22 April 2007By Sonia Nettnin
Chicago- Director of the Representative Office of UNRWA, Andrew Whitley spoke about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the West Bank.
This week a number of governments, led by the Canadians, will meet in Berlin where they will discuss political futures and options for refugees. Whitley talked about the living conditions of Palestinian refugees.
Who is Andrew Whitley? He works for UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, located in New York. For over three years Whitley lived in Gaza, and he has worked on the subject of the Occupied Palestinian Territories for over 25 years. In Tehran and New York he worked as an academic; as a foreign correspondent specializing in Middle East, South Asia and Latin America, with the BBC and the Financial Times; and in human rights. He was the founding director of Middle East Watch – now Human Rights Watch/Middle East and North Africa.
The theme for his lecture, “Humanitarian Crisis in Palestine: A Gathering Storm,” focused on Gaza, which is one of the 59 officially-recognized refugee camps.
“We have become very alarmed by the fragmentation of Palestinian society particularly in the West Bank,” Whitley said.
With at least 530 barriers and checkpoints in place, peoples’ lives are completely disrupted. Moreover, Palestinian villages have been torn asunder by movement restrictions because they do not have normal economic life. He compared the size of the West Bank to the state of Connecticut, and with words he painted a picture of people living in atomized areas. Israel’s construction of a wall that is projected to be 700 km is 60 per cent complete. There is a degree of permanence to the sectioning because the Jordan Valley has been carved off for Israeli settlements and the West Bank has been divided into a northern and a southern area. As a result, the West Bank is now a trisection containing enclaves of Palestinian cities and villages.
Although the Israeli Army established checkpoints in the name of security, “I would argue the means to tackle these threats…leads to a sense of nihilism, pent up anger that …brings about the results they are trying to avoid,” Whitley explained.
Palestinians are Hungry – Weak Blood and Eyes Hurting
For the Palestinians, the situation is grave. In Gaza there are an estimated 1.4 million Palestinians and approximately 80 per cent of the population lives below the official poverty line at US $2.05 per day per capita. The Palestinian Gross Domestic Product collapsed by 23 per cent in the last year. One million, or 70 per cent of these people, are registered as refugees and 1.05 million people depend on international assistance.
“We keep (including the World Food Program) these people alive these days and the degree they have become dependent on the international community for lack of resources is troubling indeed,” Whitley said.
Since the parliamentary elections in January 2006, the Palestinians have been placed under economic siege. The strategy is to inflict political defeat on Hamas by inflicting the Palestinian population.
On February 16, 2006 it was Israeli Prime Ministerial Advisor Dov Weisglass who said: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger.”
According to Whitley, an estimated 40 per cent of Gaza’s population does not get an adequate supply of food, even with international assistance. The hospitals are approximately 20 per cent short of the necessary drugs and supplies needed for medical treatment. Although malnutrition has been a long-term problem with women and children, growth stunting and a worsening diet means “…children are not growing normally in all of their faculties…we will see long-term results within a decade but evidence is quite clear,” Whitley added.
In a video shot in Gaza recently, the UN conducted interviews with the people.
“Most children have bad health kids have weak blood they are weak and their eyes are hurting,” one man says.
Within the last year an estimated 450 business owners closed down. People try to trade their gold for cash, but they are turned away because there is no cash.
“People don’t have food. Life is difficult. People need food but they are hungry,” another person said.
One girl explained that she can see her father cannot bring home food.
Another boy said: “I feel all this but no one cares about us.”
In March 2006, Erez border crossing was closed to Palestinian laborers who work in Israel. The Israeli Government has imposed a gradual policy of zero Palestinian laborers in Israel.
The Karni border crossing closures have caused the delay of goods and cargo from moving in and out of Gaza. In 2006, Israel closed Karni 50 per cent of the working days. This means the thrust of the Palestinian economy in Gaza - agricultural products such as fruits, vegetables and flowers – rotted at the border crossing. In 2006 the UN paid one million in fees to Israeli companies because of the Karni crossing closures. Most of this one million came from European and US taxpayers.
Why did the UN have to pay these fees? Hundreds of full and empty shipping containers move in and out of Gaza. If the border crossing closes, cargo and goods are stored at Israeli ports and terminals. Therefore, trucks sit in park.
When the UN was trying to move their goods, they experienced the same situation and paid fees for crossing closures out of their control.
The overall impression is that the UN faces an acute moral dilemma. They want to help the refugees, but there are many political, social and economic factors preventing them from doing so. Perhaps the organization is being used. Although the humanitarian organization works in highly-politicized environments, one of their challenges is to preserve political neutrality.
When asked what he would say if he had the chance to talk with world leaders, Whitley made several statements. One of them was: “I would tell them that their policies are counterproductive.”
Recent Report on the Situation:
Oxfam survey: Financial boycott pushes Palestinians into poverty, April 13, 2007
Showing posts with label UN. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UN. Show all posts
Monday, April 23, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
Sudan approves U.N. deployment in Darfur
Sudan approves U.N. support for Darfur
17 minutes ago
Sudan on Monday approved the deployment of attack helicopters and more than 3,000 U.N. troops, police, and other personnel in Darfur to beef up the 7,000-strong African Union force in the troubled region.
Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem informed the secretary-general in a letter that the government had approved the U.N. plan to send helicopter gunships, the last outstanding item in the U.N.'s "heavy support package" for the AU force.
"It is the sincere hope of the Sudan that implementation of the heavy support package would proceed expeditiously," Abdalhaleem said.
Sudan's Foreign Ministry confirmed the government's acceptance of the "heavy support" package.
The United States has held off on imposing sanctions against Sudan to allow time for the government to decide to accept the U.N. plan, under which a joint force of 22,000 U.N. and African Union peacekeepers would be deployed in Darfur.
It is widely recognized that the current force of 7,000 AU peacekeepers is inadequate to stop the fighting in a region the size of France or Texas. About 2.5 million people have been driven from their homes in Darfur and are living in poorly protected camps in the province and eastern Chad.
Until now, Sudan has said it will accept only a small number of U.N. security forces and equipment to support the AU mission. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has said the deployment of U.N. troops would violate Sudan's sovereignty. Many believe he fears the U.N. force would arrest Sudanese officials suspected of war crimes in Darfur.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Israeli policies contravene with peace, Palestine Permanent Observer at the UN Says
Wednesday April 11, 2007 14:26 by Rami Almeghari - IMEMC&Agencies rami at imemc dot org
Palestine permanent observer at the United Nations, Mansour Mansour, warned Tuesday of continued Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people, saying such actions contravene with peace and help further feul tension on the ground.
In a letter, Mansour handed over to the chief of the security council, Mansour said that in a time many parties involving the Arab states league and the Palestinian national unity government, are exerting serious peace efforts toward potential peace, Israel violates the international humanitarian law on daily basis.
Mansour pointed out that Israel has been committing a series of extrajudicial assassinations, the latest of which was the killing of a Palestinian resident in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, in addition to the killing of other Palestinians in the West Bank.
As for the West Bank, Mansour maintained, the Israeli forces have recently used Palestinians as human shields during house-to-house searches, reiterating underway suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israeli armed settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem
.
The Palestinian diplomat affirmed that the continued Israeli construction of the illegal separation barrier, deep into the Palestinian territories, especially in Jerusalem, has blatantly defied the ruling of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the relevant United Nations’ resolutions as well as the international humanitarian law.
The international court of justice issued in 2004 an advisory opinion calling for tearing down the fence-off wall and compensating those affected by its building.
The letter read that the Israeli army has been installing approximately 500 military checkpoints and roadblock across the West Bank, blocking movement of the Palestinian population and vehicles and causing ‘catastrophic economic consequences’.
Israel has been imposing a prolonged closure policy on the occupied Palestinian territories, such as the closure of Rafah crossing terminal in southern Gaza, creating a great deal of deterioration at the humanitarian level, Mansour’s letter hinted.
According to a Palestinian Authority’s report, the Israeli army has killed 6 Palestinians over the past week.
Palestine permanent observer at the United Nations, Mansour Mansour, warned Tuesday of continued Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people, saying such actions contravene with peace and help further feul tension on the ground.
In a letter, Mansour handed over to the chief of the security council, Mansour said that in a time many parties involving the Arab states league and the Palestinian national unity government, are exerting serious peace efforts toward potential peace, Israel violates the international humanitarian law on daily basis.
Mansour pointed out that Israel has been committing a series of extrajudicial assassinations, the latest of which was the killing of a Palestinian resident in the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, in addition to the killing of other Palestinians in the West Bank.
As for the West Bank, Mansour maintained, the Israeli forces have recently used Palestinians as human shields during house-to-house searches, reiterating underway suffering of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israeli armed settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem
.
The Palestinian diplomat affirmed that the continued Israeli construction of the illegal separation barrier, deep into the Palestinian territories, especially in Jerusalem, has blatantly defied the ruling of the International Court of Justice in the Hague, the relevant United Nations’ resolutions as well as the international humanitarian law.
The international court of justice issued in 2004 an advisory opinion calling for tearing down the fence-off wall and compensating those affected by its building.
The letter read that the Israeli army has been installing approximately 500 military checkpoints and roadblock across the West Bank, blocking movement of the Palestinian population and vehicles and causing ‘catastrophic economic consequences’.
Israel has been imposing a prolonged closure policy on the occupied Palestinian territories, such as the closure of Rafah crossing terminal in southern Gaza, creating a great deal of deterioration at the humanitarian level, Mansour’s letter hinted.
According to a Palestinian Authority’s report, the Israeli army has killed 6 Palestinians over the past week.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Researcher Adds to Alger Hiss Debate
By RICHARD PYLE Thursday, April 05, 2007
NEW YORK - A Russian researcher, delving anew into once-secret Soviet files from the Cold War, says she has found no evidence that Alger Hiss spied or that Soviet intelligence had any particular interest in him.
