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| The Road to Iraq's Disarmament | ||
On 5 February 2003, at an open ministerial-level meeting of the Council, chaired by Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of Germany and attended by 12 Foreign Ministers, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell presented what he said was "solid" evidence that showed that Iraq still failed to disarm itself of chemical and biological weapons. In his elaborate multimedia presentation, which included satellite photographs of alleged chemical weapons installations and intercepted telephone conversations, Mr. Powell detailed the apparent evacuation of chemical and biological weapons, indicated Iraqi links to terrorist networks and highlighted the country's record of systematic human rights abuses. Mr. Powell said Iraq continued to pose a threat to international peace and security by remaining in material breach of its disarmament obligations. "Indeed, by its failure to seize on its one last opportunity to come clean and disarm, Iraq has put itself in deeper material breach and closer to the day when it will face serious consequences for its continued defiance of this Council", he said. Operative paragraph 4 of resolution 1441 defines a further material breach as false statements or omissions in declarations and failure to cooperate fully in the implementation of the resolution. Underscoring his country's firm stance, Mr. Powell implored the Council "not to shrink from whatever is ahead of us". Dismissing the charges of the United States, Ambassador Mohammed A. Aldouri of Iraq said the clear goal of the meeting had been to sell the idea of war against his country, without any legal, moral or political justification. Stressing that his country was totally free of weapons of mass destruction, Ambassador Aldouri reiterated Iraq's commitment to continue to fully cooperate with the inspection teams, so they could finish their tasks as soon as possible and sanctions could be lifted. Noting that Mr. Powell could have presented his allegations directly to UNMOVIC and IAEA, which had thus far carried out 575 inspections covering 321 sites, he said his country would provide detailed and technical explanatory answers to all allegations made. Following the presentation, all Council members agreed that Iraq needed to comply with all relevant resolutions in their entirety and completely eliminate its weapons of mass destruction. Several States warned that time was running out for Iraq to comply with the Council's resolutions. Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs of the United Kingdom Jack Straw said the Council had united to send Iraq an uncompromising message in resolution 1441: cooperate fully with weapons inspections or face disarmament by force. Spain's Foreign Minister, Ana Palacio, said that the inspection process was not "an end in itself" and could only bear fruit with Iraq's active cooperation. The Council's credibility was at stake, she said, in the face of twelve years of consistent non-compliance. Bulgaria's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Solomon Passy, stressed that "effective and peaceful disarmament of Iraq was still possible" but said that if, in the near future, inspectors did not report a change of attitude on Iraq's part, the Council would have to take "all necessary and appropriate action" to ensure implementation of all relevant resolutions. Several States voiced their strong support for the continuation of United Nations inspections, saying that the inspectors should be given more time to do their work before resorting to war. Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said it was now decisive that the inspectors were provided with extensive material in order to be able to clarify the unresolved questions quickly and fully. He said that several States suspected the Iraqi regime was withholding relevant information and concealing military capabilities, and that suspicion needed to be dispelled beyond any doubt. Minister for Foreign Affairs Dominique de Villepin of France said that given the choice between military intervention and an inspections regime that was inadequate for lack of cooperation on Iraq's part, the international community should choose to strengthen decisively the means of inspection. Minister for Foreign Affairs Tang Jiaxuan of China said it was the universal desire of the international community to see a political settlement to the issue within the United Nations framework and to avoid war. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said that resolution 1441 was geared towards speedy and practical results, but time frames were absent. Only the inspectors could determine how much time was needed for their task, he said. Cameroon's Minister of External Relations, François-Xavier Ngoubeyou, said that it would be wise to provide the inspectors with the new data and give them more time to do their job. Minister for Foreign Affairs Soledad Alvear Valenzuela of Chile said that a crucial stage was being entered in a situation involving many fears concerning the region and the world; and she was concerned at the consequences of ending the use of diplomatic channels. Mexico's Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez underlined his country's confidence in the inspection process, saying he was in favour of intensifying and strengthening those inspections. Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Kurshid M. Kasuri, said the information provided in the presentation enhanced the ability of the inspectors to identify areas of concern and pursue more specific lines of action. Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Georges Rebelo Chikoti of Angola said that the new elements underscored the importance of monitoring the situation within the framework of the Council. His own country was living testimony of the disastrous consequences of war, he said. Ambassador Mikhail Wehbe of the Syrian Arab Republic said Iraq and the inspectors should work out a common mode of cooperation in order to clarify the situation as soon as possible. Ambassador Mamady Traoré of Guinea said that while the promise of better cooperation was encouraging, Iraqi authorities needed to translate that promise into verifiable action. On 9 February, the chief UN inspection officials returned to Baghdad for more talks with Iraqi authorities, while UN monitors pressed forward with inspections at facilities around the country. Mr. Blix and Mr. ElBaradei met for four hours with an Iraqi delegation headed by Gen. Amir Al-Saadi. Following the meeting, Mr. Blix said he saw signs that the Iraqi authorities were taking the disasrmament issues "more seriously", and he reported that a number of documents concerning biological weapons and missiles had been turned over to UN officials for analysis. —Liz Willmott for the Chronicle |
