Silent Decimation--A must read
Tue, 14 Sep 1999
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Dear Friends,
The following article from the September 3 issue of Middle East
International is a sharp, factual and sobering rebuttal of the propaganda
and spin that has been deployed to explain away the recent findings in
UNICEF's report on conditions in Iraq.
I think it is crucial at this time to arm ourselves with the facts and
arguments to counter the fictions being propagated by certain governments
who wish to continue to see the Iraqi people die quietly away from our
eyes and consciences.
For those not familiar with it, Middle East International, which appears
bi-weekly, is one of the finest independent sources of news and analysis
about the Middle East, North Africa and the eastern Mediterrannean
available today. It is in my view essential and deserves to be much more
widely read.
Ali Abunimah
ahabunim@midway.uchicago.edu
*********************************************************************
Middle East International, September 3, 1999
Silent decimation: Iraq under sanctions
by Felicity Arbuthnot
UNICEF's latest report was cited by certain governments as proof that
Saddam Hussein's regime was solely responsible for the suffering Iraqis
must endure. The reality is that it is those very governments who are
largely responsible. Furthermore, Felicity Arbuthnot argues, UNICEF
understated the gravity of the situation.
---------------------------------------
UNICEF's report on Iraq, released on 12 August, met initially with almost
universal shock, revealing as it did a doubling of infant and child
mortality over the ten years of the UN embargo on Iraq, and that an excess
of over half a million child deaths are attributed to embargo-related
effects. Shock, predictably, fast degenerated into "it's Saddam's fault"
from media and government commentators. Iraq had failed to comply with UN
resolutions, was not ordering items essential for survival, and was not
distributing sustenance and pharmaceuticals held in storage in Baghdad. The
survey was also described as "the first survey on child and maternal
mortality since 1991".
No commentator pointed out that a yearly litany of reports, studies and
statistics--including from UNICEF itself--have recorded this silent
decimation of Iraq's most vulnerable: the new-born, young children, the
sick
and the elderly. Also absent from coverage was that in August 1995, an
exhaustive survey by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) found a two-fold increase in infant mortality and five-fold increase
in under-five mortality. The report concluded that "the moral, financial
and political standing of the international community intent on maintaining
economic sanctions is challenged by the estimate that, since August 1990,
567,000 children in Iraq have died as a consequence".
By November 1997 a UNICEF survey recorded over one million children
malnourished in a "deepening crisis" and an excess of an estimated 90,000
child deaths a year attributed to the embargo. The deaths of children under
five were associated mainly with "diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition",
those of children over five with "heart disease, hypertension, diabetes,
cancer and liver and kidney diseases".
Two gut-wrenching lines point out that although there is a "substantial
increase in mortality, under-registration of deaths is a growing problem.
For infants, reporting a death would entail cancellation of the due ration
for that child." With inflation running very high, many families are
entirely reliant on government-provided monthly rations which, with thrifty
management, they can make last an average of 20 days. Each ration can be the
difference between life and death. So the loss of a baby can entail a unique
added anguish not admitting it for the sake of a little extra for the
other children.
Dirty water
Iraq's pumping stations, water purification plants and pipeline networks
were virtually destroyed during the Gulf war and spare parts have been
denied until recently, when a woefully inadequate consignment was agreed by
the United Nations sanctions committee.
According to the World Health Organisation in 1989, 93 per cent of Iraqis
had access to clean drinking water. Now Iraqıs water supply is severely
contaminated, leading to a rise in diarrhoeal diseases, typhoid and cholera
(the latter previously eliminated since the early 1980s). This has led to
spiralling child mortality, much of which is unrecorded since families are
often too poor to travel to a registrar. Families who take severely
dehydrated children to hospital, if they survive, return home with them to
the contaminated water source that made them ill in the first place.
UNICEFıs 1997 survey also refers to the global rank in mortality rates
world-wide. In 1989 Iraq ranked 61st out of 121 countries (³mid-point of the
scale²); by 1996 "Iraq ranked 39th out of 191 countries only about a
quarter of the countries of the world had a higher rate". Chronic
malnourishment had risen "by 72 per cent since 1991".
Yet in spite of all the above, in a country where death stalks children from
the moment of birth, UNICEF's latest report indicates child mortality
unchanged since April 1995.
Were UNICEF any other body, a cynic might be tempted to speculate that
political pressure could have been brought to bear. While the death of
half a million children equals only a little less than four Hiroshimas,
what can only be an underestimate of 90,000 a year by UNICEF itself would
equal nearly one million deaths. Yet there is ample evidence that the
British and American governments have repeatedly distanced themselves from
the findings of the November '97 survey and from another UNICEF report
released in April 1998. Coincidentally, when this correspondent went to
UNICEFıs Baghdad office in Dec-ember 1997 to collect a copy of the
November survey, we were refused. The document eventually had to be
obtained through another UNICEF office. It was undoubtedly also
coincidence that the employee who sent it to us was dismissed the
following day.