In a speech to be delivered at a New York University symposium Thursday, Svetlana A. Chervonnaya says neither Hiss' name nor his alleged spy moniker, Ales, appears in any of dozens of documents from Soviet archives that she has reviewed since the early 1990s.
A copy of the speech was made available to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Calling her efforts "proving the negative," Chervonnaya says "a thorough combing of all the said archives combined has not produced a shred of evidence that Alger Hiss had ever been a member of the (American) Communist Party and was engaged in any behind-the-scenes interactions with the Soviets."
Hiss, a top State Department official who played a key role in founding the United Nations, was convicted of perjury in 1950 for lying about being a Soviet spy. He served nearly four years of a five-year federal prison sentence and died at age 92 in 1996.
Scholars and experts have debated for decades whether he was guilty or a victim of anti-communist fervor. The case was fraught with Cold War drama, involving a typewriter and a secret film cache in a Maryland pumpkin field.
Chervonnaya was one of several scholars, writers and historians scheduled to speak Thursday at a daylong symposium, "Alger Hiss and History," inaugurating New York University's new Center for the United States and the Cold War.
Others on the program included Hiss' son, Tony Hiss, and stepson, Timothy Hobson, who were expected to recall their family life with the man whose name became a synonym for Cold War espionage. Both have always maintained Hiss was innocent.
Soviet defectors, retired KGB agents and U.S. officials, some claiming to have documentary proof, have come down on both sides of what remains one of the Cold War's most enduring controversies.
In 1995-96, U.S. intelligence agencies released the Venona Files, a series of decoded Soviet diplomatic cables on espionage matters during World War II. They mentioned a U.S. contact called Ales, who already had been identified by a defecting Soviet agent as Hiss.
Tony Hiss, a New York-based writer, said he was encouraged by Chervonnaya's research.
"Her stating of the negative in all this is so strong that it almost becomes a positive," he said. "With her findings, plus new findings from FBI files, we envision reopening the whole field of investigation. After looking for so long like a played-out mine, it's now revealing new veins and whole new galleries of material, but it's far too soon to say this has reached any kind of positive conclusion."
Chervonnaya said her findings thus far echo those of a former Soviet general who in 1992 quoted KGB secret police files as saying Hiss was not a Soviet spy. But she said that was based on one document, whereas her research draws extensively on now publicly accessible files in which intensive cross-checking would be likely to turn up clues if any existed.
"I reasoned that, provided Alger Hiss had been such an important and long-term Soviet asset, we should logically expect his name to slip at some stage into some of the files," she said.
None of the documents implicated Hiss, although names of other people to whom he was linked or who also were accused of being Soviet sympathizers do appear, among them Whittaker Chambers, a one-time Time magazine editor who later became Hiss's chief accuser.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
NEW YORK - A Russian researcher, delving anew into once-secret Soviet files from the Cold War, says she has found no evidence that Alger Hiss spied or that Soviet intelligence had any particular interest in him.
In a speech to be delivered at a New York University symposium Thursday, Svetlana A. Chervonnaya says neither Hiss' name nor his alleged spy moniker, Ales, appears in any of dozens of documents from Soviet archives that she has reviewed since the early 1990s.
A copy of the speech was made available to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Calling her efforts "proving the negative," Chervonnaya says "a thorough combing of all the said archives combined has not produced a shred of evidence that Alger Hiss had ever been a member of the (American) Communist Party and was engaged in any behind-the-scenes interactions with the Soviets."
Hiss, a top State Department official who played a key role in founding the United Nations, was convicted of perjury in 1950 for lying about being a Soviet spy. He served nearly four years of a five-year federal prison sentence and died at age 92 in 1996.
Scholars and experts have debated for decades whether he was guilty or a victim of anti-communist fervor. The case was fraught with Cold War drama, involving a typewriter and a secret film cache in a Maryland pumpkin field.
Chervonnaya was one of several scholars, writers and historians scheduled to speak Thursday at a daylong symposium, "Alger Hiss and History," inaugurating New York University's new Center for the United States and the Cold War.
Others on the program included Hiss' son, Tony Hiss, and stepson, Timothy Hobson, who were expected to recall their family life with the man whose name became a synonym for Cold War espionage. Both have always maintained Hiss was innocent.
Soviet defectors, retired KGB agents and U.S. officials, some claiming to have documentary proof, have come down on both sides of what remains one of the Cold War's most enduring controversies.
In 1995-96, U.S. intelligence agencies released the Venona Files, a series of decoded Soviet diplomatic cables on espionage matters during World War II. They mentioned a U.S. contact called Ales, who already had been identified by a defecting Soviet agent as Hiss.
Tony Hiss, a New York-based writer, said he was encouraged by Chervonnaya's research.
"Her stating of the negative in all this is so strong that it almost becomes a positive," he said. "With her findings, plus new findings from FBI files, we envision reopening the whole field of investigation. After looking for so long like a played-out mine, it's now revealing new veins and whole new galleries of material, but it's far too soon to say this has reached any kind of positive conclusion."
Chervonnaya said her findings thus far echo those of a former Soviet general who in 1992 quoted KGB secret police files as saying Hiss was not a Soviet spy. But she said that was based on one document, whereas her research draws extensively on now publicly accessible files in which intensive cross-checking would be likely to turn up clues if any existed.
"I reasoned that, provided Alger Hiss had been such an important and long-term Soviet asset, we should logically expect his name to slip at some stage into some of the files," she said.
None of the documents implicated Hiss, although names of other people to whom he was linked or who also were accused of being Soviet sympathizers do appear, among them Whittaker Chambers, a one-time Time magazine editor who later became Hiss's chief accuser.
A service of the Associated Press(AP)
Friday, March 30, 2007
ElBaradei: Iran not a nuclear threat to world
Tehran, March 30, IRNA
Iran-Nuclear-ElBaradei
IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said on Thursday night that Iran is not considered as a nuclear threat to the world.
In an interview with Al-Arabia television network, he said the country poses no nuclear threats to any country around the globe.
Iran's problems should be resolved through comprehensive talks with all parties, he underlined.
Military conflict does not help resolve the issue, he said, adding that it only will lead to a regional catastrophe and will make the situation more complicated.
UNSC resolution only conveys a message that the international community is concerned about Iran's goals and calls for confidence building between the two sides, he said.
There is no doubt that the issue should be merely resolved through dialogue, he said.
The international community should differentiate between technical duty of IAEA and political evaluations of UNSC, he pointed out.
"Although we declared that there is no evidence of existence of nuclear weapons in Iraq but they did not give us enough chance to accomplish our task and ignited the war," he said.
"On Iran's case, we hope that the international community will listen to our words and provide chances to help resolve the issue through dialogue," he said.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Joint Letter of Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Submitted to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
JOINT OPEN LETTER
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
REF.: 6.2007E
Dear Secretary-General Ban,
As Palestinian organisations dedicated to the protection and promotion of human rights, we welcome your decision to visit the
We welcome your stated intention to hear first-hand from the people in the region about the problems and challenges they face. In this regard, we invite you to take the opportunity to speak with Palestinian civil society in order to better comprehend the ways in which the Israeli occupation has severe and long-term repercussions on the human rights of every Palestinian, and by extension contributes to an escalation of the conflict with repercussions on the prospects for regional peace and security.
We trust that witnessing the situation on the ground will bolster your expressed commitment to bring about a “just and lasting peace in the Middle East, based on an end to the 1967 occupation and the creation of an independent
As you have correctly noted, Israeli military operations, severe movement restrictions, the withholding of Palestinian revenues and the socio-economic decline precipitated by these measures have resulted in a humanitarian crisis in the OPT, exacting a heavy toll on the Palestinian population. Continued settlement activity, particularly around
Insofar as the construction of the Annexation Wall in the West Bank is concerned, we request that you raise the legal obligations incumbent upon
It is clear that without the respect for and implementation of international law by the international community, Israeli violations will continue with impunity, as they have for decades. Numerous UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions pertaining to the OPT, and a proliferation of special committees, sessions and Secretariat divisions and units, have had little meaningful effect on Israeli policies and have failed to ensure the fundamental rights of Palestinians. Accordingly, we call upon the UN, as an organisation whose Charter has amongst its primary purposes the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms, to take effective steps to protect the rights of the Palestinian people. To do otherwise is to undermine the UN’s own commitment to human rights and rule of law and to condone governmental violations of international law.
As UN Secretary-General, you act as a spokesperson for the interests of the world’s peoples, particularly the vulnerable among them. We urge you to use your visit to
Respectfully yours,
Al-Haq
Addameer
Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights
Al
Badil –
Defence for Children International –
Ensan
Jerusalem
Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens’ Rights
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counselling
Ramallah
Monday, March 26, 2007
Let Iran enrich uranium
Verification rather than condemnation is the strategy for avoiding conflict over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
There is a wise American saying: "If you are in a hole, stop digging." The six governments currently considering the next steps to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb - the five permanent members of the UN security council and Germany - should heed that advice. Otherwise, they could end up without any handle on the Iranian nuclear programme and with only one (useless) option left: a military strike.
Yet the six governments seem determined to continue with what has been their strategy so far. Their condition for negotiating with Iran is a prior halt of its nuclear enrichment activities. Only in exchange for Iran's permanent renunciation of enrichment will they provide major rewards - from lifting all sanctions and trade restrictions to security guarantees.
This strategy has not worked and will not work. Under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), of which Iran is still a member, countries are entitled to engage in enriching uranium for civilian purposes, and Iran claims that this is all it wants.
True, Iran's total halt of its enrichment programme would be welcome, not least because its government has hidden these activities for almost two decades from treaty inspectors, suggesting other than purely civilian motives.
But the issue of enrichment has been blown up into such a symbol of national sovereignty in Iran that no government there, never mind the Ahmadinejad administration, will climb down. Indeed, when the UN security council formally demanded a stop to the enrichment programme and imposed mild sanctions last December, Iran's defiant answer was to step it up.
