[antiwar-van] NGOs Decry 'Bribes' and 'Threats' Behind U.N. Vote

[hanna kawas]

http://www.ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=18355

  IRAQ:
  NGOs Decry 'Bribes' and 'Threats' Behind U.N. Vote

  Thalif Deen


  UNITED NATIONS, May 22 (IPS) - A coalition of over 150 peace groups and
global non-governmental organisations (NGOs) is lashing out at the U.N.
Security Council for adopting a resolution that virtually legitimises the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and endorses the foreign occupation of a U.N.
member state.

  ''The United States was successful in bulldozing its way because it
offered too many bribes and held out too many threats,'' says Rob Wheeler, a
spokesman for the Uniting for Peace Coalition.

  The ''threats,'' he said, were against developing nations in the 15-member
Security Council, and the ''bribes'' were the promises made to more powerful
nations, which caved in to U.S. pressure.

  ''Iraq has the world's second largest oil reserves. The United States will
now decide how those reserves are to be distributed. And nobody wants to be
cut out of the pie,'' Wheeler told IPS on Thursday.

  The resolution, co-sponsored by the United States, Britain and Spain, was
adopted Thursday by a vote of 14:1, with Syria, the only Arab nation in the
Council, refusing to participate in the voting.

  Approval of the seven-page resolution, which not only lifts the
12-year-old U.N. sanctions on Iraq but also provides political legitimacy to
U.S. rule in that war devastated nation, was being hailed as a major
diplomatic victory for Washington.

  Chile and Mexico, two developing nations in the Security Council with
important trade relations with the United States, were under heavy pressure
to vote for the resolution. And so were other developing nations in the
Council, added Wheeler.

  James Paul of the New York-based Global Policy Forum said that ''many
threats - and promises of a few oil fields - have brought the Council
membership into line''.

  Chile's U.N. ambassador, he said, was recalled by his government ''for
failing to show sufficient support and enthusiasm for the U.S. position''.

  The developing nations in the Security Council - including Mexico,
Cameroon, Chile, Angola and Guinea - justified their support by focusing
largely on the benefits that the removal of sanctions will offer to the long
suffering Iraqis and the country's reconstruction.

  Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar Zinser of Mexico said his country supported the
resolution because it set in motion that reconstruction. Describing the plan
as a ''compromise'', he said that all proceeds of oil resources should be
channelled towards the Iraqi people.

  ''The advisory and monitoring mechanism must guarantee that the handling
of oil would be done in a transparent manner. Iraq's future was a great
challenge for the United Nations, and to confront it squarely, the
organisation itself had to be strengthened.''

  The resolution spelling out the future of Iraq was adopted without the
presence of a single Iraqi in the Council chamber - a rare occurrence in the
Security Council's decision-making process.

  With the ouster of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, his chief
representative at the United Nations, Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri, packed
his bags and left New York last month. As a result, Iraq has remained
headless at the United Nations.

  Although the resolution opened the door for reconstruction and
humanitarian assistance, Ambassador Munir Akram of Pakistan singled out the
issues he said the Security Council failed to address.

  Akram regretted that the resolution did not specify the role of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in declaring Iraq free of weapons
of mass destruction; it did not end the U.N. arms embargo against the
country and it did not clarify the U.N.'s role in a future Iraq.

  France, which threatened to use its veto against a previous U.S.
resolution seeking U.N. approval for an invasion of Iraq last March, went
along with the current plan.

  While the resolution creates a U.S.-dominated Provisional Authority to run
the country, it establishes a development fund for Iraq's oil revenues. The
U.N.'s oil-for-food programme, which was mandated to use oil revenues to buy
food and humanitarian supplies to sanctions-hit Iraqis, will be phased out
over the next six months.

  The resolution also creates an International Advisory and Monitoring Board
and requests U.N. chief Kofi Annan to appoint a special representative to
oversee humanitarian assistance to Iraqis.

  But ''far from playing a vital role (the United Nations) is relegated to
an advisory and consultative body'', said Wheeler.

  Even the proposed advisory body, he said, would include representatives of
the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), organisations
controlled by the United States.

  To placate the Russians and the French, who are owed billions of dollars
by the ousted Saddam Hussein regime, the resolutions seeks the ''prompt
completion of the restructuring of Iraq's debt''.

  Ambassador Mamady Troare of Guinea said adopting the resolution
represented a success for the United Nations and for the Security Council,
which had rediscovered the golden rule of consensus.

  Cameroon's Martin Belinga-Eboutou said he had long believed that sanctions
against Iraq should be lifted, and that the United Nations should play an
important role in rebuilding the country.

  But Annan was more cautious when he told delegates that ''the mandate
given to the United Nations involved complex and difficult tasks''.

  Other members of Uniting for Peace include the Center for Economic and
Social Rights, Global Exchange, the Center for Constitutional Rights and
Friends of the Earth International (all U.S.-based), Third World Network
(Malaysia), World Peace and Nuclear Disarmament (India), NGO Forum
(Mauritius) and the World Peace Council (Greece). (END/2003)

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