13 December 2004
Iraq Asks for More U.N. Election Personnel
Elections will be held in January 2005, envoy says
By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent
United Nations -- Iraq has asked the United Nations to increase the number of its personnel in the country to bolster preparations for the election and help ensure that the elections are fair -- and are seen to be fair.
Addressing the Security Council December 13, Iraqi Ambassador Samir Sumaida'ie said that the current level of international U.N. staff in Iraq is "still not enough" and that his government is "concerned that this shortfall might adversely affect our preparedness for elections."
"The more U.N. personnel we have, the more supervision we can get, the more assurance there will be that elections are conducted properly," Sumaida'ie said. "We want not only to do the elections properly, but also to be seen to do it properly."
"The phrase 'as circumstances permit' should not become a mantra, repeated to justify insufficient presence on the ground in Iraq," Sumaida'ie said of the United Nations' criteria for sending staff members to Iraq.
The United Nations has a total of 59 staff members in the country. Citing security concerns, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has limited the number of U.N. staff members since the August 2003 bombing of its headquarters in Baghdad that claimed the lives of over 20 U.N. personnel -- including Special Envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. Efforts to form a separate unit to provide security for the United Nations have been unsuccessful: the multinational force (MNF) in Iraq has been providing security in its absence.
U.N. Special Envoy for Iraq Ashraf Qazi said that a total of 25 U.N. staff members are expected to be arriving in the country shortly to help Iraq with the elections, including coordinating other international observers. The United Nations is only helping the Iraqi Election Commission, not running the election, he noted.
Sumaida'ie said his government believes "that we have a legal and political obligation to the people of Iraq, an obligation we intend to discharge," to hold elections on January 30, 2005, despite security concerns.
"The great majority of the people of Iraq want and expect them [elections] to take place as planned, to postpone them might be seen as giving in to the terrorists whose goal is to wreck the political process and prevent elections from ever taking place," the Iraqi ambassador said.
Sumaida'ie also said that there is no reason to believe that "any sizeable segment of Iraq's population" will heed calls for a boycott of the elections. He said election boycotts have failed in other countries and predicted that Iraq will prove no different. "Given the opportunity, Iraqis will turn out in large numbers to participate in the first free election of their lives," he said.
"It is not the calls for boycotts that worry us," Sumaida'ie said. "It is the campaign of intimidation. We need to protect individual citizens from the threats made against them if they go to vote. We have to make sure the environment is secure for them. That is what is engaging the government at the moment."
The Iraqi envoy addressed an open meeting of the Security Council not only to urge the United Nations to increase its presence and commitment inside Iraq but also to defend his government's stand against the terrorists in Falluja and emphasize the need for the international community to help in Iraq.
The ambassador criticized the United Nations for using video conferences, telephone calls from outside Iraq or letters "which inevitably find their way to the press" as a means of working with Iraqi officials instead of being physically present in the country.
"We believe that, not only elections preparations but the vital humanitarian and developmental work can be greatly enhanced through direct contacts in Iraq between U.N. officials and their counterparts in the IIG [Iraqi Interim government] and the provinces," he said.
"There is a dearth of U.N. workers even in northern and southern Iraq, despite relative peace and stability there," he said.
Sumaida'ie urged the United Nations to increase its presence in those areas, saying they are areas "in which progress should be possible quite quickly."
The ambassador said critics of the Falluja assault on terrorists "offer no alternative which had not already been tried for months to no avail."
The Iraqi interim government's goal, he said, is to "deprive terrorists bent on destroying the transition process of any safe havens in Iraq. No responsible government can do anything else."
He said that 203 major weapons caches, 11 bomb factories, and three slaughter houses for captives and hostages were found in Falluja.
Reporting on behalf of the 30 countries providing 150,000 personnel to the multinational force in Iraq, U.S. Ambassador John Danforth said that "security for the U.N. in Iraq will be a key issue for some time."
The MNF understands U.N. concerns about the safety of its personnel and "is committed to providing security for the growing U.N. staff in Iraq," the U.S. ambassador said.
"As we provide that security, we urge the U.N. to put additional personnel on the ground," Danforth said. "Additional U.N. support is essential to the future of Iraq, and especially to the success of next month's elections."
The U.S. ambassador said that several governments indicated they intend to provide troops for a separate security unit to protect U.N. staff members, and he expressed the hope that the unit will be operational in time for the elections.
"We urge in the strongest possible terms donors to step forward with donations of forces and finances," he said.
Danforth said that Iraqi security forces currently being trained by the MNF total 116,240.
Qazi, the U.N. special envoy for Iraq, told the Security Council that the United Nations' staff sees "a widespread desire amongst Iraqis to participate in the elections" and find political solutions to political problems, but some important segments of the population still feel alienated from the political transition.
"To its credit," Qazi said, "the interim government has made efforts to reach out to alienated elements and is continuing to do so. It needs every encouragement to increase its efforts in this direction."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2004&m=December&x=20041213165921atiayduj0.4477808&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
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