So what to do now? The Bush administration, predictably, is pushing for new and tougher sanctions, based on an implied warning in the earlier UN resolution and arguing, as it did in the run-up to the invasion in Iraq, that the UN's credibility is at stake. But the only real test of UN credibility in this conflict is whether it can succeed in restricting Iran as much as possible to a purely civilian nuclear programme.
If the security council fails to agree on new sanctions - which is likely, given Chinese and Russian objections - it would be exposed as a paper tiger. If, on the other hand, it works out a consensus on more economic, and possibly even military, punishment, the UN's credibility would depend on whether these moves produced Iranian compliance.
That, however, is unlikely. Tougher economic sanctions will not force Iran to comply; instead, sanctions will merely hit this oil- and gas-rich country's trading partners. More threats will only push the international community further along the spiral of escalation and, possibly, into military action.
There are those in Bush's entourage who would like nothing better. While even a major air attack would fall short of destroying all of Iran's nuclear installations and, moreover, leave the technical knowhow intact, it might at least slow down the programme for a while and serve as a warning to other potential proliferators. But it is a foolhardy gamble.
Today, Iran declares that it wants to observe the NPT and that it has no intention of building a nuclear bomb. After a military attack by the US, both promises would be history.
If the six governments want to avoid the escalation spiral and curb the proliferation dynamic, they need to change strategy and objective. Instead of making a halt to uranium enrichment the be all and end all of their effort, their central objective should be to subject the Iranian activities to as much verification as possible: if Iran wants to enrich, so be it, but it must accept intrusive international inspections.
This is a bargain the Iranians themselves have repeatedly hinted at. The six have refused because verification cannot provide an absolute guarantee against the diversion of some enriched uranium to military use. But as the superpowers learned in the cold war, the absence of airtight verification does not render inspections useless. They would still submit the Iranian programme to greater restrictions than is the case today. And such an agreement would open the way to a wider agreement between Iran and the west for cooperation and regional stability.
That is why the six should stop digging a deeper hole. Instead of formulating new sanctions for the UN security council, they should use the next few months to explore confidentially what level of restrictions, combined with verification, Iran would consider in exchange for undisputed enrichment.
By all means, the six should keep the option of more biting resolutions as an inducement to Iranian compromise. But those who now call on the security council to issue rapid condemnations of Iran's behaviour should keep two things in mind: they are unlikely to have any effect, and the US has already used such resolutions as a pretext for launching military action on its own.
Christoph Bertram was formerly director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.
Christoph Bertram’s work for Cif is copyright Project Syndicate, 2007.
http://www.project-syndicate.org
UN Security Or United Rape?
Related
UNSC: Sanctioning the next war of aggression
Security Council resolution on Iran a grave threat to international peace and security
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March 26, 2007
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
We must defend justice with our lives lest we need justice to defend our lives
As I watched Iran being hauled in front of the United Nations ‘Security’ Council, a vivid picture conjured up in my mind – my native country Iran, a vulnerable and defenseless beauty being prepared for violation by brutal savages. As she struggles to defend her honor, no one is prepared to come to her aid, save a few. Even her own children, those raised on her soil hope she will be brutally raped. With lust-filled eyes, they hope to fulfill their ambitions on her ravaged ruins, her broken pride.
Who are these beasts, and what has transformed this United body to such a menace?
The most uninformed among us knows that the United States is dictating the rules at the ‘Security’ Council. The driving force behind the American policy makers’ actions is Israel represented by AIPAC and other Israeli representatives in the United States. However, while Zionism gives motivation to the neo-conservatives in Washington to rape and ravage the Middle-East, Washington stands to benefit from AIPAC’s/Israel’s commands.
Theodor Herzl, witnessing discrimination against Jews in Europe, was convinced that sovereign control over territory would guarantee Jews against discrimination. The location was not important. He sought the support of Europe’s wealthiest Jews to colonize territory. Max Nordau, a close friend of Herzl’s, stated that “we are going to Palestine to extend the moral boundaries of Europe as far as the Euphrates”. Chaim Weizmann’s analogy for the comparison of Arab to Jew was “the desert against civilization”. The attraction of Palestine was its appeal to the colonial powers, specifically Great Britain and the imposition of imperial control such as the British and Dutch East India Companies.
Today, the United States is the colonial power and the major investor in the region. Furthermore, as The Center for Public Integrity has demonstrated, The Carlyle Group profits from government and conflict ; a company that employed some of Washington’s most powerful figures, including former Secretary of State James Baker, former President George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and former FCC Chairman William Kennard, as well as former British Prime Minister John Major – not foregoing the Ladin and Saudi ties. Israel is no longer a nascent state, but en par with the world’s only super power – for not only does it have an arsenal of illegal nuclear warheads and one of the strongest conventional armies, but it has influence over US Congress, and many believe, the White House. Both Israel and the US need stretching room for expansion and more profit. Iran is key, it would appear.
One must surely question why Iran would be shunned by all the ‘Security’ council members. India’s case has demonstrated that non-permanent members are subject to coercion, but what of the permanent members?
France - If Iran’s legitimate rights are recognized, Iran would have to have her wealth returned to her; to the dismay of the Europeans. In 1973 France, Belgium, Spain, and Sweden, formed the joint stock company EURODIF. Sweden withdrew from the project in 1974. In 1975 Sweden’s 10 per cent share in EURODIF went to Iran as a result of an arrangement between France and Iran. The French government subsidiary company Cogema and the Iranian Government established the Sofidif (Société franco–iranienne pour l’enrichissement de l’uranium par diffusion gazeuse) enterprise with 60 per cent and 40 per cent shares, respectively. In turn, Sofidif acquired a 25 per cent share in EURODIF, which gave Iran its 10 per cent share of EURODIFI. In 1974, the Shah lent 1 billion dollars (and another 180 million dollars in 1977) for the construction of the factory, to have the right to buy 10% of the production. Iran remains a shareholder of Eurodif via Sofidif, a Franco-Iranian consortium shareholder which owns 25 % of Eurodif. According to The Wall Street Journal of Dec. 5, 2006, the price of enriched uranium has increased by 800 percent since 2001, and given the recent growing interest in nuclear fuel, and the commitment of suppliers, Eurodif would likely prefer to have Iran sanctioned than recognize her legitimate right. Especially if as before, they are not the ones who have to send soldiers to battlefields.
Bulletin 26 – Dual Use: Avoiding The Nuclear Precipice of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation not only confirms Iran’s share in Eurodif, but lends legitimacy to her wishes to exercise her inalienable right under Article IV of the NPT to enrich uranium indigenously versus the Russian import due to her past experience with foreign dealings [ ].
It must also be noted that Iran has a stake in the world's biggest open-pit uranium mine in the African state of Namibia where the United States buys its uranium for its nuclear power plants . Much like the 1953 era when the Americans and the British had their eyes on Iran’s precious resources, it would seem that uranium is one more incentive for the violation of Iran.
Russia – John D. Grace describes Russia as an "ally and opponent" of OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and the same for oil consumers -- in other words, it is a "fulcrum." In spite of Grace’s generous description of Russia, it has raised a few eyebrows in Europe when it has cut off energy supplies at will and as a political tool. 6% of the total known oil reserves are in the former Soviet Union . However, as the world’s biggest supplier of natural gas and one of the largest suppliers of oil, it will greatly benefit from high oil prices due to sanctions and unrest in the Persian Gulf. This money-strapped nation was willing to supply Iran not only with enriched uranium, but with surface-to-air missiles. It has decided to halt its cooperation because it understands that conflicts in the Persian Gulf region will double the price of oil – much to its benefit; while at the same time to other Arab countries, much like the US is doing. Additionally, it also realizes that a ‘nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident anywhere’. It could be that Russia has it on good authority that this irrational Administration means to bomb Bushehr . Having weighed the danger of contamination and their surplus profit from an attack on Iran, they opted to vote for the latter.
China - It would seem that with China’s growing appetite for oil, their vote would be illogical. However, China has been making remarkable discoveries of her own. Not only has she found oil deposits in Bohai Bay near Dalian (source – China Newnet), but after two years of exploration, it was publicly reported on March 24th that off the coast of Taiwan huge deposits of natural gas, known as the ‘ice that burns’ and labeled as the energy of the energy source of the future had been discovered. If Taiwan had been an ‘old war relic’ in the past, it makes her a prize worth fighting for. Would this make China sway her vote? Additionally, according to the BBC, China and Venezuela are working on making oil deals that will be mutually beneficial.
And finally, Great Britain. She was the instigator in the 1953 coup against the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadeq. In a role reversal, it would seem that today, GB is the one who is helping incite war. No doubt with her poor economy, as with the Iraq war, she would be happy with the crumbs off the US table.
What is important to remember is the following:
- It was the United Nations that established the State of Israel in 1948.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that stood by idly as Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran for 3 years in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that watched Israel destroy Iraq’s peaceful nuclear technology, passed a resolution, but remained idle as Isarel continued with its path of destruction.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that stood by while 500,000 children in Iraq were subjected to malnutrition and death.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that stood by and watched America illegally invade Iraq without passing a resolution.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that watched the Israelis destroy Lebanon for 33 days with American ammunition. One man at the UN ‘Security’ Council, John Bolton, ruled over the lives and deaths of the Lebanese.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that watched Israel raze Palestinian homes over and over again.
- It is the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that is witnessing the starvation of Palestinians people, women and children alike.
And it is the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that is ordering the savage and cruel gang rape of Iran. They have passed resolution to take her defenses away. Under the pretext of her nuclear program, her inalienable right to enrich uranium for energy –Article IV of the NPT, they have passed a resolution that Iran must not have conventional weapons to defend herself when they come to attack her – to ravage her, to take all that is hers and her children’s.
