the council has three options: adoption of the US-British proposals in a watered- down form; postponement or an extension of the oil-for-food for another six months.
On 4 June Baghdad cut oil exports by 2.2 million barrels a day to protest the tabling of the US-designed proposal for "smart sanctions." According to MEES, it is likely that Iraq's suspension of exports "could be of long duration." Iraq reacted in this way because, if adopted, the US plan would transform what was originally intended as a temporary measure into long-term imprisonment in an iron-clad sanctions regime and tighten, rather than ease, external control over Iraq's economy. This would mean disaster for Iraq and its people.
The manacles of the "stupid sanctions" regime, clamped on the limbs of a fairly fat and vigorous Iraq in August 1990, are now loose, giving Baghdad a certain amount of leeway. The gleaming new manacles the US seeks to fit will bind tightly the bony wrists and ankles of a sanctions-impoverished, emaciated Iraq, exacerbating rather than relieving the plight of its citizens.
"Smart sanctions" are being promoted as an "arms control measure" and an easing of the blanket blockade which is killing 9,000 Iraqi civilians a month. Consumer goods would, in theory, enter Iraq freely. In practice, "smart sanctions" would retain the worse aspects of the old regime while tightening controls over imports. A new, 28-page list of prohibited "dual use" goods is to be added to the two existing lists of items the US and UK claim have military applications, including ambulances, fork lifts, chemicals for purifying water, spare parts for power stations, cranes for the construction industry, irrigation pipes and equipment for Iraq's deteriorating oil industry. By using its veto in the Security Council committee overseeing Iraqi purchases, the US is currently blocking more than $3 billion in contracts. Overall, 18 per cent of import contracts have been put on hold. Russia and France insist the lists must be pruned.
US control would be maintained by the retention of the stipulations that all Iraqi oil export contracts must be scrutinised by the council and that all oil revenues must be paid into the UN-operated escrow account. Countries helping Iraq to export oil outside the ambit of the UN oil-for-food programme would be compelled to place this trade under the programme and agree to monitoring to satisfy the US demand that "smuggling" -- valued at $2-3 billion a year -- be stopped. Iraq's trading partners, including Egypt, would be forced to agree to the deployment of inspectors to scrutinise air and land traffic to Iraq.
Thus, "smart sanctions" would give the US absolute control over Iraq's major natural resource, as well as the entirety of its financial resources and compromise the sovereignty of Iraq's neighbours. Little wonder that Iraq has threatened to cut trade with neighbours who go along. Syria and Jordan have rejected the scheme and it is unlikely that Iran would agree.
To enlist countries involved in "smuggling," the US proposes that a share of Iraqi oil revenues be allocated to compensation for their losses. This would be raised by increasing the proportion of Iraq's oil revenues designated for reparations from 25 to 30 per cent. Iraq would ultimately reward countries for applying a scheme it rejects. Acceptance by the council of this plan would reverse the decision, taken earlier this year, to cut the reparations appropriation from 30 to 25 per cent and would reduce income available for Iraqi citizens.
Washington claims "smuggling" must end to deny the Iraqi government its independent sources of income, on the ground that the funds at its disposal would be used to rebuild its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. In an effort to make the case that Iraq is doing just this, US arms control experts published an article claiming that Iraq is buying prohibited "military-related" equipment from Ukraine, Belarus and Romania. However, the credibility of the article is questionable because it appeared in Commentary magazine, a Zionist mouthpiece.
Leading figures working in humanitarian agencies in Iraq argue that only a total lifting of sanctions can put the country back on the road to economic recovery. A source close to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told Al- Ahram Weekly that Iraq must regain control over its oil sector and finances before the country can reconstruct its infrastructure and economy. He added that the well-meaning Annan is powerless to act against the US over sanctions. The only positive development on this front is that "there will never be another total sanctions regime imposed for an undefined period of time on any other country," the source stated. If and when the Security Council decides to impose sanctions on another country, both the scope of the embargo and a time frame would be defined.
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