Tracking Number: 255065
Title: "UN Official Warns of Disaster Looming in Iraq." Speaking during a WORLDNET broadcast, UN Special Rapporteur Max Van der Stoel said that international blockades of food
and emergency supplies to Kurdish populations in Northern Iraq now threaten a disaster on the scale of Bosnia or Somalia. (921123)
Translated Title: Funcionario OUN advierte desastre se cierne en Irak.; L'ONU evoque la menace
d'un desastre en Irak. (921123)
Author: HOLMES, NORMA (USIA STAFF WRITER)
Date: 19921123
Text:
U.N. OFFICIAL WARNS OF DISASTER LOOMING IN IRAQ
(Van der Stoel details Iraqi Human Rights Abuses) (700) By Norma Holmes USIA Staff Writer Washington -- Internal blockades of food and emergency supplies to Kurdish populations in Northern Iraq now threaten a disaster "on the scale of Bosnia or Somalia," United Nations Special Rapporteur Max Van der Stoel warned November 23. "We are confronted with...a race against time."
In a U.S. Information Agency WorldNet program on human rights abuses in Iraq, Van der Stoel said he will release a report to the U.N. General Assembly on November 24 "in the hope that the various governments represented in the United Nations will realize the seriousness of the situation."
Characterizing the human rights situation in Iraq as "absurd," Van der Stoel pointed out that "here we have one of the most oil-rich states of the world and still tens of thousands of Kurds are in danger of freezing to death."
"This is an intolerable situation, not just an absurd one," he asserted. Van der Stoel said the Iraqi government's continuing refusal to avail itself of the opportunity to sell up to $900 million in oil products to purchase food and medicine for its civilian populations "constitutes an internal embargo" and has resulted in a deterioration of the health situation in Iraq.
"The only way to avoid a new disaster in the face of an approaching winter," he said, is for the Iraqi government to fulfill its promises and give maximum unrestricted and especially rapid assistance in efforts to get emergency food and oil supplies to the north.
"I can only appeal to the Iraqi government to give maximum cooperation," he added. And "if it would fail to give maximum cooperation, it will be directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of people," Van der Stoel warned.
The U.N. official noted that his is but the latest in a continuing series of protests and appeals from the international community. The U.N. Commission on Human Rights and the General Assembly repeatedly expressed deep concerns, and the Security Council, in Resolution 688 of April 1992, demanded that the Iraqi government end its policy of repression in order to bring stability to the region.
Van der Stoel said the worst incidents of abuse took place in the quelling of the uprisings in Iraq in the spring of 1991, "but the repression continues. People who dare to disagree with the government are not safe."
"The evidence I have in my possession shows that human rights violations in Iraq have been so consistent, have been on such a massive scale, and have been so serious, that there are very few examples of similar repression since the Second World War," Van der Stoel asserted.
Asked for specific examples of human rights violations, Van der Stoel said "disappearances have taken place on a massive scale. People are arrested and nobody ever heard of them again."
"I am thinking of people who have been killed without even a due process of law simply because the regime didn't trust them," he added. Moreover, he said during the regime's struggle against the Kurds, "there have been instances of chemical attacks on villages which cost many, many, many lives."
Asked if Iraq has accounted for Kuwaitis held after the Persian Gulf war, Van der Stoel said it has been impossible to obtain any information on the missing Kuwaitis. He said the International Committee of the Red Cross has tried to find out more because Kuwaiti prisoners of war -- "lists of people are still considered to be in Iraq.
"Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware, all these efforts have been to no avail. This all remains a mystery, what has happened to these people."
"I cannot stress enough -- all of this is on a massive scale," Van der Stoel again underscored.
"Human lives do not seem to be of value in Iraq. People who disagree with the government might have to pay with their lives."
"There are few places in the world where there are such massive and such grave violations of human rights as in present-day Iraq."
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File Identification: 11/23/92, POL104; 11/23/92, EUR108; 11/24/92, AEF206; 11/24/92, EPF211; 11/24/92, LEF204; 11/24/92, LSI202; 11/27/92, AFF503
Product Name: Wireless File
Product
Code: WF
Languages: Spanish; French
Keywords: UNITED NATIONS; VAN DER STOEL, MAX; BLOCKADES; FOODS; HUMANITARIAN AID; KURDS; IRAQ/Politics & Government; LIVING CONDITIONS; HUMAN RIGHTS
Thematic Codes: 1UN; 1NE; 2HA
Target Areas: EU; AF; EA; AR
PDQ Text Link: 255065; 255262; 255687
USIA Notes: *92112304.POL
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