Regardless of race, color, or religion, we are all equal under the law. To repeat a cliché, we are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain – this is humanity’s bond – a bind that if broken with indifference, will cause the demise of civilization as we know it. We must not remain complacent in the face of the insecurity that is about to take place – the UNSC’s violation of Iran. This is not a call for justice for Iran, nor for the children of Iran, but a call to disallow oppression. We must defend justice with our lives, lest one day we be in need of justice to defend our lives.
UNSC: Sanctioning the next war of aggression
Security Council resolution on Iran a grave threat to international peace and security
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March 26, 2007
By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich
We must defend justice with our lives lest we need justice to defend our lives
As I watched Iran being hauled in front of the United Nations ‘Security’ Council, a vivid picture conjured up in my mind – my native country Iran, a vulnerable and defenseless beauty being prepared for violation by brutal savages. As she struggles to defend her honor, no one is prepared to come to her aid, save a few. Even her own children, those raised on her soil hope she will be brutally raped. With lust-filled eyes, they hope to fulfill their ambitions on her ravaged ruins, her broken pride.
Who are these beasts, and what has transformed this United body to such a menace?
The most uninformed among us knows that the United States is dictating the rules at the ‘Security’ Council. The driving force behind the American policy makers’ actions is Israel represented by AIPAC and other Israeli representatives in the United States. However, while Zionism gives motivation to the neo-conservatives in Washington to rape and ravage the Middle-East, Washington stands to benefit from AIPAC’s/Israel’s commands.
Theodor Herzl, witnessing discrimination against Jews in Europe, was convinced that sovereign control over territory would guarantee Jews against discrimination. The location was not important. He sought the support of Europe’s wealthiest Jews to colonize territory. Max Nordau, a close friend of Herzl’s, stated that “we are going to Palestine to extend the moral boundaries of Europe as far as the Euphrates”. Chaim Weizmann’s analogy for the comparison of Arab to Jew was “the desert against civilization”. The attraction of Palestine was its appeal to the colonial powers, specifically Great Britain and the imposition of imperial control such as the British and Dutch East India Companies.
Today, the United States is the colonial power and the major investor in the region. Furthermore, as The Center for Public Integrity has demonstrated, The Carlyle Group profits from government and conflict ; a company that employed some of Washington’s most powerful figures, including former Secretary of State James Baker, former President George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and former FCC Chairman William Kennard, as well as former British Prime Minister John Major – not foregoing the Ladin and Saudi ties. Israel is no longer a nascent state, but en par with the world’s only super power – for not only does it have an arsenal of illegal nuclear warheads and one of the strongest conventional armies, but it has influence over US Congress, and many believe, the White House. Both Israel and the US need stretching room for expansion and more profit. Iran is key, it would appear.
One must surely question why Iran would be shunned by all the ‘Security’ council members. India’s case has demonstrated that non-permanent members are subject to coercion, but what of the permanent members?
France - If Iran’s legitimate rights are recognized, Iran would have to have her wealth returned to her; to the dismay of the Europeans. In 1973 France, Belgium, Spain, and Sweden, formed the joint stock company EURODIF. Sweden withdrew from the project in 1974. In 1975 Sweden’s 10 per cent share in EURODIF went to Iran as a result of an arrangement between France and Iran. The French government subsidiary company Cogema and the Iranian Government established the Sofidif (Société franco–iranienne pour l’enrichissement de l’uranium par diffusion gazeuse) enterprise with 60 per cent and 40 per cent shares, respectively. In turn, Sofidif acquired a 25 per cent share in EURODIF, which gave Iran its 10 per cent share of EURODIFI. In 1974, the Shah lent 1 billion dollars (and another 180 million dollars in 1977) for the construction of the factory, to have the right to buy 10% of the production. Iran remains a shareholder of Eurodif via Sofidif, a Franco-Iranian consortium shareholder which owns 25 % of Eurodif. According to The Wall Street Journal of Dec. 5, 2006, the price of enriched uranium has increased by 800 percent since 2001, and given the recent growing interest in nuclear fuel, and the commitment of suppliers, Eurodif would likely prefer to have Iran sanctioned than recognize her legitimate right. Especially if as before, they are not the ones who have to send soldiers to battlefields.
Bulletin 26 – Dual Use: Avoiding The Nuclear Precipice of the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation not only confirms Iran’s share in Eurodif, but lends legitimacy to her wishes to exercise her inalienable right under Article IV of the NPT to enrich uranium indigenously versus the Russian import due to her past experience with foreign dealings [ ].
It must also be noted that Iran has a stake in the world's biggest open-pit uranium mine in the African state of Namibia where the United States buys its uranium for its nuclear power plants . Much like the 1953 era when the Americans and the British had their eyes on Iran’s precious resources, it would seem that uranium is one more incentive for the violation of Iran.
Russia – John D. Grace describes Russia as an "ally and opponent" of OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) and the same for oil consumers -- in other words, it is a "fulcrum." In spite of Grace’s generous description of Russia, it has raised a few eyebrows in Europe when it has cut off energy supplies at will and as a political tool. 6% of the total known oil reserves are in the former Soviet Union . However, as the world’s biggest supplier of natural gas and one of the largest suppliers of oil, it will greatly benefit from high oil prices due to sanctions and unrest in the Persian Gulf. This money-strapped nation was willing to supply Iran not only with enriched uranium, but with surface-to-air missiles. It has decided to halt its cooperation because it understands that conflicts in the Persian Gulf region will double the price of oil – much to its benefit; while at the same time to other Arab countries, much like the US is doing. Additionally, it also realizes that a ‘nuclear accident anywhere is a nuclear accident anywhere’. It could be that Russia has it on good authority that this irrational Administration means to bomb Bushehr . Having weighed the danger of contamination and their surplus profit from an attack on Iran, they opted to vote for the latter.
China - It would seem that with China’s growing appetite for oil, their vote would be illogical. However, China has been making remarkable discoveries of her own. Not only has she found oil deposits in Bohai Bay near Dalian (source – China Newnet), but after two years of exploration, it was publicly reported on March 24th that off the coast of Taiwan huge deposits of natural gas, known as the ‘ice that burns’ and labeled as the energy of the energy source of the future had been discovered. If Taiwan had been an ‘old war relic’ in the past, it makes her a prize worth fighting for. Would this make China sway her vote? Additionally, according to the BBC, China and Venezuela are working on making oil deals that will be mutually beneficial.
And finally, Great Britain. She was the instigator in the 1953 coup against the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadeq. In a role reversal, it would seem that today, GB is the one who is helping incite war. No doubt with her poor economy, as with the Iraq war, she would be happy with the crumbs off the US table.
What is important to remember is the following:
- It was the United Nations that established the State of Israel in 1948.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that stood by idly as Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran for 3 years in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that watched Israel destroy Iraq’s peaceful nuclear technology, passed a resolution, but remained idle as Isarel continued with its path of destruction.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that stood by while 500,000 children in Iraq were subjected to malnutrition and death.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that stood by and watched America illegally invade Iraq without passing a resolution.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that watched the Israelis destroy Lebanon for 33 days with American ammunition. One man at the UN ‘Security’ Council, John Bolton, ruled over the lives and deaths of the Lebanese.
- It was the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that watched Israel raze Palestinian homes over and over again.
- It is the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that is witnessing the starvation of Palestinians people, women and children alike.
And it is the United Nations ‘Security’ Council that is ordering the savage and cruel gang rape of Iran. They have passed resolution to take her defenses away. Under the pretext of her nuclear program, her inalienable right to enrich uranium for energy –Article IV of the NPT, they have passed a resolution that Iran must not have conventional weapons to defend herself when they come to attack her – to ravage her, to take all that is hers and her children’s.
Regardless of race, color, or religion, we are all equal under the law. To repeat a cliché, we are only as strong as the weakest link in the chain – this is humanity’s bond – a bind that if broken with indifference, will cause the demise of civilization as we know it. We must not remain complacent in the face of the insecurity that is about to take place – the UNSC’s violation of Iran. This is not a call for justice for Iran, nor for the children of Iran, but a call to disallow oppression. We must defend justice with our lives, lest one day we be in need of justice to defend our lives.
UNSC: Sanctioning the next war of aggression
3/26/07
By Daniel M Pourkesali, Virginia
By Daniel M Pourkesali, Virginia
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has once again voted to impose yet another sanction on
Iran for its failure to suspend a legal activity allowed by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty [1], to which Iran remains a signatory state, and that the IAEA itself has found no indication of any nuclear material being diverted to military purposes.As in case of the UNSC resolution 1737 [2] approved in December 2006, the United States has played a key roll in draft of the language used and the push for its passage, in a continued effort to lay the ground for a planned military action against Iran.
In an op-ed [3] written days following the ratification of resolution 1737, this writer urged readers and all those outraged by the Iraqi deception to stand up and repeatedly make it known, over the deafening megaphones of the war-mongers that:
1) Iran is not in breach of any international conventions or agreements. Processing of uranium is entirely within the guidelines of the NPT, and according to the IAEA, all fissile material have been accounted for and confirmed as not diverted to prohibited activities.
Above remains true today as it has been since the inception of Iranian nuclear program in 1957 with the help of the United States. In that year a civil nuclear cooperation program was established under the U.S. 'Atoms for Peace' program [4]. In 1959, the Tehran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC) was established and run by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI). The TNRC was equipped with a U.S.-supplied 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor that became operational in 1967 fuelled with highly enriched uranium. Iran signed the NPT in 1968 and ratified it in 1970. With the establishment of Iran's atomic agency and the NPT in place, the Shah approved plans to construct, again with U.S. help, up to 23 nuclear power stations by the year 2000.
2) The UN Security Council is not the world and hence does not reflect the will of the 'international community' – it represents the views and positions of 15 nations five of which are undemocratically assigned as permanent members including the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia.
