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The Deadly and Illegal Consequences of Economic Sanctions on the People of Iraq
The Deadly and
Illegal Consequences of
Economic Sanctions on the
People of Iraq
DENIS J. HALLIDAY
Visiting Professor
Swarthmore College
C
ontinuing economic sanctions are responsible for the deaths of thousands every month in Iraq. The United Nations has been imposing these
deadly economic sanctions through the Security Council, its instrument
for peace and security. Thus the year 2000 has opened with the United Nations
standing on its head. Rather than respecting its own charter, which calls for the
protection of the innocent, the UN is responsible for prolonging death and social
and economic destruction.
This article reflects the content of a statement made in Spain to an international conference in November 1999 on the UN economic sanctions on the people
of Iraq. It briefly addresses the view that the Security Council economic sanctions
regime constitutes genocide. It touches on the incompatibility of such sanctions
with various provisions of the United Nations Charter and similar instruments of
international humanitarian law.
In Paris in early 1999 I spoke about the terrible impact of United Nations
economic sanctions on the people of Iraq. There I used the term “genocide” publicly for the first time. I was describing to the press corps the catastrophic situation that I had witnessed during my thirteen months in Baghdad as head of the
United Nations Oil-for-Food Program. I used the term “genocide” because of my
exposure to the death, malnutrition and deprivation of millions of ordinary Iraqi
people.
The term created some modest headlines in the Paris newspapers. Similarly, one or two international wire services picked it up. A few criticized me for
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using the term with regard to the impact of the economic sanctions themselves.
Some people thought that it was a particularly inappropriate term to use to describe the Arab and Islamic people of Iraq. Since then I have observed that the
term offends many in Western media and establishment circles when it is used to
describe the killing of others for which we—either directly or through our control of the Security Council—are responsible. Perhaps for most, genocide is too
intimate given our democratic obligation to accept responsibility for even the
most disagreeable actions the governments that we elect undertake. For others, it
was overdue recognition of the crimes against innocent human beings throughout Iraq, including the 3 million Kurdish Iraqis of the northern provinces, people
who suffer no less that the 18 million Arab Iraqi people who live to the south.
Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsay Clark and a number of British Ministers who were critical of the British Government’s economic sanctions and military policy have employed the term “genocide” to convey their perception of the
Iraq situation. Since spring of this year, the establishment in the United Kingdom
and the United States as well as the mass media have used the term “genocide”
frequently to describe the plight of
The Security Council is guilty Albanians in Kosovo and the killof intentionally sustaining a ing of the people of East Timor by
militias. For these deadly situaregime of killing that can only tions, despite our historical inbe termed genocide.
volvement, the absence of a sense
of responsibility enabled the
establishment’s use of the word “genocide.” This indicates a belief that only other
nations commit genocide, that somehow we Western democracies do not. This
perception is self-serving, coming from nations that once ran the transatlantic
slave trade, undertook the massacre of American Indians, and enabled the slaughter of the aboriginal peoples of Australia.
Still, at the present moment the UN tribunal in The Hague is preparing to
look at the consequences of illegal NATO attacks on Yugoslavia, including Kosovo.
Perhaps we have turned a corner and are becoming able to consider ourselves
responsible for crimes against humanity. This move in The Hague comes at a
time when crimes committed against the people of Korea in that “United Nations” war are coming to light. Perhaps the days of double standards for behavior
are numbered. An examination of the crimes against humanity and breaches of
the Geneva Conventions that allies committed during the Gulf War should follow. Specifically, we should investigate the use of depleted uranium shells, the
Basra road massacre, and the deliberate burying alive of Iraqi troops.
In November 1999 during a conference in Spain run by the Spanish Campaign against economic sanctions on Iraq, several speakers discussed the appropriateness of using of the term “genocide” to describe the human crisis in Iraq.
