'Bribes' and 'Threats' Behind U.N. Vote
By Thalif
Deen
Inter Press
Service
24 May, 2003
UNITED NATIONS
-- A coalition of over 150 peace groups and global non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) is lashing out at the U.N. Security Council for
adopting a resolution that virtually legitimizes the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq and endorses the foreign occupation of a U.N. member state.
''The United States was successful
in bulldozing its way because it offered too many bribes and held out
too many threats,'' says Rob Wheeler, a spokesman for the Uniting for
Peace Coalition.
The ''threats,'' he said,
were against developing nations in the 15-member Security Council, and
the ''bribes'' were the promises made to more powerful nations, which
caved in to U.S. pressure.
''Iraq has the world's second
largest oil reserves. The United States will now decide how those reserves
are to be distributed. And nobody wants to be cut out of the pie,''
Wheeler told IPS on Thursday.
The resolution, co-sponsored
by the United States, Britain and Spain, was adopted Thursday by a vote
of 14:1, with Syria, the only Arab nation in the Council, refusing to
participate in the voting.
Approval of the seven-page
resolution, which not only lifts the 12-year-old U.N. sanctions on Iraq
but also provides political legitimacy to U.S. rule in that war devastated
nation, was being hailed as a major diplomatic victory for Washington.
Chile and Mexico, two developing
nations in the Security Council with important trade relations with
the United States, were under heavy pressure to vote for the resolution.
And so were other developing nations in the Council, added Wheeler.
James Paul of the New York-based
Global Policy Forum said that ''many threats - and promises of a few
oil fields - have brought the Council membership into line''.
Chile's U.N. ambassador,
he said, was recalled by his government ''for failing to show sufficient
support and enthusiasm for the U.S. position''.
The developing nations in
the Security Council - including Mexico, Cameroon, Chile, Angola and
Guinea - justified their support by focusing largely on the benefits
that the removal of sanctions will offer to the long suffering Iraqis
and the country's reconstruction.
Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar
Zinser of Mexico said his country supported the resolution because it
set in motion that reconstruction. Describing the plan as a ''compromise'',
he said that all proceeds of oil resources should be channeled towards
the Iraqi people.
''The advisory and monitoring
mechanism must guarantee that the handling of oil would be done in a
transparent manner. Iraq's future was a great challenge for the United
Nations, and to confront it squarely, the organization itself had to
be strengthened.''
The resolution spelling out
the future of Iraq was adopted without the presence of a single Iraqi
in the Council chamber - a rare occurrence in the Security Council's
decision-making process.
With the ouster of Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein, his chief representative at the United Nations,
Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri, packed his bags and left New York last
month. As a result, Iraq has remained headless at the United Nations.
Although the resolution opened
the door for reconstruction and humanitarian assistance, Ambassador
Munir Akram of Pakistan singled out the issues he said the Security
Council failed to address.
Akram regretted that the
resolution did not specify the role of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) in declaring Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction;
it did not end the U.N. arms embargo against the country and it did
not clarify the U.N.'s role in a future Iraq.
France, which threatened
to use its veto against a previous U.S. resolution seeking U.N. approval
for an invasion of Iraq last March, went along with the current plan.
While the resolution creates
a U.S.-dominated Provisional Authority to run the country, it establishes
a development fund for Iraq's oil revenues. The U.N.'s oil-for-food
program, which was mandated to use oil revenues to buy food and humanitarian
supplies to sanctions-hit Iraqis, will be phased out over the next six
months.
The resolution also creates
an International Advisory and Monitoring Board and requests U.N. chief
Kofi Annan to appoint a special representative to oversee humanitarian
assistance to Iraqis.
But ''far from playing a
vital role (the United Nations) is relegated to an advisory and consultative
body'', said Wheeler.
Even the proposed advisory
body, he said, would include representatives of the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), organizations controlled by the United
States.
To placate the Russians and
the French, who are owed billions of dollars by the ousted Saddam Hussein
regime, the resolutions seeks the ''prompt completion of the restructuring
of Iraq's debt''.
Ambassador Mamady Troare
of Guinea said adopting the resolution represented a success for the
United Nations and for the Security Council, which had rediscovered
the golden rule of consensus.
Cameroon's Martin Belinga-Eboutou
said he had long believed that sanctions against Iraq should be lifted,
and that the United Nations should play an important role in rebuilding
the country.
But Annan was more cautious
when he told delegates that ''the mandate given to the United Nations
involved complex and difficult tasks''.
Other members of Uniting
for Peace include the Center for Economic and Social Rights, Global
Exchange, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Friends of the Earth
International (all U.S.-based), Third World Network (Malaysia), World
Peace and Nuclear Disarmament (India), NGO Forum (Mauritius) and the
World Peace Council (Greece).