PRESS RELEASE

New York, July 17th, 2000

Humanitarian Organizations called upon to investigate

the Fate of the Iraqi Missing Persons in Kuwait

Mr. Hasan (Iraq) (spoke in Arabic): At the outset, I wish to extend to you, Madam, and to the friendly delegation of Jamaica our thanks and appreciation for convening this meeting to discuss the important subject before us.

I also thank the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr. Olara Otunnu; Ms. Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund; and the International Committee of the Red Cross for the important work they have been doing to protect children.

I express my special appreciation for the vigorous campaign being waged by Mr. Otunnu to end regional sanctions imposed on Burundi, given their unjust repercussions on children and families. We hope that Mr. Otunnu will undertake a similar initiative on behalf of the children of Iraq.

Before I address the substance of the issue, I wish to emphasize that the Security Council’s discussion of this issue should in no way prejudice the competence and terms of reference of the General Assembly and other United Nations organs. Given the fact that the protection of children involves a wide range of issues, the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council are the appropriate forums for conducting more comprehensive and in-depth discussions of these matters.

The report of the Secretary-General and the views expressed by Member States at this meeting will undoubtedly help to identify an approach towards a more forward-looking, integrated strategy to end the suffering of children in armed conflict. While there is an urgent immediate need for modalities to alleviate the suffering of children in conflict areas and to reinforce commitments to international conventions in the area of child protection, it is equally pressing to consider a comprehensive approach to protecting children over the long term.

Perhaps the optimal way to protect children in armed conflict lies in preventing armed conflicts in the first place, containing them and addressing their root causes, foremost among which is the unstable and unbalanced international political and economic climate, which is characterized by hegemony and by a deepening divide between the States of the North and those of the South. The North has come to monopolize wealth, power, influence and technological dominance, leaving the States of the South with poverty, illiteracy, starvation, unemployment and disease. All this provides fertile ground for the growth of bigotry, violence and conflict. Thus, the United Nations has an important role to play in correcting these imbalances in the current international environment.

The indiscriminate and excessive application of sanctions by the Security Council ever since the United States achieved dominance over it in 1990 has had catastrophic consequences in several third world targeted countries. Children have been the primary victims of these sanctions. In his report on children in armed conflict before the Council, the Secretary-General has devoted a special section to the issue of protecting children from the impact of sanctions. He expressed his deep concern over the adverse impact of sanctions on children and emphasized that

“The potential long-term benefits of sanctions should be weighed against the immediate and long-term costs to children, including the collapse of health and education infrastructures, reduced economic opportunities, increased child labour in informal sectors and increased infant morbidity and mortality. The suffering of Iraqi children, as reported by UNICEF, and of children in the Balkans are troubling cases in point.” (S/2000/712, para. 25)

The Secretary-General suggests the dispatch of evaluation missions to the targeted States and neighbouring countries prior to the imposition of sanctions with a view to assessing the potential negative impacts of sanctions. My delegation supports this recommendation and hopes that it would constitute, along with other recommendations submitted by several States, a basis for restricting the use of Article 41 of the Charter of the United Nations, to keep it exclusively within the purposes of the Charter and to prevent the use of sanctions as a means of mass killing, as in the case of sanctions imposed on Iraq, sanctions which targeted the civilian population, chiefly children.

The claim by some that the suffering of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children is an unintended result arising indirectly from the sanctions is made in total ignorance of the facts on the ground and total disregard of moral values. The comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iraq were designed to kill as many Iraqi children as possible. Since they were imposed, those sanctions have not achieved any other objective except that. Let me cite the following data.

First, the comprehensive sanctions imposed on Iraq by resolution 661 (1990) of 6 August 1990 did not exclude in reality even foodstuffs and medicines. Later, children’s textbooks, clothing, toys and even their coffins were excluded. Until today, the United Kingdom and the United States put on hold contracts for the acquisition of ambulances and medicines that would save the lives of children under the pretext of dual-use materials.

Secondly, five months after the imposition of comprehensive sanctions, Iraq, under the cover of Security Council resolutions, was the target of the most horrendous military aggression known in contemporary history. A total of 88,000 tons of ordnance were dropped on Iraqi cities and villages, equivalent to seven or eight nuclear bombs similar to those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those bombs and missiles destroyed, among other things, schools, playgrounds and hospitals for children. They also destroyed an infant-formula factory which the Americans claimed was a biological weapons factory.

Here, let me recall what was stated by the former United Nations Under-Secretary-General, Mr. Marti Ahtisaari, who visited Iraq in the wake of the aggression as head of the United Nations humanitarian needs assessment mission. In his report, in document S/22360, he stated that nothing that they had seen or read had quite prepared them for the particular form of devastation that had now befallen the country. The recent conflict had wrought near-apocalyptic results, he said, upon the economic infrastructure of what had been, until January 1991, a rather highly organized and mechanized society. Now, Mr. Ahtisaari wrote, most means of modern life support had been destroyed or rendered tenuous, and Iraq had for some time to come been relegated to a pre-industrial age, but with all the disabilities of post-industrial dependency on an intensive use of energy and technology.

