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Posted 11:20 AM
by Mary
Elbaradei Warns of Iraq Nuclear Emergency
Mon May 19, 2003 10:05 AM ET By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters) - The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency warned Monday that a nuclear contamination emergency may be developing in Iraq and appealed to the United States to let his experts back into the country.
"I am deeply concerned by the almost daily reports of looting and destruction at nuclear sites," U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a statement. He said he was especially worried "about the potential radiological safety and security implications of nuclear and radiological materials that may no longer be under control."
He said the reports the IAEA has received described uranium being emptied on the ground from containers then taken for domestic use and radioactive sources being stolen and removed from their shielding.
"We have a moral responsibility to establish the facts without delay and take urgent remedial action," ElBaradei said.
The U.N. agency has warned that stolen radioactive material could wind up in the hands of terrorists who could use it to make dirty bombs.
The IAEA chief first asked the United States on April 10 to secure the nuclear material stored under U.N. seal at Iraq's Tuwaitha nuclear research center and was promised by the United States that its military would keep the site secure.
After numerous media reports that Tuwaitha and other nuclear facilities in Iraq had been looted, ElBaradei wrote again to the U.S. on April 29 requesting permission to send a mission to Iraq to investigate the looting reports.The IAEA has yet to receive a response from Washington. On Sunday, ElBaradei told reporters in Boston that he had grown "frustrated" at the silence from Washington.
Recently, there have also been media reports that residents near Tuwaitha have exhibited symptoms of radiation sickness. There were around 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium, as well as several tons of natural and depleted uranium at Tuwaitha. There are more than 1,000 other radioactive sources in Iraq, many of which were stored at Tuwaitha.
Posted 1:57 PM
by Mary
IRAQ: SENIOR UN RELIEF OFFICIAL DISCUSSES LACK OF SECURITY WITH US AUTHORITIES New York, May 16 2003 12:00PM As the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator asked the United States authorities in Iraq to improve security, other UN officials turned their focus to the refugee problem, calling for return or compensation for up to 1 million people displaced internally by Saddam Hussein and preparing for the repatriation of up to 500,000 external exiles.
On the first day of a three-day visit, Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Kenzo Oshima met with the head of the US civil authority, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, and reiterated the UN's concern over the continuing lack of security, which is seriously impeding its ability to deliver humanitarian aid.
"We are concerned about the security situation," he told reporters after the meeting. "Without adequate security the delivery of humanitarian assistance will be hampered. We are concerned with security and we are very strongly interested in the restoration of law and order. I raised this issue with Ambassador Bremer."...
On another critical issue - children - UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Carol Bellamy is set to visit Iraq this weekend for a three-day stay. "There's much more that needs to be done to improve the chances of survival for children and to get this country pointed in the right direction," Ms. Bellamy said in a statement on the eve of her departure.
"We are alarmed by the high numbers of children being injured by munitions, and by anecdotal reports of children who are reported to have disappeared. The faster we get coherent education and health systems functioning again, with paid staff, the less children will fall through the cracks," she added.
Posted 9:07 PM
by Mary
ZNet Commentary The Strife In The UN: What Does It Mean To The Rest Of The World? May 07, 2003 By Radha D'Souza
The Iraq war has drawn attention to the role of the UN. At one end of the spectrum of views on questions of war and peace are those who say the war on Iraq is wrong, with or without UN resolution. At the other end of the spectrum are those who argue that a UN endorsement for the US led war on Iraq will give it legitimacy.
I hear people arguing about the veto, about the sanctity of the "international Community", about the rule of law, about humanitarian issues. Given the experiences of the people of the "Third World" with the UN over the past fifty seven years of the organisation's existence, the way the issues of the UN is framed raises more questions that it answers.
Starting with the veto, the extensive debates on the exercise of veto by France makes us feel as though the exercise of veto was an extraordinary act. In fact, as the figures below show, the veto has been used regularly since the UN was formed in 1945. Why has it become an issue now?
Pattern Of Veto Use In The Security Council Of The UN
Year USSR France China UK USA
1946-56 86 2 1 - -
1956-65 26 - - 1 -
1966-75 7 2 2 10 11
1976-85 6 9 - 8 34
1986-95 2 2 - 8 24
1996-2002 - - 2 - 5
There are several issues that emerge for the pattern of veto use in the UN. First, it has always been used in matters relating to the "Third World", a euphemism for the former colonies. The Big Five, the veto powers of the Security Council have used it to bloc decisions when they had conflicting interests in a "Third World" country.
The present concerns about the use of veto by France makes sense only if we accept that the relationship between France UK and USA is special because they were Allies in the World Wars and further that while all states may be equal in the eyes of the UN Charter, others (five to be exact) are more equal than the others.