The 118 United Nations member states of the Nonaligned Movement [5] have repeatedly confirmed and recognized Iran's right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Yet a handful of powerful nations led by the U.S., continue to portray their own narrow and self-serving objectives as the will of the entire international community.
3) Any military action against Iran regardless of the Security Council approval would be ethically and morally void of any legitimacy.
The UNSC is the organ of the United Nations charged with maintaining peace and security among nations. Under Chapter Six of the UN Charter [6], "Pacific Settlement of Disputes", the Security Council "may investigate any dispute or any situation which might lead to international friction or give rise to a dispute in order to determine whether the continuance of the dispute or situation is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security."
The key phrase is endangering of 'international peace and security'. A simple question to ask here is this -- How can a legal activity allowed by the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty constitute a danger to world "peace and security" and prompt an international body charged with maintaining the same to impose such unwarranted sanctions that as witnessed in case of Iraq can be used as plain justification to invade and occupy a sovereign nation?
But the far grimmer question to ask is – Are we as world citizens going to idly stand by and allow yet another illegal act of treachery be carried out under the pretext of protecting 'international peace and security'?
[1] http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/npt/text/npt2.htm
[2] http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sc8928.doc.htm \
[3] http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/954
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atoms_for_Peace
[5] http://www.nam.gov.za/background/members.htm
URLWe must speak up for the dead and dispossessed in an epidemic of rage
Tom Stoppard
Published: 26 March 2007
If not now, when? If not we, who? News of murder, rape, arson and dispossession in Darfur has been coming in for something like four years, stopping and starting and stuttering, scaling up into horrifying film footage that blanks out the political story, and also down into declarations, resolutions and soundbites that veil the horror of what's really happening in a war so remote and so obscured that the numbers of dead arrive rounded to the nearest hundred thousand.
Is it 200,000 or 300,000?
Both figures keep popping up in the Darfur story in reproachable documentation and all you can think is that the sub-text "enough is enough" of Tony Blair's reported message to Angela Merkel the other day had an even darker meaning than the phrase was intended to carry.
But, yes, enough is indeed enough. And one of the things you'd think the UN would have had enough of is being treated with casual disdain by the Sudanese regime, whose latest gesture was to use troops to deny the UN's humanitarian delegation access to a refugee camp in the Darfur region.
A peacekeeping mission would be more to the point, and here again the UN is as helpless against its own vetoes as against President Omar al-Bashir's soldiers.
If the United Nations could die of shame it would have been dead years ago.
How can the EU do better? Can it be effective at all? Yesterday, the British Prime Minister and the German Chancellor were making the right noises. Stringent sanctions. No-fly zones.
But the unpalatable truth is that sanctions require a degree of collective determination, of which the UN appears constitutionally incapable. A no-fly zone over that vast remote area represents an enormous challenge. And would freezing Sudanese assets abroad, one of the suggestions in the "writers' letter", in itself turn the situation around?
Bob Geldof, who orchestrated the letter, said yesterday: "It's code to get the UN behind us."
Well, maybe. But the point about Geldof is that he is a populist. What is needed is to make rage and shame contagious, an epidemic. The situation will be turned by numbers, vast numbers of the living outraged, to speak up for the 200,000, or was it 300,000, dead.
Published: 26 March 2007
If not now, when? If not we, who? News of murder, rape, arson and dispossession in Darfur has been coming in for something like four years, stopping and starting and stuttering, scaling up into horrifying film footage that blanks out the political story, and also down into declarations, resolutions and soundbites that veil the horror of what's really happening in a war so remote and so obscured that the numbers of dead arrive rounded to the nearest hundred thousand.
Is it 200,000 or 300,000?
Both figures keep popping up in the Darfur story in reproachable documentation and all you can think is that the sub-text "enough is enough" of Tony Blair's reported message to Angela Merkel the other day had an even darker meaning than the phrase was intended to carry.
But, yes, enough is indeed enough. And one of the things you'd think the UN would have had enough of is being treated with casual disdain by the Sudanese regime, whose latest gesture was to use troops to deny the UN's humanitarian delegation access to a refugee camp in the Darfur region.
A peacekeeping mission would be more to the point, and here again the UN is as helpless against its own vetoes as against President Omar al-Bashir's soldiers.
If the United Nations could die of shame it would have been dead years ago.
How can the EU do better? Can it be effective at all? Yesterday, the British Prime Minister and the German Chancellor were making the right noises. Stringent sanctions. No-fly zones.
But the unpalatable truth is that sanctions require a degree of collective determination, of which the UN appears constitutionally incapable. A no-fly zone over that vast remote area represents an enormous challenge. And would freezing Sudanese assets abroad, one of the suggestions in the "writers' letter", in itself turn the situation around?
Bob Geldof, who orchestrated the letter, said yesterday: "It's code to get the UN behind us."
Well, maybe. But the point about Geldof is that he is a populist. What is needed is to make rage and shame contagious, an epidemic. The situation will be turned by numbers, vast numbers of the living outraged, to speak up for the 200,000, or was it 300,000, dead.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Iran partially suspends U.N. cooperation 8 minutes ago
8 minutes ago
Iran has partially suspended cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the nation announced Sunday.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
"The Surge of Baghdad Should Become the Surge on Washington" - Fmr. UN Iraq Mission Chief
Friday, March 23rd, 2007
"The Surge of Baghdad Should Become the Surge on Washington" - Fmr. UN Iraq Mission Chief Hans Von Sponeck
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Hans Von Sponeck - the former coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Mission in Iraq - joins us in our firehouse studio to talk about the troop surge in Baghdad, House and Senate bills on war funding, the 13-year sanction regime in Iraq and more. Von Sponeck is author of "A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq." [includes rush transcript]
On Capitol Hill, a Senate committee has approved a one hundred twenty two billion-dollar war spending bill that calls for President Bush to pull combat troops out of Iraq by next spring. The House plans to vote on a similar bill later today. Bush has threatened to veto both bills if they contain a deadline for withdrawal. The legislation comes as the United States enters its fifth year of the occupation of Iraq.
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
"The Surge of Baghdad Should Become the Surge on Washington" - Fmr. UN Iraq Mission Chief Hans Von Sponeck
Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3
Watch 128k stream Watch 256k stream
Hans Von Sponeck - the former coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Mission in Iraq - joins us in our firehouse studio to talk about the troop surge in Baghdad, House and Senate bills on war funding, the 13-year sanction regime in Iraq and more. Von Sponeck is author of "A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq." [includes rush transcript]
On Capitol Hill, a Senate committee has approved a one hundred twenty two billion-dollar war spending bill that calls for President Bush to pull combat troops out of Iraq by next spring. The House plans to vote on a similar bill later today. Bush has threatened to veto both bills if they contain a deadline for withdrawal. The legislation comes as the United States enters its fifth year of the occupation of Iraq.
Yesterday, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon made a surprise visit to Baghdad. During a joint news conference with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, the UN chief said he might boost the United Nations" presence in Iraq because of improved security. Moments later the news conference was interrupted by a rocket that exploded just fifty yards away from the meeting. The blast shook the building and sent Ban Ki Moon ducking for cover behind a podium. The UN chief had earlier arrived on his first visit to Baghdad since he took office in January this year.
Today we are joined by a former UN official who lived in Iraq before the US invasion. Hans Von Sponeck has been a fierce critic of the war. In the late 1990s, he was the coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Mission in Iraq. He resigned in protest over the UN sanctions regime. He is also a former Assistant Secretary General of the UN. Hans Von Sponeck has new book is out titled "A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq."
- Hans Von Sponeck, a former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations. In the late 1990s, he was the coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Mission in Iraq. His new book is titled "A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq."
RUSH TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: Today we’re joined by a former U.N. Official who lived in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. Hans Von Sponeck has been a fierce critic of the war. In the late 1990's he was the coordinator of the United Nations humanitarian mission in Iraq. He resigned in protest over the U.N. Sanctions Regime. He’s also Former Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. and has written a new book, it is called A Different Kind of War: The U.N. Sanctions Regime in Iraq. Welcome to Democracy Now!
HANS VON SPONECK: Good morning Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. First, the situation. You just saw--heard the explosion as the new U.N. Secretary General was announcing there seems to be increased stability, and maybe that a larger U.N. mission may come into Iraq.
HANS VON SPONECK: It gave him a first hand opportunity to understand how volatile the situation is in Iraq, and I hope it leads him to the conviction that less violence and more peace initiatives on the part of the United Nations might be the answer, rather than a surge in troop levels. I very strongly feel there should be a surge in the willingness in the U.S. Congress to insist that the United Nations, the role of the international community should be strengthened and the troops should come home with respect and honor, if that is still possible, as soon as possible.
JUAN GONZALEZ: What is the role of the U.N. right now in Iraq. Given, obviously it has to be very limited, anything can do, but what are U.N. personnel doing, if anything there?
HANS VON SPONECK: The United Nations staff, 55 of them, that’s all, are confined to the Green Zone and to Amman. From a distance they look at an Iraq that is crumbling. They can do very little. They do human-rights reporting. They have a small number of projects, but essentially they are confined to that limited space for reasons of security. In fact, most of the staff that Ban Ki-moon has allowed to be in Iraq is security-related staff. So it’s a holding operation. The U.N. Flag can fly, but it flies very timidly.
AMY GOODMAN: Of course the U.N. mission there was blown up. What was the effect of that?
HANS VON SPONECK: It was a massive demoralization for the United Nations, and Mr. Kofi Annan was right in taking the staff out, as painful as this is.
AMY GOODMAN: Sergio De Millo, the head of the mission killed.
HANS VON SPONECK: He was killed in my office. This is the office I occupied from the time I served in Baghdad. So I know the environment very well. It didn’t come as a surprise. It was the weak, the soft underbelly of the United Nations building area in Baghdad. And it’s a tragedy it happened, but out of that should be a United Nations that is more and more determined to encourage dialogue, rather than support an ill-fated attempt to solve problems in Iraq with military muscle.
