Press Release.............................. UNESCAP News Services

31 March 2003

Press Release No: L/07/2003

Op-ed by Mr. Shashi Tharoor on the Iraqi crisis

This op-ed was published in the International Herald Tribune of 26 March 2003, under the title "A humanitarian challenge, the United Nations stands ready to help".

by Shashi Tharoor

"My thoughts today," said United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan as news came in of the start of the war in Iraq, "are with the Iraqi people, who face yet another ordeal." These were not just the pious sentiments expected of any UN Secretary-General at a time of conflict. Instead, the organization that many journalists describe as having been sidelined during the war finds itself at the center of what could yet prove to be a considerable humanitarian challenge.

Those whose view of the United Nations has been shaped entirely by their attitude to the debates in the Security Council over whether or not authorize military action tend to overlook the fact that the Organization is inevitably involved in coping with the consequences of any such action. Wars result in death, destruction, despair -- and displacement. Since the prospect of conflict first arose, the United Nations and its humanitarian agencies (notably the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme, UNICEF and the World Health Organization) have been working around the clock to be prepared for a catastrophe, one we still hope will not occur.

In the last two decades, the Iraqi people have endured two major wars and are in the midst of a third; in addition, their land has been scarred by internal conflicts and uprisings, and twelve years of punitive sanctions have taken a painful toll. A country once rated as amongst the most developed in the Middle East has seen its infrastructure crumble; the Iraqi people lack clean water, health care, medical supplies and sanitation. One million children under the age of five, by UNICEF estimates, suffer from chronic malnutrition; more than 60% of the population are entirely dependent on the rations brought in under the United Nations' "oil-for-food" programme. Half the pregnant women in Iraq are anemic because they do not consume enough protein and iron. War, and the attendant disruption of essential services and supplies, could make things worse, leaving millions without access to foodstuffs and potable water. Many of them could flee to neighbouring countries.

If they do, UN agencies are ready to help them. It is vital that all neighbouring states keep their borders open to refugees seeking sanctuary. The United Nations has prepositioned essential supplies -- food, shelter, medicines -- in the region which would be adequate to cope initially with an outflow of up to two million people for a month. But the UN appeal, launched in December, for $123 million to acquire the necessary means for this work remains severely underfunded: only $58 million has come in so far. As war rages on, the UN has appealed today [Friday 28 March] for even larger amounts of money, some $2.2 billion, in particular to feed and assist the Iraqi people over a six-month period. In the meantime, the Secretary-General expects to obtain from the Security Council authority over the resources of the oil-for-food programme, in order to use some of these for immediate emergency purposes.

Immediate humanitarian relief is a responsibility for which the United Nations has what might be called a generic mandate, emerging from the statutes that established its agencies, funds and programmes. The UN has quietly being doing thorough and well-coordinated contingency planning for what has now occurred, and it is, as a result, readier now than for most previous crises, which often caught the international system unprepared. At the same time, it must be stressed that under international law, the responsibility for protecting civilians caught up in war or conflict falls on the belligerents. Theirs is the primary responsibility within Iraq; indeed, the UN evacuated its international staff at the onset of war. Though the brave national staff of UNICEF and WFP are still at work in Iraq, the UN as a whole cannot be said to be fully operational there.The United Nations is prepared to do all it can to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, but we would have limited capacity to do so until security conditions allow for the safe return of our staff to affected areas. Until then, humanitarian assistance would have to be provided by the United States and its coalition partners in those areas under their control, consistent with their overall responsibility under international law.

There are suggestions that the UN could be asked to do more. Four years ago, another military conflict not sanctioned by the United Nations resulted in a Security Council resolution that asked the UN to legitimate the post-war dispensation in Kosovo and to run the civil administration there. Some have suggested that history could repeat itself and a UN deemed irrelevant to the war in Iraq could find itself central to the ensuing peace. But, as Kofi Annan has made clear, the United Nations could do nothing beyond its strictly humanitarian work without an authorization provided by a specific mandate from the Security Council. In any conflict-ridden area, the responsibility for the welfare of the civilian population falls on those who exercise effective control of the territory. Reconstruction, civil administration, and issues related to governance structures will all need to be handled after the war, consistent with the territorial integrity of Iraq and the right of its people to determine their political future and exercise control over their natural resources. But the members of the Council will have to agree before the UN can play a part in any of these.

In the meantime, the UN stands ready to do what it must -- to provide succour to the victims of war, without detracting from the responsibilities of the combatants. And one day, as Iraqis need help to rebuild their lives and society after this ordeal, the international community must not be found wanting.

[Shashi Tharoor is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information.]

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