Second, the first two decades of the UN saw the former USSR using the veto power frequently. This can be understood if we revisit the context that gave birth to the UN and the interests that promoted it. The idea of an international organisation, the UN, first originated in the Atlantic Charter, a bilateral agreement between the US and the UK signed on August 14, 1941.
Between 1941 and late 1945 (when the Dumbarton Oaks conferences finalised the UN Charter), the UK and USA had agreed upon the main features of the new international organisation between them, influenced to a large extent by the war debts that UK owed the US at that time. After 1945 the "mature" colonies like India, the South American colonies, settler colonies like Australia and New Zealand and others were included in the UN.
Towards the end of the World Wars the trajectory of the World Wars made it necessary to include Russia and China who were not involved in the nuts and bolts of the UN structure. The UN was, even with the subsequent inclusion of Russia and China, an institution designed by the Allies, the victors in the World Wars when the old imperial guard, Britain, passed the baton to the new one, the USA. Little surprising then that the former USSR had to use the veto to maintain what used to be called "spheres of influence" in those days.
Third, figures of veto use show that since the seventies the US has had to resort more and more to the veto. Between 1972 and 2002 the US used the veto forty times to stall resolutions involving Israel, mostly involving Palestine; ten times to stall resolutions relating to the apartheid regime in South Africa; nineteen times to stall Security Council resolutions on developmental questions relating to the "third world".
A resolution urging negotiations on prohibition of chemical and biological weapons in 1981 and a resolution opposing development of new weapons of mass destruction in 1987 were both vetoed by the US. Ironically in 1986 the US vetoed a UN Security Council statement (not a full resolution) condemning the use of chemical weapons by the Iraqi army on Iranian soldiers.
It is argued by many that war without the approval of the Security Council is in breach of the UN Charter and therefore in violation of the "will of the international community". Beginning with the Cuban invasion in the sixties there have been many armed aggression and invasions around the world that have occurred without the Security Council resolutions.
There was no UN mandate for the invasion of Afghanistan. There was no pretence of consultation with the "international community" about the aggression on Columbia, or Panama. In Nicaragua's case the International Court of Justice (an organ of the UN) ruled that the US had committed aggression on Nicaragua and ordered $ 17 million as compensation in 1986. No one went to war with the US to enforce the "will of the international community". The intervention in Kosovo had NATO approval but no UN approval. Whether NATO equals "the will of the international community" is a moot point however.
The UN involvement in the Lockerbie case should make those who like to stand on the moral high ground of "rule of law", squirm. There, the UN intervened with Libya to hand over the three Libyan men accused in the Lockerbie case to justice. The deal brokered by the UN assured Libya that if the three men were handed over they would get a fair trial and economic sanctions against Libya that were in place for over a decade would be lifted.
The UN appointed an observer at the trial who reported to the UN that the trial was not fair, that there was too much interference with the due process of law by the prosecution and the US had tried to influence the course of the trial. The trial ended with the conviction of two men and the acquittal of one.
The UN lifted sanctions but the US introduced unilateral sanctions through domestic legislation anyway. The UN Charter prohibits "regime changes" as a war goal and limits wars to self-defence when it is not pursuant to UN intervention. Yet, as with Allende in Chilli, Manuel Noreiga in Panama, the many unsuccessful attempts to over throw Fidel Castro of Cuba, numerous armed interventions have involved regime change as explicit goal of armed US intervention.
It is the humanitarian missions that invoke the greatest sympathy for the UN amongst the ordinary people everywhere. Humanitarian missions have become mired in controversies as increasingly the UN steps in to tidy up the mess after armed interventions take place with or without the consent of the Big Five.
In Kosovo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan or Afghanistan, the UN has stepped in after the deed was done to clear up the mess in the name of humanitarian assistance. Already there is talk about getting the UN involved in humanitarian assistance to Iraq after keeping it out of decisions about the war.
The politics of peacekeeping: which country gets to send troops to what conflicts (why French and British troops to Rwanda, why US troops to Somalia), why peacekeepers are sent to some not other places (why in Sierra Leone and not in Palestine?), why have some countries resigned in protest (India from Bosnia for example) are issues that have been the controversial more in the "Third World" where the interventions have occurred. How old colonial "affections" draw the big powers to erstwhile colonies under the UN peacekeeping flags is a story in itself that need to told another time.
The intriguing thing is why even after this sordid tale that spans fifty seven years (remember Congo and Patrice Lumumba in the early sixties?) even the more critical thinkers amongst us are ambivalent when it comes to the legitimacy of the UN? The answers to that question must turn on how we view the world and interpret it.