JUAN GONZALEZ: In your book, A Different Kind of War, you actually get into the entire period of the sanctions in Iraq, and you document quite a bit of information, that I don’t think--certainly most Americans are not aware of. But I was especially interested -- we were talking before the show about the United Nations Compensation Committee, a commission that was set up to--after the Persian Gulf War. And you had quite a few examples there of what appear at least on the surface to be of questionable awards that were given out, plus it was a huge amount of money that was involved. Can you talk about that whole Compensation Commission?
HANS VON SPONECK: Well you know I don’t want to come across here as a vindictive person. The intention of this book was to shed light on a very dark chapter of United Nations by honestly identifying facts. And among these dramatic facts is one which is hardly known, certainly very little known in the U.S., and that is at a time when an increasing number of people were dying, particularly children, the United Nations agreed to pay out $18 billion U.S. dollars. That’s a lot of money. The total value of what came into Iraq during the entire Oil For Food Program, in terms of supplies, $28 billion. So, if you withhold $18 billion, that is a lot, that could have saved a lot of lives. That is bad enough.
What is worse is that many of these compensation claims were fraudulent. The U.N. discovered some, others were overlooked and paid out. There was a claim from the government of Jordan for having helped transiting guest workers to go home for $8.2 billion U.S. dollars, 8.2. The U.N. in the end awarded $79 million, less than a percent of what was asked for. The Iraqi money was like a cow that one could milk eternally in order to please governments that need the money while Iraqis back home were dying in large numbers. There are others examples, but maybe this would go to far on this occasion.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s very relevant to look at the Sanctions Regime against Iraq, given what is being proposed for Iran right now. Major powers have readied a draft resolution, to slap new punitive sanctions on Iran with the U.N. Security Council vote expected on Saturday, as Tehran remains defiant over its nuclear program. According to Agence France-Presse, a western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity said the draft was expected to receive overwhelming support. Talk about the Regime of Sanctions and what it meant. I mean, people see what is happening in Iraq right now as horrific. You describe a very bad situation before the bombing of George Bush of 2003.
HANS VON SPONECK: You know, the sanction cheese in Iraq had many holes. The sanction cheese for Iran has bigger holes. It may look interesting on paper, but in terms of the reality for implementation, we are living today in a totally different situation. The world is more polarized than it ever was in the days of the sanctions against Iraq, but let me just pause here and say -- the comprehensive economic sanctions that Iraq endured isn’t what is proposed for Iran. It’s more a political—a political threat to the Iranians rather than a direct punishment of the people, as it was the case in Iraq.
Moreover, we must remember, the world of 2007 is not the world of the Iraq sanction time. There are new constellations, new organizations are springing up in protest over what I would call, as a friend of the U.S., I would call it the “Western One-way Street”, while in fact it is mainly an American highway on which we have traveled that the world is no longer to accept.
So the sanction package against Iran -- it may be a small -- I don’t think it is -- political victory for the U.S. to get a sanction resolution through the Security Council, but in terms of the implications for Iran as a whole, it will have limited, limited value.
AMY GOODMAN: You, in talking about Iraq today, are clearly saying that the U.N. is involved in supporting violent solutions. What exactly are you saying?
HANS VON SPONECK: The United Nations is painful for me as a person who believes in the U.N., who has served 32 years in that organization, was indeed an ally of bilateral policies that initially meant containing the country, and later in the last years of the Clinton Administration and very much since then, was a policy of punishment; punishing a people for enduring a dictator. A very strange logic here, but we could have in Baghdad, done whenever we wanted to do.
The government could have cooperated with the Security Council. It would have made no difference because the key word in this equation was regime change. So, as long as Saddam Hussein and his government were in power, no chance to do something else--Mr. Negroponte in a hearing in the U.S. Congress some time ago said, our first concern were weapons of mass destruction. We were interested with the peoples’ of welfare, but that was clearly a second priority.
That was the approach and the U.N. went along with this. And why am I mentioning it? Because I think it is very relevant in the debate about the kind of United Nations that we want to have, that we need, that the U.S. needs, as much as my country, Germany, or anyone else around the world, in these 192 member countries.
We need to take into account what happened in Iraq in debating the U.N. reform needs of today and tomorrow. And if we do this, then we do justice to the demand of political accountability. This is not looking to the future. Yes, we must look to the future. That’s demand from European politicians and American politicians is important, but not without looking back to understand what happened and to hold those on both sides of the fence. You have, I don’t want to talk too long here, but I want to say you have in Iraq a very strange reality. You have two perpetrators. You have Saddam Hussein, who has committed crimes against his people, but you also have, tragically enough, you have a United Nations that has equally become the perpetrator in harming, punishing, because of a faulty, I am afraid to say, U.S.-led, British-led, Spanish, Italian-led policy in the Security Council.
JUAN GONZALEZ: I am curious, in the period before you stepped down from your post, what kind of conversations you may have had with other leaders of the United Nations, or Kofi Annan directly about the concerns about the U.N.'s role and what their response was. Obviously they were aware that--of the negative role that the United States and Great Britain and some of the other great powers are playing. What kind of conversations did you have?
HANS VON SPONECK: Mr. Kofi Annan at all times has the heart in the right place, but he didn’t have enough muscle to succeed in convincing the Security Council that the rhetoric in the council that was always pro-people, that always recognized the plight of the Iraqi people, should translate and be provided equipped with the political will to bring about changes that would be more focused on the perpetrators, in this case the government of Iraq, rather than on innocent civilians. He knew that. Mr. Kofi Annan at no time forgot that. But, a multi-lateral diplomat is impotent vis-Ã -vis the powers of the day, if they have a different design. And the tragedy is that it is a 15-country security council that was overwhelmingly dominated by the United Kingdom and the United States, and the international community allowed this to happen.
AMY GOODMAN: You are here in United States. You return to Germany tomorrow. You have been here at a genocide conference at Columbia University in New York. As you watch the coverage of what happened—what is happening today, there is going to be a vote in congress for supplemental money, more than $100 billion, to--for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Your thoughts?
HANS VON SPONECK: I want to tell you that we are very carefully watching in Europe what is being debated in Washington. And we cannot fully comprehend why this courageous woman, Nancy Pelosi, isn’t making more progress among her colleagues on both sides of the fence. Why there are still republicans who can argue that it is a betrayal of the U.S. troops. I sympathize with these poor male and female G.I.s that have to serve in Iraq, but it is incomprehensible to me that there are still voices that insist that the way to go forward is to increase the troop levels, to maintain a policy that will leave in Afghanistan and in Iraq, to total disaster. This is not winnable. You cannot do what is intended to be done. Democracy and human rights and progress and development cannot be parachuted over Kabul or Iraq. And why is it? I don’t have an answer. Why is it that so many members of the U.S. Congress still maintain that the old policies can remain intact and should be implemented?
AMY GOODMAN: If the U.S. troops pulled out today?
HANS VON SPONECK: Can there be more chaos in Iraq than there is already? I am—I have links to people who have links to the resistance. The resistance says the Americans should talk to us. But if Ambassador Khalilzad in Baghdad talks to resistance people, the real resistance leaders start laughing. Because they say you are not talking to the right people. So, Condoleezza Rice should have her way. Mr. Cheney should not have his way. She should succeed in convincing her cabinet colleagues that the moment is to talk to each other. The moment is to talk to the resistance.
The moment is -- you mentioned the PKK sometime, a moment ago. And Hezbollah, Fatah, Hamas. They all belong around the table. You can no longer discuss an element of the Middle East crisis in isolation. It has to be -- I call it a strategy of a whole. Everybody belongs around the table and needs to be taken into account. We don’t recognize this, we will continue to waste money -- your money, our money, our good will, your people's lives, and I think that is a tragedy. And I hope that Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues will make headway in convincing republicans also to finally give up an un-winnable approach in dealing with the middle east.
JUAN GONZALEZ: You mentioned how in Europe people are watching very carefully what is happening here in the U.S. Congress. Obviously European governments -- several of them have gone through major changes since the start of the Iraq war. To what degree are the European nations doing what they should be doing in terms of standing up sufficiently? Clearly in Italy and Spain the climate has changed dramatically, but what can Europe do in terms of having an impact on American policy?
HANS VON SPONECK: The first order of priority in the European Union, of 27 countries, is to get our own act together, because we are very fragmented. There are many shades of opinion with regard to the Middle East situation, and there is no integrated foreign policy. And that plays into the very hands in the U.S. that should keep the hands off the political debate. The neoconservatives are trying hard to maintain this level of division in Europe, and the sooner our leaders in Europe recognize that, that they will play no role, that they will have a marginal impact at best, is--until they get their act together.
My own country in Germany, Mrs. Merkel, our chancellor is trying to repair the transatlantic damage. She tries very hard. But the fear that some of us have is that she tries at the expense of doing what needs to be done now and tell the friend across the Atlantic, tell Washington, as a friend, that the track, the road on which the U.S. Administration is traveling is leading to further disaster.
AMY GOODMAN: Hans Von Sponeck, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, was the Chief of the U.N. Humanitarian Mission in Iraq, quit over the Sanctions Regime. And has now written a book now translated into English, A Different Kind of War: The U.S. Sanctions Regime in Iraq.
Fooled Again
March 24, 2007
by Gordon Prather
Past and present Congresspersons from across the political spectrum insist that if they had known then, what they know now, they would never have allowed President Bush to use the conditional authority they had provided him to launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq.
by Gordon Prather
Past and present Congresspersons from across the political spectrum insist that if they had known then, what they know now, they would never have allowed President Bush to use the conditional authority they had provided him to launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq.
Of course, they should have known when they gave him that authority in October, 2002 that their basic presumption –
"Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations"
was false.
