Human Rights Developments

Defending Human Rights

The Role of the International Community

Russia, China, and France supported closing the weapons’ files — which include investigation of nuclear, biological, chemical, and missile systems —individually, to give Iraq incentives for further cooperation. Russia Deputy Foreign Minster Vikto Posuvelyuk said in March that “Russia is calling for [Iraq] to be shown the light at the end of the tunnel...” The United States and United Kingdom opposed this action, and the U.S. maintained that Iraq must meet all requirements before sanctions can be altered.

The government continued to deny access to the U.N. special rapporteur on Iraq, a policy in force since 1992, and to reject the U.N. Commission on Human Rights’ proposal to station of human rights monitors inside Iraq.

United States
In February, the United States threatened military action against Iraq for its noncompliance with UNSCOM arms inspections. The U.S. continued to police “no-fly” zones in northern and southern Iraq, along with the U.K., but failed to deter repeated Turkish incursions into the north.

Congress authorized $38 million to support the Iraqi opposition abroad and initiated the most active campaign in support of the opposition in recent years. Part of the funds were used for opposition radio broadcast from Prague, and a permanent representative was established at the U.S. embassy in London to liaise with opposition groups based there. In addition, in October, the U.S. Senate passed the “Iraq Liberation Act of 1998" which would authorized grants of $2 million for broadcasting, and up to $97 million in military assistance.

The U.S. continued to deny any responsibility for the humanitarian cost of economic sanctions. In May, Under Secretary for Political Affairs Thomas Pickering emphasized that U.S. national interests, which include the free flow of oil, are the fundamental goal of Iraq policy, saying that “as far as the U.S. is concerned, sanctions will be a fact of life for the foreseeable future” and that “the Iraqi government is fully responsible for the Iraqi people’s suffering.” In September, Scott Ritter, a United States senior weapons inspector with UNSCOM, resigned from the Special Commission alleging U.S. and other government were undermining the effectiveness of UNSCOM by at times asing to delay unannounced inspections for political considerations. Ritter’s claims were denied by administration officials, but information about high-level U.S. contacts with UNSCOM head Richard Butler did emerge.

European Union
The E.U. continued to be the largest provider of humanitarian aid to Iraq. France supported a reevaluation of the sanctions policy with the aim of a slow phase-out, while the U.K. and Germany promoted keeping sanctions in place until the original terms of resolution 687 (1991) were met.

European Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, Fisheries, and Consumer Policy Emma Bonino warned in April that resolutions 986 and 1153 would not alone alleviate all of Iraq’s humanitarian problems, saying that “all the evidence shows that most Iraqis are still facing unbearable hardships brought about by the continuing deterioration of their rights to security, to health, to education, and to work.” While Bonino noted that the humanitarian crisis was in part “attributable to local political circumstances,” she said the Iraqi experience suggests the international community should reconsider the nature of economic sanctions.

The E.U. issued an action plan in January, in response to a significant increase in the number of Kurdish “migrants” entering the E.U., which restricted access to E.U. member state territories and raised concerns over the risk of refoulement of Kurdish refugees who were forced to remain in Turkey for protracted periods pending approval of their claims for asylum in E.U. states.