The UN as the institutional umbrella of the post-World Wars order has escaped rigorous scrutiny. Questions of inequality, injustice, disempowerment and oppression have preoccupied concerned intellectuals in the post-war war era. However, the institutional dimensions of those issues viz. what institutional mechanisms enable and facilitate those conditions to exist and recur, has not come under as much interrogation. Consequently while it is acknowledged that imperialism exists, how the nuts and bolts of the imperial machinery in the post-war world works is less understood. The Iraq war forces a critical scrutiny of the UN and its role in the post-war world.
The UN was designed as the institutional linchpin that held together three stands of the post-war world order under the leadership of the United States: the economic order, the political order and the moral/ethical order. Each of those dimensions was enframed within different institutional mechanisms, with different sets of ideological discourses that conceptualised the post-war world on different founding premises, with different rationalisations under different legal regimes.
The economic order was enframed in the Bretton Woods organisations, the World Bank the International Monetary Fund and the WTO. They were founded on liberal conceptions of the economy, free trade and individual and corporate rights and a model of social order based on the Anglo-American society. The constitution and structure of the Bretton Woods institutions privileged the five largest capitalist powers in the post-war era.
The political order was enframed in the UN General Assembly that, while giving a façade of inclusion to the erstwhile colonies to bring them within the UN system, kept the reins of power tightly with the Allies through the structure of the Security Council and the veto. The moral and ethical order was enframed in the discourse of "democratic development" that was institutionalised in the numerous developmental institutions under the UN and was directed at the former colonies. The politics of "democratic development" ensured that transfer of wealth and resources to the "developed" countries.
The prowess of the United States in the post-war era was built on the economic and political domination it acquired through war financing before the war and post-war reconstruction after the World Wars. After the seventies the expansive phase of post-war reconstruction came to an end causing tensions in the three strands of the post-war world order.
Within the economic order, the declining economic power of the US and the rise of the "reconstructed" EU and Japan have created contradictions and tensions. Fiscal issues, debts, pegging currencies to the US dollar and trade competition and market protections have eluded solutions. The IMF can squeeze out chalks and black boards from village schools in Africa and Asia in the name of structural adjustments but is able to do little to rein the US, the largest economy, for fiscal indiscipline.
For the US war is needed to keep its dominant position, but war also means more fiscal problems and more external debts. The new economic powers are not represented in the political institutions of power within the UN. Including them in the Security Council has been discussed from time to time. If included the dominant position of the US could be eroded and if not included the economic powers may not wish to underwrite US political domination.
"Democratic Development" has not delivered on its promises. The "Third World" states constructed during the colonial era, and kept alive by the "balance of power" in the Cold War era have come under pressure due to economic and political pressures both internationally and domestically.
In the political arena the domination of the Allies is no longer underpinned by their economic power. In the economic arena the new economic powers are not represented in the political structures of power within the UN. "Democratic development" as a means of domination over the "Third World" has lost legitimacy. The three strands of the UN system and the institutions under it are pulling the in different directions.
The war on Iraq has brought to the fore the tensions between the Anglo-American and European nations and the nature and role of the UN system at the heart of it. The rifts in the UN opens up new opportunities for those committed to a more just and equitable world order. However, they can become openings, only if some of the ambivalence about the UN gives way to a more critical appraisal of its role in the post-war world as the institutional umbrella for post-war imperialism.
zmag
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Posted 8:15 PM
by Mary
SECURITY COUNCIL EXPRESSES CONCERN AT SECURITY CONDITIONS IN AFGHANISTAN New York, May 6 2003 4:00PM The members of the United Nations Security Council today expressed serious concern at the deterioration of security in many areas of Afghanistan and the recent attacks on UN and other personnel of aid organizations, and called on all concerned to work towards peace.
"Members of the Council underscored the importance of maintaining peace and stability in Afghanistan and called on all actors in Afghanistan to work together with the international community to ensure the success of the peace process," the Council's President, Ambassador Munir Akram of Pakistan, said in a
statement to the press following the 15-nation body's open meeting on Afghanistan.
During the meeting, Lakhdar Brahimi, the head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told the Council that the Bonn Peace Agreement was challenged by the unstable security environment, which stems from daily harassment and intimidation, inter-ethnic and inter-factional strife, increases in the activity of elements linked to the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, and the drugs economy.
Members of the Council reiterated their support for the efforts of the Afghan Transitional Administration and UNAMA to implement the Bonn process, Ambassador Akram told the press. He added that the Transitional Authority "must receive adequate support from the international community."
Ambassador Akram said Council Members noted important tasks set out by the government for this year that need to be supported and completed successfully, such as reforms in the security sector and the extension of central government authority to all parts of Afghanistan.
In addition, he said the building of the new national army and police, the constitutional process and the registration of voters in advance of holding of national elections next year are also key. Ambassador Akram said the Council also called on donors to support generously the reconstruction programmes and the various bodies working towards the peace process.
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