Should have known, because in the aftermath of Operation Desert Storm, the International Atomic Energy Agency Action Team on Iraq was established by UN Security Council Resolution 687 and was charged with overseeing the destruction [or removal from Iraq] of all nuclear-weapons-usable materials, components and subsystems, plus any and all related research, development, support or manufacturing facilities.
In what amounted to his final report as Director-General, Hans Blix concluded way back in 1997 that;
"Most of the IAEA activities involving the destruction, removal and rendering harmless of the components of Iraq's nuclear weapons programme, which to date have been revealed and destroyed, were completed by the end of 1992."
Of course, when Bush got Congress to give him that conditional authority to use force, he assured them he was committed to seeking a diplomatic solution. He got the UN Security Council to pass Resolution 1441, which required Iraq to provide the IAEA and other UN inspectors "immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access" to any and all "areas, facilities, buildings, equipment, records and means of transport," as well as "private access" to all pertinent officials.
Consequently, IAEA Director-General was able to report to the Security Council on March 7, 2003 that
"Since the resumption of inspection a little over three months ago, and particularly during the three weeks since my last ordered report to the council, the IAEA has made important progress in identifying what nuclear-related capabilities remain in Iraq and in its assessment of whether Iraq has made any effort to revive its past nuclear program during the intervening four years since inspections were brought to a halt.
"At this stage, the following can be stated:
"One, there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities in those buildings that were identified through the use of satellite imagery as being reconstructed or newly erected since 1998, nor any indication of nuclear-related prohibited activities at any inspected sites.
"Second, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990.
"Three, there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment."
Hans Blix, since 1998 the Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, gave a similar, although less conclusive, null report about Iraq's chemical, biological and ballistic missile activities.
In other words, the Congressional presumptions of October 2002 and the Cheney Cabal allegations of 2002 and 2003 about Iraq's weapons programs were all wrong! Saddam Hussein was not a threat even to his neighbors, much less to the United States.
Well, we all certainly had a close call. If Congresspersons hadn't made their authorization conditional, namely –
"In connection with the exercise of the authority … to use force, the President shall … make available to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate his determination that … reliance … on further diplomatic or other peaceful means alone will not adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq,"
then Bush could have ignored the null reports of ElBaradei and Blix, could have defied the UN Security Council and the UN Charter, could have launched a pre-emptive war of aggression against Iraq.
But Congress had made his authority conditional, and the Congressional conditions had clearly not been met. Hence, Bush hadn't been authorized by Congress to use US Armed Forces against Iraq.
So, where has Congress been since March 20, 2003?
Why haven't they impeached Bush? And Cheney?
If not immediately, in 2003, then why not in the years since, as the gravity of their crime has become more and more apparent?
Or, at a minimum, have hearings on how Bush was allowed to "exercise authority" he didn't have?
But Congress didn't even do that. So, is that why their baffled and betrayed constituents threw many of those Congresspersons out of office last November?
Did they intend to elect a Congress that would truly provide "oversight" on the President and his vigilante posse?
Were they truly alarmed about the resolutions Congress passed last year about Iran that read almost verbatim like the resolutions Congress passed in the years immediately preceding Bush's pre-emptive war of aggression against Iraq?
Did they expect House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid to place enforceable conditions on Bush's authority to launch a pre-emptive war of aggression on Iran?
Well, if they did, then they've been fooled again.
According to the Associated Press, Pelosi and "other members of the leadership" decided to remove from a "major military spending bill" a requirement that the President get prior approval from Congress before launching a pre-emptive attack on Iran.
Why?
Well, for one thing, after putting the requirement in, Pelosi was reportedly loudly "booed" when she appeared before an American Israel Public Affairs Committee hoohah.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Dogs don't bark for the GOP
American conservatives love to go after the UN, even on the most dubious charges. So why aren't they doing so when a Republican is involved?
Sherlock Holmes aficionados will remember the story about the dog that did not bark. It sprang to mind this week as I strained to hear the deafening sound of silence from the usual suspects - the Murdoch/Fox hunters - who are so well trained to bay at the first hint of a UN corruption story.
Consider. A senior official of a UN agency that Washington banned for many years because of its alleged corruption and anti-American bias has just resigned, shortly before the auditors closed in with a devastating report. The official is a former legislator from the party currently running his government back home - and currently mired in nepotism and corruption scandals. Nominated by his President, once ensconced in the agency's offices, the official sliced and diced consultancy contracts into segments smaller than $100,000 so that he could award them on a no-bid basis to an influential company back home. To do so, he used funds totaling over $2m earmarked to combat illiteracy in Africa, and even used half a million at one point for a sycophantic reception in honour of the spouse of the president who nominated him. These charges were made in the French press three months ago, and have been circulating among the knowledgeable ever since - even though those who raised questions about the official found themselves transferred from Paris to plum postings like Zimbabwe.
Wow. Are the Foxes hunting? Is the Wall Street Journal op-ed page about to declare war on someone and demand US withdrawal from the UN?
No. The sound of silence is deafening. Why? Elementary, my dear Watson.
The official concerned is former American Republican Congressman Peter Smith, nominated by President George W Bush to go to UNESCO and reform the organization after 19 years of American boycott. UNESCO is based in Paris, and the auditors are those used by the French government.
The company that was the beneficiary of Smith's Halliburtonesque contracting practices was Navigant, a big Washington company whose website, you will notice, does not claim any educational expertise at all.
UNESCO critics claim he transferred over $200,000 from literacy projects in Mauritania, Iraq and Palestine to bankroll the conference hosted by Laura Bush and the White House in September last year, where Ms Bush was feted as the Honorary Ambassador of the United Nations Literacy Decade. The New York caterer was the beneficiaries of the children's loss.
Of course, it is possible that he is entirely innocent. But when you consider the Oil for Food allegations, you have to wonder why some parts of the fourth estate don't show the same restraint before going after foreigners, liberals and globalists of various hues.
Indeed, the relative silence is an interesting contrast to the two year furor over the Oil For Food programme. After hyperbolic talk of billions of dollars improperly diverted, the scandal ended up as a whimper, not a bang: The allegation is now that the former head of the programme, Benon Sevan, received $160,000 over four years, which is claimed to have come from a friend who bought oil from Saddam Hussein. Sevan had declared it on his UN forms, saying it came from his aunt, and denies any connection. (Of course, he is a Cypriot, and spent a lifetime working for the UN, and had no known connection with the GOP - so his guilt has been assumed from the beginning.)
But the silence is also reminiscent of the blanket over the $10bn that the UN Oil for Food programme handed over to US occupation authorities. Congressman Henry Waxman has been trying to find out what happened - and has been quite successful in uncovering the serious incompetence and corruption of the Americans who handled these huge bricks of cash. His efforts have had less than one per cent of the publicity of the unproven and frankly dubious Oil for Food scandal.
The lesson is clear. If you want to be corrupt in the UN, being an influential Republican is as good as ticking the box for no publicity.
Born in Liverpool, Ian Williams graduated from Liverpool University despite several years’ suspension for protests against its investments in South Africa. Consequently, his variegated career path included a drinking competition with Chou En Lai and an argument about English literature with Mme Mao at the tail end of the Cultural Revolution. He has been living in New York since 1989.
He has written for newspapers and magazines around the world, ranging from the Australian, to The Independent, from the ew York Observer and the Village Voice to the Nation and the New Statesman and Newsday, to the Financial Times and the Guardian. His byline has been in the Baptist Times, Penthouse, and Hustler.
He has also “pundited” on BBC, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, CBC and innumerable radio stations, for example appearing on “Hard Ball,” “the O’Reilly Factor,” etc on Fox, where he plays the liberal lion thrown to the Christian Right.
His first book was The Alms Trade, a study of the role of charities in Britain and the second was The UN For Beginners. Deserter: was published by Nation Books July 2004 and his latest is Rum: A Social & Sociable History of the Real Spirit of 1776. He is currently writing a book on the Americans who blame the UN for all the US's ills.
Swiss discussed compromise idea in Iran: diplomats
By Louis CharbonneauWed Mar 21, 9:52 AM ET
Switzerland recently sent a senior official to Iran to discuss a proposal aimed at resolving Tehran's nuclear dispute with the West, despite requests by key Western powers to drop the idea, diplomats said.
The diplomats said Swiss Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Ambuehl went to Tehran sometime after a visit to Bern last month by Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.
"The purpose of (Ambuehl's) visit was to promote a Swiss initiative to reach a compromise with Iran over its nuclear file and resume talks on nuclear-related issues," said a one-page report about the trip given to Reuters by a Western diplomat.
The proposal was that Iran would be permitted to keep its current uranium enrichment infrastructure of several hundred centrifuges. Iran could run the centrifuges but would not feed any processed uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into them while negotiating a package of incentives with six world powers.
Swiss Foreign Ministry spokesman Johann Aeschlimann neither confirmed nor denied the report about Ambuehl's visit to Tehran, but said: "Switzerland has not put forward a proposal to run these centrifuges without uranium gas."
Half a dozen diplomats said the idea was not an official proposal on paper but confirmed the Swiss had been pushing it and had discussed it repeatedly with the Iranians.
Diplomats said the plan was being coordinated with International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.
Key Western powers are dismissive of the idea, which could complicate their drive gradually to expand sanctions against Tehran since both the IAEA and Iran are considering it favorably, the diplomats said.
Several diplomats said Iran was wavering about the idea of running its centrifuges without uranium gas, fearing that Tehran might be perceived as having backed down.
Russia and China, which can veto any sanctions resolutions at the U.N. Security Council, would like a compromise with Iran.
Germany's U.N. ambassador in New York, Thomas Matussek, was aware of the proposal but said it had played no role in current discussions on Iran at the U.N. Security Council.
The IAEA declined to comment, but a diplomat close to the agency said the Iranians were "relatively positive" about the idea. Iran's foreign ministry had no immediate comment.
