Why Top UN Humanitarian Coordinators In Iraq Resign Their Posts
Jordan Times (Amman)
By Dr Jamal A. Shurdom [Opinion]
Posted Tuesday March 13, 2001 - 12:01:22 PM EST

Amman - In less than two years, three UN top humanitarian coordinators have resigned their posts in protest at the failure of the UN Oil for Food Programme.

In September 1998, UN Assistant Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator of the Oil for Food Programme for Iraq Denis Halliday resigned his post in protest at the continuing economic embargo against Iraq. He asserted that: "We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral." And again: "Sanctions are starving to death 6,000 Iraqi infants each month... I no longer want to be a part of that." He also noted that prostitution was rising, school dropout rates were skyrocketing, and the entire country was under attack." On Oct. 26, 1998, and after Halliday's resignation, Hans Von Sponeck was named UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq. A native of Germany, Sponeck has been as outspoken as Halliday in his condemnation of the economic sanctions. He has been highly critical of the US bombing in the southern and northern "No-fly" zones, saying that they interfere with the implementation of the UN humanitarian programme.

On Feb. 15, 2000, Sponeck, resigned his post in protest at the failure of the United Nations' oil-for-food programme. His resignation takes effect on March 31. He called for an end to UN sanctions on Iraq, calling them "a true human tragedy." He said that "the humanitarian programme has failed to meet the needs of Iraq's 22 million people." He described his views by stating: "As a UN official, I should not be expected to be silent to that which I recognise as a true human tragedy that needs to be ended." Sponeck said the programme had "certainly done some good" for the Iraqi people, but it did not "guarantee the minimum of that a human being requires" which is clearly defined in the universal declaration of human rights.

In less than a week after Sponeck's resignation, a third senior UN humanitarian official in Iraq, Jutta Burghardt, head of the World Food Programme (WFP) in Iraq, had resigned, citing for her resignation the same reasons as Sponeck's and Halliday's.

According to the BBC News Online, on Oct. 27, 1999, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, spoke on sanctions where he criticised Iraq aid delays. The shipment of about $700m of goods is on hold because some states are concerned at how Iraq will use them. Annan said: "These holds are having an undesirable impact on our humanitarian activities." In an interview with the Washington Post, Annan accused the Clinton administration of "disrupting" humanitarian efforts by blocking contracts.

On the other hand, according to the BBC Internet web posting of June 4, 2000, the controversial, Ex-UNSCOM chief, Richard Butler, publicly criticised the sanctions imposed on Baghdad after the Gulf War.

Speaking on the BBC's Talking Point on Air, Butler said sanctions harmed the Iraqi people and had not realised their declared aim of stripping Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). He became the biggest figure on a growing list of former UN employees to criticise the organisation's Iraqi policies.

UN inspectors have not returned to Iraq since they withdrew in December 1998.

Butler also answered critics of "Western double standards" towards Arab states and Israel, which, like Iraq, has invaded its neighbours and maintains a WMD arsenal. He agreed there was a double standard, and Israel's nuclear weapons had been a "source of very great difficulty" when it came to UNICOM's work.

To all these people, revealing the facts and attempting to rescue the entire population of Iraq was more important than swimming in the American and British morass of interests.

There will be no peace and security where justice doesn't exist. Peace is patriotic.

The writer is an expert on international affairs, national security, American government, and strategic studies, and the Executive Director of the Middle East Consultations and Research Analysis-MECRA, Orlando, Florida. He is an adjunct professor of international affairs at Saint Leo University, Florida US. This article is from his most recent book, 'The Price of Victory: The Gulf War', published by The Four Publisher, Inc., Winter Park, Florida-USA, in October 2000.

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