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THE IMPOSED SANCTIONS

An unprecedented and destructive sanctions regime was imposed on Iraq in 1990 through resolution 661 of August 6, 1990. The underlying pretext for imposing the sanctions was that Iraq is occupying Kuwait. Today, after almost ten years from the withdrawal of the Iraqi forces from Kuwait, the sanctions are still maintained.

On the 3^rd of April, 1991, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 687 (1991) which set out new conditions for lifting the sanctions. The resolution clearly stated that if Iraq fulfills some of the obligations set out in the resolution, namely the provisions that deal with the destruction of weapons of mass-destruction, sanctions would be lifted.

Iraq has fulfilled its obligations as set out in the said resolution. Nevertheless, the United States and Britain, for political reasons, are fiercely opposing the will of the international community to end the sufferings of the Iraqi people and to have the sanctions removed.

The following is a brief summary of Iraq’s implementation of resolution 687 (1991) in the field of disarmament. Iraq’s implementation of other provisions in the resolution is also explained. The devastating impact of the sanctions on the Iraqi population will also be covered. And Examples of the Anglo-American violations of human rights against Iraq are cited hereunder.

Section C of resolution 687 (1991) deals with the issue of the elimination or rendering harmless weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq. Since its adoption in 1991, Iraq exerted enormous efforts to meet its obligations contained in the provisions of the relevant Security Council resolutions, particularly section C of resolution 687 (1991). The United Nations had even recognized the magnitude of the implementation and cooperation that Iraq has accomplished. Mr. Ekeus, the first Executive Chairman of UNSCOM stated in Paragraph 46 of his final report submitted on 11 April, 1997, the following: “The accumulated effect of the work that has been accomplished over six years since the cease-fire went into effect, between Iraq and the coalition, is such that not much is unknown about Iraq’s retained proscribed weapons capabilities.” Thus, what is left from the proscribed capabilities is of secondary importance and was covered by the ongoing monitoring and verification regime established in August 1994. This regime has been functioning effectively until the US-British armed aggression against Iraq on the 17^th of December 1998, which resulted in the destruction of the cites were the monitoring was actually taking place. In fact, Iraq today is free from any type of weapon of mass-destruction, and what is needed right now is that the UNSC must fulfill its reciprocal obligations enshrined in its resolutions towards Iraq. This means the complete lifting of sanctions and that the Security Council must not allow certain members from rewriting its own resolutions, so that the genocide against the Iraqi people come to a halt.

Resolution 686 (1991), imposed a number of obligations on Iraq included the immediate release of all detainees and the return of any deceased so detained. On 5 March 1991, the ICRC addressed a Memorandum to all the parties involved in the Gulf conflict setting out their obligations in regard to POW’s and civilian internees under the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. Iraq, accordingly, had repatriated 7,023 POWs and civilians persons of various nationalities. The ICRC confirmed in a non-paper published in New York in 1999 that it had facilitated the repatriation of thousands of Kuwaiti and allied POWs, civilian internees and detained civilians of Kuwaiti or third nationality.

Kuwait and its allies continue incessantly to propagate the existence of Kuwaiti POW’s and those of other nationalities who have not been repatriated. There can be no explanation to this position other than the deliberate attempt on the part of Kuwait to enforce the illusion that the individuals in question are alive in Iraq and should be released.

The transformation of the nature of the subject matter by Kuwait and its allies from one of investigating the fate of missing persons into one of POW’s is a deliberate political attempt to confuse the issues involved in order to depict Iraq as the Party at fault.

Iraq participated actively and in good faith in the work on investigating the fate of missing persons under the auspices of the ICRC.

In March 1991 the Kuwaiti authorities submitted to the ICRC a list of 11706 Kuwaiti missing persons. Iraq launched a campaign to search for the fate of the Kuwaiti missing persons. As a result of this campaign, the above number drastically declined in 1992 to reach 2101 persons, and to 850 missing persons few months later. The Iraqi campaign succeeded in reducing the number of Kuwaiti missing from 11706 missing persons in 1991 to 627 missing persons in 1994.