SPINNING ON EMPTY
The West fears Iran is developing atomic weapons under cover of an energy program and demands that it freeze its enrichment program, which can produce uranium fuel for bombs or power plants. Iran insists its nuclear intentions are peaceful.
The diplomats said the United States and the European Union's three biggest powers -- Germany, France and Britain -- dislike the Swiss idea and asked the Swiss not to open a second negotiating track with Iran.
The four powers, plus Russia and China, offered last year to hold talks with Iran on a package of incentives provided it suspended uranium enrichment beforehand, something Iran has so far refused to do.
"Trying to establish a second track is not an approach we wish to take," a U.S. official said. An EU3 diplomat agreed.
The IAEA concluded in an internal report on the Swiss idea that Iran could gain useful technical knowledge from the dry operation of centrifuges, including information about the durability of the machinery and trouble-shooting.
The United States and EU3 have drafted a second U.N. Security Council resolution imposing further sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend enrichment. But Council chair South Africa has called for the suspension of all sanctions against Iran.
(Additional reporting by Evelyn Leopold at the United Nations, Karin Strohecker in Vienna, Sam Cage in Zurich and Frederik Dahl in Tehran)
“Damned Proud” of Dead Arab Women & Children
March 22nd, 2007
“Damned Proud” of Dead Lebanese Women & Children
James BovardFormer US United Nations Ambassador John Bolton told the BBC today that he was “damned proud” of how the U.S. intentionally blocked efforts to achieve a ceasefire last summer when Israel was bombing Beirut and many other locales in Lebanon.
The BBC summarized Bolton’s comments: “A former top American diplomat says the US deliberately resisted calls for a immediate ceasefire during the conflict in Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Former ambassador to the UN John Bolton told the BBC that before any ceasefire Washington wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah’s military capability.”
Bolton said it was “perfectly legitimate and good politics” for Israel to seek to crush Hezbollah. The fact that the Israelis used U.S. bombs to wreak death and destruction throughout Lebanon is apparently irrelevant. More than a thousand Lebanese civilians were killed by the Israeli government, with the Bush team cheering on each detonation.
AIPAC, the most powerful lobby in DC, bragged of its role in blocking any ceasefire. (A good critique of AIPAC’s role in the Lebanon carnage is here).
Bolton captures the arrogance and total hypocrisy of the Bush war on terrorism. In a meeting last August, Bolton “implied that because Lebanon harbored Hezbollah, Lebanese lives were forfeit,” according to a UN official who heard Bolton commenting in meetings at the time.
Neither AIPAC nor the Bush team suffered any backlash from Christian fundamentalists as a result of Israeli bombing of Christian villages. Most Lebanese Christians despise and oppose Hezbollah - but they were Lebanese so they apparently deserved to die.
As I wrote in blogs last summer, both Hezbollah and the Israeli government were guilty of mass murder. But the Bush administration’s absolute support (and re-arming) of a government that was intentionally slaughtering civilians is a crime that must not be forgot.
11:49 am | Bovard | Bush | Attention Deficit Democracy | Terrorism
Interview with Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner General of the UN Agency for Palestine refugees
UAE-OPT
VIDEO: Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner General of the UN Agency for Palestine refugees, talks about the humanitarian crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories - Play video (Media Player) Field of operations Official camps Registered families in camps Registered refugees in camps Registered refugees Jordan 10 61,063 316,549 1,835,704 Lebanon 12 49,836 214,093 405,425 Syria 10 25,740 116,253 434,896 West Bank 19 38,954 185,121 705,207 Gaza Strip 8 92,322 474,130 993,818 Agency total 59 267,915 1,306,191 4,375,050 Who is a Palestine refugee?
DUBAI, 21 March 2007 (IRIN) - The decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict lies at the heart of 21st century world affairs, with numerous nations, international organisations and NGOs involved on both sides. 
Photo: Emmanuel Dunseath/IRIN 
Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner General of the United Nations Agency for Palestine refugees
The United Nations has long played a role in the conflict, on both political and humanitarian levels. Following the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established for the specific purpose of providing assistance to the Palestinian refugees the war created.
Today, UNRWA is the main provider of basic services - education, health, relief and social services - to more than 4.3 million registered Palestinian refugees in the Middle East, predominantly in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
In the absence of a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, the UN General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA's mandate, most recently extending it until 30 June 2008.
Karen Koning AbuZayd, a US national, was appointed Commissioner General of UNRWA on 28 June 2005, having been deputy commissioner since 2000 and having previously worked 19 years for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
see video clip of interview
Q: Do you see the recent kidnap attempt and shooting at John Ging, director of UNRWA’s field office in Gaza, as a turning point in the way the agency will conduct its operations in the occupied Palestinian territories?
A: No, I hope not because our services are very much needed in the oPt and we do want to carry on with our work. We do have to evaluate how much we do with our international staff, how we can continue. We’re in discussion with the [oPt] government, which is helping us quite a lot, and so we have to see how that plays out and what they do about it.
Do remember that we have in Gaza alone about 9,000 local staff, Palestine refugees themselves, who will of course keep our basic services going – health, education and social services. But to do extra things, to have the international staff there, we have to be sure that we’re going to be safe and secure.
What is your general assessment of the humanitarian crisis in the West Bank and Gaza? Is it worse than ever before?
It is worse than ever. Our emergency appeal this year for 2007 is US $246 million – that’s just the UNRWA part of the CAP. This is higher than it was at any time during the intifada [Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation], which means that the needs are much greater [now] than they were during the intifada. And that’s mainly because of the boycott of the Palestinian Authority over the past year.
So we’re hoping now, with the National Unity Government having come into being [sworn in on 17 March], that there will be a change on the part of the international community – at least some of it – to lighten this boycott and to begin to deal with this government, and to give people their salaries back. Because there are all those people who have been working for nothing for a year. So we’re hoping there’ll be a change.
But the EU and US said they do not accept the new Palestinian unity government as it is. It doesn’t seem as if there will be any change with that respect.
What we have understood is that they are prepared to deal with some members of the government. They’re not boycotting the whole government and so maybe some things can be worked out. And I know that the EU is trying very hard to bring in more money, as they did last year, more money than in the past.
But of course that’s not the same as getting the economy actually working again, opening up the border points, getting things working – the economy as well as the humanitarian situation.
What are some of the logistical difficulties UNRWA faces in providing humanitarian relief in the occupied Palestinian territories with regard to border crossings and checkpoints? Can you elaborate? 
Photo: Tom Spender/IRIN 
Under UNRWA's operational definition, Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. UNRWA's services are available to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance. UNRWA's definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948.The number of registered Palestine refugees has subsequently grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.3 million in 2005, and continues to rise due to natural population growth.
Yes, well this is quite severe, particularly in Gaza where the whole of the Gaza Strip is closed off and we’re dependent on one commercial crossing [Karni Crossing], which is open sometimes and open for some hours sometimes.
The Rafah Crossing for people, of course, is very rarely opened and the crossing for other people – businessmen and internationals - through Erez is difficult.
On the West Bank side, as you may have heard many times, there are at least 530 checkpoints, roadblocks, the wall [Israeli separation barrier] continues to expand, the settlements continue to grow and it’s extremely difficult to go even from one village to another in the West Bank.
So we operate under great handicap which makes us very much less efficient and costs us a lot more money than we’d like to spend on these things.
What would you say is the most critical humanitarian need of the Palestinians in the occupied territories?
I would say being able to get the economy back on track, being able to let people work and get their salaries and being able to move goods so the businesses can start again.
Right now, the World Food Programme and ourselves feed the refugees and non-refugees, many humanitarian organisations brought in more money last year to give relief assistance but the people are very keen to work and to take of themselves and that’s what we’d like to see.
Is UNRWA getting the funds it needs to achieve its objectives?
No, we get the money – our donors are very generous, very good at giving us the money for the basic services – education and relief for the most vulnerable. But UNRWA’s been around for 58 years now and a lot of the refugees have been around for the same amount of time with their same houses or same schools.
We have a serious problem with the decline in our standards of our schools, our health clinics. Our schools are double-shifted, our doctors see 100 patients a day so we really need to have money to build up the infrastructure and we need more money every year because there are more refugees every year.
Is the mass exodus of Iraqis to neighbouring countries, particularly Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, having an impact on the Palestinian refugees already in those countries and their access to your services?
No, not really. They are the ones who have access to our services and also of the host governments. The Syrians and the Jordanians are extremely generous to the refugees. Many of them are citizens and are treated as citizens.
In Lebanon, we have a new approach by the government to let us improve the conditions in the camps and let refugees work in more occupations. So I would say that they’re not particularly affected except by the rising prices in the countries where these Iraqi refugees are going to where things are getting more difficult all round.
What is the perception of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories, with regard to the perhaps blurred line between the UN’s political and humanitarian arms? 
Photo: UNRWA A map of UNRWA's area of operations as of March 2005. Source: UNRWA
I think that UNRWA has always been very special among the Palestinians and known as being part of them because we have all over the region 27,000 staff who are Palestine refugees. Of course, because they know that we are there to help them and so on, we are appreciated by the community and that certainly helps the UN generally.
Even throughout this intifada there have been so many UN agencies that have come in that people understand very well the difference between the humanitarian and the political and they will blame the nations that make the political decisions but they don’t so much blame the UN. I would say that we are more appreciated in the oPt than in many other parts of the world, in fact.
What is your vision of how the decades-old Palestine refugee dilemma can be resolved?
This is a political issue. It’s not a humanitarian issue. The refugees are one of the final status issues – as we call them – that will be solved when there is a peace process that finishes and creates a Palestinian state.
At that time, UNRWA is keen to implement whatever the political actors decide. We will be there to work on whatever choices the individual refugees make. It’s very much a principle of refugee business that the individual refugee must make the choice about his future and we would want that to happen before we acted.
ed/ar
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