| Inspections So Far |
| 8 November 2002: Security Council resolution 1441 (2002) aimed at returning United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq is adopted by a unanimous vote. 13 November 2002: Iraq indicates its willingness to accept the return of UN weapons inspectors. 27 November 2002: After four-year hiatus, the United Nations teams start on-site inspections in Iraq. 7 December 2002: Iraq hands over a 12,000-page declaration on the country's weapons programme to UNMOVIC and IAEA. 9 January 2003: Briefing the Council, UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans Blix and IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said there were still many unanswered questions in Iraq's arms declaration, although investigations on the ground had not yet uncovered any "smoking guns". 27 January 2003: Security Council is briefed by Hans Blix on work over the past two months; Baghdad should be more forthcoming with information and allow greater access to key personnel with knowledge of the country's weapons programmes, Mr. Blix said. 5 February 2003: United States Secretary of State Colin Powell presents what he says is "evidence, not conjecture" of Iraq's failure to destroy illicit weapons. 8 February 2003: Hans Blix and Mohamed El Baradei return to Baghdad for a new round of talks with Iraqi officials. 14 February 2003: UN weapons inspectors expected to deliver a progress report to the Security Council. 27 March 2003: UN weapons inspectors are scheduled to issue a further report outlining list of key remaining disarmament tasks and a future work programme. |
| UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina Ends |
| Successfully completing the most extensive police reform and restructuring mandate ever undertaken by the United Nations, the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) ceased operations on 31 December 2002. Set up in 1995, UNMIBH exercised a wide range of functions related to law enforcement activities and police reform. It also coordinated other UN activities in the country relating to humanitarian relief and refugees, demining, human rights, elections and rehabilitation of infrastructure and economic reconstruction. "Through UNMIBH, the United Nations has demonstrated its ability to complete a complex mandate in accordance with a strategic plan and within a realistic and finite time frame", Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. After seven years of police reform resulting in the creation of a national police force and state border service, "Bosnia and Herzegovina now has 'a police force fit for Europe', firmly based on international standards of democratic policing and in the service of all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina", the Mission said. The European Union Police Mission has taken over the tasks performed by UNMIBH. The United Nations will remain engaged in furthering the country's post-war development and recovery through the work of its agencies. |
| ANGOLA Humanitarian situation extremely difficult |
| Significant progress has been achieved in the peace process in Angola, though much remains to be done, according to Ibrahim Gambari, the top United Nations envoy to the country. He said that in its first four months of operation, the UN Mission in Angola (UNMA) had "successfully initiated activity in nearly all the areas mandated to it". The Mission's main areas of focus are raising awareness of the humanitarian situation and the plight of more than 4 million internally displaced people, refugees, ex-combatants and their dependents, as well as organizing an international donors' conference for reconstruction. The overall humanitarian situation remained "extremely difficult", he said. The six-month mandate of UNMA ends on 15 February 2003. Several key tasks remain under the Lusaka Protocol, including the provision of information by the Government and UNITA concerning the location of landmines and the disarming of civilians; both parties will address these responsibilities through a bilateral mechanism. A tentative date for a donor conference had been set for the first quarter of 2003 in Brussels. |
| CÔTE D'IVOIRE Crisis continues despite peace accord |
| Parties to the conflict have agreed to a package of peace proposals to end the bloody civil war that has raged in Côte d'Ivoire for over four months. The peace accord came after nine days of talks in Paris, as violence continued in parts of the West African country. The Security Council on 29 January urged the parties to implement the new peace agreement without delay. The Council said the United Nations should support the implementation of the peace process, and said it would "consider promptly the Secretary-General's recommendations to that end". Ten Ivorian political groupings, including the ruling party and the rebel movements, came together to forge the agreement, which calls for a government of national unity headed by a Prime Minister designated by President Laurent Gbagbo, in consultation with other leaders. Among the tasks assigned to the government is the preparation of a timetable for credible and transparent elections, as well as rebuilding and restructuring defence and security forces. "While the agreement is carefully drafted and comprehensive, its value depends entirely on the extent to which it is faithfully implemented", said Mr. Annan. Ivorian political leaders, he noted, "need to work in a renewed spirit of good faith to secure the peace that the people of the country expect and deserve". |
| DEMOCRATIC REPUBLICOF THE CONGO So many affected |