The overwhelming majority of the remaining cases of Kuwaiti and third nationality missing persons indicate that the persons in question were last seen in the detention centers located in the southern and central Governorates of Iraq shortly before the outbreak of riots in March 1991, during which thousands of Kuwaiti detainees fled those detention centers. For investigating the fate of those 627 persons alleged to be missing by Kuwait, it would, of course, have been necessary for the Iraqi authorities to search the records of the relevant services of the Governorates in question. Everyone knows, however, that all the official establishments of those Governorates were raided by saboteurs who burned, destroyed or looted all the records, letting no State institution escape unscathed. It is no secret either that the said Governorates fell in the hands of the saboteurs and remained under their control for varying periods of time amounting in some instances to two weeks of total absence of the central authority. Despite the conflicting figures cited by Kuwaiti officials (at times they state, that 5772 Kuwaiti citizens fled the Iraqi detention centres raided by the saboteurs while at others, they allege that only 500 individuals did so), the fact remains that large numbers fled the Iraqi detention centers in those Governorates after the outbreak of the riots in the first week of March 1991. Most eyewitness accounts included in the missing persons files provided by the Kuwaiti authorities indicate that the missing persons whose fate the Kuwaiti authorities want to know were last seen in the detention centers affected by the riots. Moreover, Salim al-Sabah, the Chairman of the Kuwaiti Committee for the Missing Persons, Detainees and POW’s said in a Press Conference in New York on 3 May 1995 : “Since the liberation of my country Kuwait, there was more than 6000 POW’s arrested by the Iraqi authorities without any crime. Thanks to the revolution in the south in the region of Basrah , 5,722 POW’s were freed; some of them made their way back on foot to Kuwait, while the rest took refuge with the ICRC and returned to Kuwait.”

Iraq, Nevertheless, continued its sincere efforts for the search of the remaining 627 missing persons from 1994 until this date. As a result of the Iraqi efforts, the above number was reduced to 598 missing persons.

According to UN reports, Iraq's social and economic indicators were generally above the regional and developing country averages before imposing the sanctions. GDP in 1989, Stood at 75.5 billion for a population of 18.3 million. GDP growth had averaged 10.4% from 1974 to 1980. By 1988, GDP per capita totaled 3,510 US dollars. The concerted push for economic growth from the mid-seventies onward had benefited the country’s infrastructure. In the food sector, Iraq had one of the highest per capita Food Availability indicators. It had also the capacity to import large quantities of food, which met up to two thirds of its requirements, for a bill of over 3 billion US dollars per year. In the health sector, and according to the WHO, prto 1991 health care reached approximately 97% of the urban population and 78% of rural residents. The government of Iraq, according the UN, was able to achieve a major reduction of young child mortality from 1960 to 1990. In the education sector, The government, according to UNICEF, made sizable investments from the mid-1970s until 1990. “According to UNESCO, educational policy included provision for scholarships, research facilities and medical support for students. By 1989 the combined primary and secondary enrollment ratio stood at 75% (slightly above the average for all developing countries at 70%, at according to the Human Development Report for 1991). Illiteracy had been reduced to 20% by 1987.”

The United Nations indicate that under the effect of sanctions it is estimated that Iraq's GDP may have fallen by nearly two-thirds in 199l, owing to an 85% decline in oil production and the devastation of the industrial and services sectors of the economy. Agricultural growth has since been erratic and manufacturing output has all but vanished, and that the per capita income fell from 3.416 US dollars in 1984 to as low as 450 US dollars in 1995. This deterioration in the economy of the country has resulted in an increase in material mortality rate form 50/100,000 live births in 1989 to 117/100,000 in 1997. A recent UNICEF survey found a dramatic increase in the under-5 and infant mortality rate. “Under-5 mortality had risen from 56 deaths per 1000 live births in the period from 1984 through 1989, to 131 deaths per 1000 live births in the period 1994-1999. Infant mortality had risen from 47 deaths per 1000 live births in the period 84-89 to 108 deaths per 1000 live births in the period 1994-99.” (1991 Human Development Report average for developing countries was 76 per 1.000 live births). Low birth weigh babies (less than 2.5 kg) rose from 4% in 1990 to around a quarter of registered births in 1997, due mainly to maternal malnutrition. The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies believe that as many as 70% of Iraqi women are suffering form anemia. According to Western observers, more than a million Iraq children have died since the imposition of sanctions in 1990. The United States of America is responsible for the death and sufferings of the Iraqi population. In a CBS News’s 60 Minutes program in May 1996, US secretary of State Madeleine Albrigh was told that half a million Iraqi children have died. That is more children than died in Hiroshima. She was asked: is the price worth it? She replied “we think the price is worth it.”

