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Saturday, March 29, 2003
UN adopts Iraq oil-for-food resolution, launches massive aid appeal (12:59 pm)
By Giles Hewitt
UNITED NATIONS -- The UN Security Council adopted Friday a resolution reactivating its "oil-for-food" program for Iraq, as the world body launched its largest ever appeal to provide humanitarian aid to the Iraqi people.
The resolution gives Secretary-General Kofi Annan control for a period of 45 days over the humanitarian side of the UN program that uses Iraq's oil revenues for food and medical supplies.
The unanimous vote, following a week of tough negotiations, was seen as rubbing some salve on the deep divisions that emerged within the Security Council in the run up to the invasion of Iraq.
"I think it augurs well for future tasks ahead of us," Annan said after the vote. "We have many challenging questions and I hope we will be able to approach those tasks with the same spirit."
An estimated 60 percent of the Iraqi population of 22 million depends on the "oil-for-food" program for daily supplies.
The program was suspended on March 18 just before the United States launched its war against the Baghdad regime.
The resolution was adopted just minutes after the United Nations launched a 2.2-billion-dollar urgent appeal -- its biggest ever -- to provide immediate humanitarian assistance to the people of Iraq over the next six months.
"The humanitarian effect is already being felt and could grow much worse in the days and weeks to come," UN Deputy Secretary General Louise Frechette said, adding that the UN hoped to fund the 1.3-billion-dollar food segment of the appeal through the oil-for-food program.
Friday's resolution was only adopted after some bitter negotiations, with the United States and Britain seeking a longer period for the renewed program and its automatic renewal.
Russia and Syria -- two chief critics of the military action in Iraq -- had opposed using oil-for-food as a channel for emergency war relief, saying it might legitimize the war.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President George W. Bush was "pleased" with the outcome, while Britain's ambassador to the UN, Jeremy Greenstock, said it was a "good result" for the Security Council and the United Nations as a whole.
Russia's envoy, Sergey Lavrov, reiterated Moscow's opposition to a war being waged "without any support of the United Nations" and said he hoped lessons had been learned that would allow "a more collective effort on global issues from now on."
The four-page resolution describes the US and British forces in Iraq as "the occupying power" and reaffirms respect for the right of the Iraqi people to determine their own political future and to control their own natural resources.
It also reminds the "occupying power" that it is ultimately responsible for the civilian population under international conventions.
The UN "oil-for-food" program was first launched in 1996 in a bid to alleviate crippling sanctions imposed on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.
With fighting continuing on several fronts in Iraq, Frechette said it was still difficult to assess the extent and nature of the humanitarian aid that will be required.
"At the moment, we have only fragmentary information about conditions inside the country, and of course we do not know how the fighting will develop from here," she said.
Benon Sevan, executive director of the UN Office of the Iraq Program, said a more precise assessment would only be possible once UN workers were back on the ground in Iraq.
"I don't think anybody has a clue as to what the situation is today," Sevan said. "Hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute, the state of the situation in Iraq changes and that includes the distribution systems."
Speaking to reporters earlier Friday, Annan said the Security Council was still discussing what role the UN would play "down the line" in Iraq.
He said the council would have to give him a specific mandate for any additional responsibilities that the UN takes on on Iraq, above and beyond the humanitarian and oil-for-food programs.
"Obviously, if the UN is going to be on the ground, we will have to determine the relationships between the UN, occupied Iraq and the occupying power," Annan said, noting that there are "a lot of issues that will have to be tackled." AFP
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