| As of mid-2002, a total of 2.27 million people had been displaced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and there were 346,000 refugees from Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, the Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Sudan and other neighbouring countries. An estimated 20 million out of an entire population of 56 million are affected by the conflict. Deeply concerned at the resumption of fighting in the eastern part of the country and the continuation of instability in the northeast, the Security Council urged the parties to abide by the terms of the Gbadolite Agreement of 30 December 2002 and cease immediately all military activities. The UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC) had helped the three rebel movements that had been fighting in the northeastern part of the country to reach a ceasefire agreement. The Council on 15 January stressed the need for all parties playing a role in the future of the country to demonstrate their respect for human rights, international humanitarian law, and the security and well-being of civilian populations in areas under their control. It called on all Congolese parties to implement without delay the Pretoria Agreement of 17 December 2002, which provides for an all-inclusive power-sharing arrangement, in order to establish a transitional government leading to elections. MONUC said corroborating testimonies revealed that soldiers of the Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC) and the Congolese Rally for Democracy/National (RCD-N), during their occupation of Mambasa territory in 2002, used "systematic looting and rape", as well as summary executions and abductions, as tactics of war. The UN team, which interviewed over 350 victims and witnesses, also verified that among the people executed, mutilated and cannibalized were members of the pygmy community forced to abandon the forest. The UN continues to receive testimonies and the exact number of victims has not yet been determined. |
| HORN OF AFRICA Ethiopia and Eritrea progress with peace |
| Despite occasional difficulties, the peace process between Ethiopia and Eritrea has progressed steadily, and the next crucial phase will be delineating the border between the two countries. There have been no ceasefire violations since the establishment of the temporary security zone. "I hope that these achievements, which are a credit to the parties, will be carried forward", Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. Border demarcation has legal, humanitarian and human rights implications. "These will require immediate attention for the sake of the people who will be affected by the transfer of territorial control", he stressed. The Boundary Commission's decision regarding delimitation of the border between the two nations was delivered on 13 April 2002. |
| RWANDA Refugee return from Tanzania complete |
| The last of more than half a million Rwandan refugees in the Republic of Tanzania have returned home, marking the end of one of the most dramatic exoduses in the history of Central Africa. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees on 3 January said that the final group of 3,200 refugees had crossed the border. In 1994, 535,000 had fled Rwanda as the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front assumed control, ending the mass killings by Hutu extremists that left over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus dead. An estimated 1.3 million Rwandans also fled to eastern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). Most refugees returned from both countries in 1996. At the beginning of 2002, Tanzania still hosted more than 400,000 from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. |
| KOSOVO Serbian ex-President appears before Tribunal |
| Former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic has been transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity, including persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds. Indicted with ex-Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic and three other senior officials for atrocities against the Albanian majority in Kosovo in 1999, Mr. Milutinovic benefited from immunity from extradition until his five-year term as President ended last year. Mr. Milutinovic had been a member of the Supreme Defence Council of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia and participated in decisions regarding the use of the Yugoslav Army, according to UN prosecutors. They allege that he had at least formal control over Serb forces who killed hundreds of ethnic Albanians and expelled hundreds of thousands from their homes, while looting and pillaging their property. |
| Peace Efforts Continue in the Middle East |
| Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Kieran Prendergast said that there was "strong support" for the Quartet's efforts towards the realization of a vision of two States-Israel and Palestine-living side by side in peace and security. The Quartet, consisting of the United Nations, United States, European Union and the Russian Federation, had prepared in September 2002 a "road map" towards peace, which underscored that both parties must take reciprocal steps in dealing with their political, humanitarian and security concerns, set out in three phases: the first involves parallel implementation of a complete ceasefire, improvement in humanitarian conditions, promotion of Palestinian institution-building, and a halt to all Israeli settlement construction. In the second phase, in 2003, efforts would focus on creating a Palestinian State with provisional borders and based on a new constitution. In the third, from 2004 to mid-2005, the Quartet envisions Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at a permanent status solution.
Peace efforts continued elsewhere, with a mid-January conference between the two parties organized by the United Kingdom. Although the Israeli Government barred Palestinians from travelling in retaliation for a 5 January suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process Terje Roed-Larsen said the meeting facilitated a "clear and sensible discussion" about the progress on reform and what was still needed. In December, Mr. Roed-Larsen had briefed the Council, saying that international efforts must "reconcile plans with reality". He cited Israel's "troubling indifference to the sanctity of UN facilities", which had resulted in the death of two Palestinian UN workers, including a British national, Ian Hook. He also decried terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians, saying that the Palestinian Authority was "repeatedly demanded" to take all action against those who carry out and order such terrorist attacks. —Vikram Sura for the Chronicle |
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