Depleted Uranium (DU) was widely used by the American and British forces against Iraq during the Gulf War in 1991. Its certain now that DU has caused a huge number of alarming symptoms among the Iraqi population. The number of cancers among young Iraqi children in southern Iraq were DU shells were intensively used by the coalition forces has risen sharply. The use of depleted Uranium violates both Human rights and Humanitarian law. The United Nations Human Rights Commission and sub-Commission have condemned the use of depleted uranium as a weapon of “mass or indiscriminate destruction.” Its use is also in direct breach of the Geneva Convention’s requirements for use a legal weapon of war. The governments, the International Community, the peace movements and the human rights organizations are urged to shoulder their responsibility in bringing those responsible for the use of these weapons of mass destruction to justice.

Iraq has accepted, in principle, its responsibility according to International Law for any loss or damage(s) arising in respect to Kuwait and third countries, their nationals and companies as a result of the events of August 1990. The Security Council established the UN Compensation Committee accordingly. Iraq, nevertheless, stressed in numerous occasions that the institution of such a commission by the Security Council is an unprecedented act in International Law. On this very issue, , ex-UN Secretary General Petros Ghali stated in the extra-ordinary meeting of the Compensation Committee held on 14/1/1994: ”this is in fact an unprecedented scheme, as for the first time in the history, international community shall bear by it self responsibility of ensuring management of the compensation claims for the war victims, taking decisions in respect thereof and payment of the compensation.” The problem, nevertheless, as expressed by the UN Secretary General in his report dated on the 2^nd of May 1991, is that the Compensation Committee is not considered to be a court or an Arbitration Panel before which the parties can appear. The Secretary General cofessed that the Commission is a political organ. Ironically, the rules of the Governing Council of the UN Compensation Commission do not permit Iraq to be represented in it, deprive Iraq from any participation in its procedures, and do not give Iraq the right of objection or even appeal. Iraq’ role in the Commission has been reduced to the level of receiving reports which contain total figures of the Iraqi money which were paid to claimants.

The Compensation Commission has changed the international laws, which are still governing relations among the states with sovereignty, and has invented an administrative rule of coercive nature and arbitrate content unprecedented in the history of international relations. The new rules have contradicted the simplest customary Rules of International Law and principles of natural justice, which provide necessity of equality, and equivalence of opportunities among all the parties concerned.

Despite the cease-fire which was established by resolution 687 (1991), the United States of America and Britain continued their acts of aggression against Iraq. Following the violent conditions which prevailed in the aftermath of the war, and the outbreak of wanton violence that ensued thereafter, a new form of aggression against Iraq was perpetuated under the guise of providing humanitarian assistance and protection to the civilian population through the imposition of the no-fly zones in the northern and southern parts of Iraq. On the 5^th of April, 1991, The US government claimed that its air force “will fly over northern Iraq to drop foodstuffs, blankets, clothes, tents and relief materials for the Kurdish refugees. These operations proceed from humanitarian considerations with no intervention … and that transport planes will be escorted by other aircraft to protect them when necessary.” On the same date, the British government announced that it would undertake a similar operation. Few months later, the US and Britain expanded the NFZ to include the southern part of Iraq under the 32nd parallel on the pretext of protecting the Shi'ite citizens of Iraq.

In a letter addressed to the Secretary General of the United Nations on the 7^th of April of 1991, the Government of Iraq expressed its strong protest against the American-British action which violated Iraq's sovereignty and constituted a flagrant breach of the rules of international law as well as a direct intervention in the internal affairs of Iraq. The letter said that it the provision of assistance had been truly humanitarian in aim, it should have been undertaken in consultation with the Iraqi authorities, and not by violating Iraq's sovereignty.

The US sought to get the Security Council endorsement to create the two no-fly zones. The Council rejected the attempt. The official spokesman of the United Nations, Goe Sills, stated on the 7^th of January 1993, that the imposition of the no-fly zones in Iraq was not based on any Security Council resolution. Iraq, accordingly, announced that it will not respect the no-fly zones and issued orders to its forces to engage any aircraft belonging to the alliance flying in Iraqi airspace. Iraq considers the imposition of these zones a flagrant violation of international law, the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concernFriendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. The US and Britain raid Iraqi civilian and military targets on almost daily basis causing heavy losses on the population of Iraq who are supposed to be protected by the alleged NFZ. The air raids against the Iraqi population are carried from bases in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. Up until the 3^rd of January 2000, the total number of violations against Iraq’s airspace in the northern and southern parts of the country was 193020.