The latest UNICEF report contains another terror which accompanies what
should be the joyous expectation of a child "maternal mortality is a
leading cause of death in the last ten years": 31 per cent of mothers die
in childbirth.
Amid the myriad of items which have been denied by the UN sanctions
committee have been surgical clamps and the medications which prevent or
stop haemorrhaging. Further, the incidence of babies of premature birth
weight rose from five to 25 per cent within three years of the embargo:
"We have had not one premature-weight baby survive since 1994," Dr Jenan
Ali, a paediatrician at Basra Maternity Hospital, told MEI in February.
"Intellectual genocide"
So could Iraq's regime improve the situation, are they hoarding stocks of
vital items in Baghdad warehouses, could they further cooperate with the UN?
Hans Von Sponek, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, thinks not. The
oil-for-food deal is totally inadequate, he says, there is "no significant
overall improvement".
It is not just about food, about medicine, he says, "it is intellectual
genocide," with professional journals, international newspapers, books,
writing materials, computers all considered "non-essential" by the
sanctions committee and vetoed.
Talking of the day-to-day effect of sanctions or the almost forgotten
daily bombings by US and UK war planes, Von Sponeck said: "I went to see
one family with a 14-year-old daughter. She said that when the bombs began
to fall she started playing the piano, so she couldn't hear the noise."
Iraq's taxi drivers have become a barometer of the deprivations caused by
the embargo. They include ship's captains, airline pilots, doctors,
philosophers, university professors. When you get into a taxi in New York
or Berlin, the driver is unlikely to discuss philosophy. Not here. One
taxi driver suddenly said how happy he would be to get a CD of classical
music.
Another indication of deprivation is the Law Library; its latest books
date from 1987 it is shambles. This is intellectual genocide." Von Sponeck
talked of the psychological wellbeing of children and said: "We are here
to defend the right of the average citizen to live in dignity."
The destruction of a nation
The UN in Iraq has not achieved the status that such dedicated professionals
would wish for it. Von Sponekıs predecessor, Denis Halliday, resigned in
disgust at the "destruction of an entire nation". He estimates that an
average of 6,000 children a month are dying as a result of sanctions.
Anyone who has witnessed the hundreds of expensive modern vehicles favoured
by UN personnel in Iraq compared to the death-trap cars Iraqis have to drive
(they routinely burst into flames) because of the shortage of embargoed
spare parts, not to mention the luxury in which UN personnel live, the vast
telecommunications tower they use (compulsorily paid for out of sequestered
Iraqi funds), cannot help but be disturbed.
UNICEF's recent report has generated the accusation that Iraq is
withholding supplies from northern and southern governorates. Acute
shortages undoubtedly cause an increase in black market activities.
However, prior to the August 1990 embargo, the WHO estimated that Iraqıs
population had free, high-quality health care which was among the best in
the developing world.
Now Iraq cannot get hold of refrigerated trucks or the spare parts for
refrigeration, air conditioning, electricity and telecommunications because
they are considered ³non-essential² by the sanctions committee. As a result,
the electricity supply and telephone network are in a state of collapse. To
transport medication in an unrefrigerated truck, to an unrefrigerated
warehouse, without even knowledge of which are the most vital items needed
in an area is tantamount to destroying it.
UNICEF's latest report acknowledges that water-borne diseases are a major
cause of infant deaths and encourages mothers to breast-feed. Most mothers
are now too malnourished to produce much milk. But one of the factors in
Hallidayıs decision to resign was that he had recommended that a kilo of
cheese per person be added to Iraqi familiesı rations. The UN sanctions
committee rejected the suggestion. "A child with diarrhoea in 1990 had a
one in 600 chance of dying; in 1996, this became one in 50. A child with
pneumonia in 1990 had a one in 60 chance of dying, in 1996, one child out
of every eight with pneumonia died," states UNICEF's Iraq Monthly Country
Report of December 1997.
A debate on UN and UNICEF policy on Iraq--a unique case--is surely long
overdue. An abiding memory is engraved in this writerıs mind. It is of
walking past UNICEF's luxurious Baghdad headquarters (paid for out of
frozen Iraqi funds) in the early dawn. Through the glass doors UNICEFıs
mission statement was visible for all to see: "Above All Survival, Hope,
Development, Respect, Dignity, Equality and Justice for Women and
Children." Outside, a child of perhaps five, barefoot, was sweeping the
steps in a country where, prior to 1991, 93 per cent of school-age
children were in school.
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