Thirdly, the United States and the United Kingdom exploited the Security Council resolutions as an opportunity to test a new radioactive weapon made of depleted uranium missiles. They dropped on Iraq a total of 300 tons of this weapon of mass destruction. The use of this weapon resulted in the death of 50,000 Iraqi children in the first year. Furthermore, the use of this radioactive weapon would have a long-lasting effect on future generations in Iraq, including a higher incidence of cancer, especially leukemia among children, and fetus deformation and forced abortions. This means that the primary victims are the children of Iraq. Also, the use of depleted uranium has contributed to environmental pollution in terms of air quality, soil, water and plants. The rate of pollution has increased ten-fold over normal levels.Estimates of expenses to clean the Iraqi environment are now at some 375 billion dollars.

Fourthly, following the systematic military destruction of Iraq, comprehensive sanctions still remain. The cumulative impact of the sanctions has been on the civilian population, especially children. The field study conducted by UNICEF and issued in August 1999 emphasized that the sanctions on Iraq have resulted in the death of half a million Iraqi children under the age of five. According to the UNICEF field study, the infant mortality rates have increased from 56 per 1,000 live births during the period 1984-1989 to 131 per 1,000 in the period 1994-1999. This is in addition to the death of one million Iraqis of other age groups, especially women and elderly. Of the children who survive, some 25 per cent suffer from chronic malnutrition. School enrolment has declined. Mrs. Rossing, the UNICEF Regional Director in Iraq, announced on 21 July 2000 that nutrition in Iraq was not a problem in the 1980s, but this problem appeared in the 1990s only. She added that the sanctions had extensively hurt children, many of whom were forced to leave school and go on the road to earn their living, which would have a negative impact on the country’s future human resources. Those facts and figures are further proof that the economic sanctions that the Security Council imposed against Iraq constitute an act of systematic genocide. Fifthly, since 1991, the United States and the United Kingdom have been unilaterally enforcing no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq, engaging in a flagrant abuse of force against an independent State before the very eyes of the United Nations and of the entire international community. Indeed, to deflect attention from their own internal crises, they stage empty military heroics and commit military aggression against Iraq, most recently the large-scale aggression against Iraq that took place between 16 and 20 December 1998. The chief victims of the no-fly zones, the aggression and the relentless daily bombing are the children of Iraq, as has been demonstrated in reports by United Nations representatives who visited residential neighbourhoods in Iraq that had been the targets of bombing. Besides the actual bombing, the noise of supersonic military aircraft flying over Iraqi cities and villages causes panic and other psychological problems in children. At the dawn of the new millennium, the time has truly come for the international community to wake up and reject the mind-set of imposing inhuman comprehensive sanctions, which is a legacy of the Dark Ages. That mind-set was manifested in the well-known words of United States President Woodrow Wilson: “A nation boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender. Apply this economic, peaceful, silent, deadly remedy and there will be no need for force. It is a terrible remedy.” The same mind-set was also to be expressed in the words of Mrs. Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State of the United States, who famously said in 1996 that the death of half a million Iraqi children was a price that was “worth it” in continuing the sanctions against Iraq. Drawing a distinction between combatants and civilians is a key principle of international humanitarian law. The comprehensive sanctions imposed against Iraq target civilians. The United States and the United Kingdom bear full responsibility for the genocide that is being committed in gross violation of international humanitarian law. There can be no further doubt that this principle of international humanitarian law has been materially and morally violated. The principle of permitting no impunity for those who disregard international humanitarian law must be applied. Those who target children must be brought to justice. The Security Council, in whose name the sanctions were imposed, unquestionably lost its credibility when it agreed to lend bogus legitimacy to a scheme in which Iraqi civilians would be considered enemy targets. Because of the United States insistence on maintaining the sanctions against Iraq to attain its own vicious political objectives, and because of its constant threat to use its veto power, the Council has been rendered unable to rectify the situation and to lift the sanctions against Iraq. We would therefore expect such an initiative to come from the States of the world, which have authorized the Security Council to act on their behalf. Those States should reconsider that authorization, because we now have evidence that it has been misused to kill the children of Iraq. The Council must be reminded that Article 25 of the Charter stipulates that the Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the Charter. Since the imposition of comprehensive sanctions against Iraq was in contravention of the provisions of the Charter — starting with its Preamble, which stresses Members’ faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person — it is the legal and moral duty of States Members of the United Nations to renounce participation in the implementation of resolutions that are inconsistent with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and that are being used to carry out a policy of genocide against the children of Iraq. The children of Iraq, like all other Iraqi civilians, bear deep wounds on their hearts and their minds. Seven thousand Iraqi children perish each month as a result of the sanctions regime that has been imposed in the name of the Security Council. Will the Council remain silent?