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We considered the definition set out by the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 and noted the point that intent is
essential in any determination of genocide. In considering UN Security Council
Resolution 687, some did not find intent spelled out in the text of 1991. Nevertheless, several noted the justification provided years ago by the then-U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright for the sustained killing of some five
hundred thousand Iraqi children—containing Saddam Hussein.
Given the stark reality of death in Iraq under economic sanctions, the choice
for some in respect to the consequences of UN Resolution 687 was between de
jure or de facto genocide. I have read between the lines of the Resolution and
have given the original drafters the benefit of the doubt. Likewise, I have given
the benefit of the doubt to those member states that in 1991 supported the imposition of the uniquely comprehensive and devastating economic sanctions that
Resolution 687 represents. These sanctions are particularly devastating since they
come on top of the illegal civilian-targeted bombings and missile attacks that the
allies made in the Gulf War. However, the deliberate continuation of the economic sanctions regime in full knowledge of its deadly impact shows that member states of the Security Council are indeed guilty of intentionally sustaining a
regime of killing that can only be termed genocide. It is this view that was supported overwhelmingly by international lawyers at the conference in Spain.
The information that the various organizations of the United Nations provided—information that included UNICEF surveys using international experts
on infant and child mortality rates—shows de facto genocide. They have provided data showing the very significant increase in mortality rates in the years
since Resolution 687 was imposed. We have data from the World Health Organization showing significant increases in adult deaths, particularly among the aged
in need of sophisticated drugs no longer available in Iraq. We have figures showing extraordinary increases in the incidence of various cancers, including leukemia in children, since the use of depleted uranium by the U.K. and U.S. during
the Gulf War. We know the sad human cost of the Gulf War allies’ deliberate
destruction of the means for the treatment and distribution of clean water, for
adequate electric power generation, and for effective urban sanitation systems.
This damage was reported initially by the mission of then-Under Secretary General of the UN and now-President of Finland Martti Ahtisaari in 1991, and many
times since then by UNICEF and WHO.
The informally termed Oil-for-Food program, which is entirely funded by
limited Iraqi oil sales under UN auspices, was designed to prevent further deterioration of the situation in Iraq, and no more than that. The Security Council
approved but heavily constrained the importation of basic foodstuffs, medicines,
and drugs. This policy has done little more than maintain high mortality rates
and widespread malnutrition, as the recent UNICEF report of mid-1999 has
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shown. Apart from considerable shortfalls in nutrition, including lack of animal
proteins, minerals, and vitamins within that program, the Security Council will
not allow oil revenues spent to repair substantially the damage caused by the
bombing of civilian infrastructure in breach of the Geneva conventions of 1991,
1996, and 1998. By this denial and by controlling the ceiling on Iraqi oil revenues, the Security Council has deliberately decided to block adequate repair of
the water, power, and sewage systems so critical in the battle to save the lives of
countless infants and children. It knowingly sustains a source for water-borne
diseases leading to thousands of deaths monthly.
Likewise, adequate hard currency has not been available for the reequipping of hospitals and other health care facilities. Food production capacity remains stunted, and the Security Council has denied Iraq its right to import adequate amounts of essential food. It has also denied Iraq its right to repair and
rebuild the civilian infrastructure critical for human well-being that its own member
states destroyed illegally in 1991.
The Security Council has in effect violated international law on two significant occasions. First, the targeting of men, women and children noncombatants via missile attacks and the bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure in
1991 and thereafter was illegal. Second, in an even more deadly, quiet, and sustained manner of warfare, the ongoing regime of comprehensive sanctions is killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and adults. The sustained imposition
of these sanctions constitutes the punishment of millions and the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents. Whatever the terminology used, the results are
indisputably contrary to the spirit and the word of numerous international humanitarian legal instruments.
With or without original intent, the impact of economic sanctions constitutes genocide. Whether it is de jure or de facto genocide, the semantics are irrelevant to those people of Iraq, who have seen their children die, their parents die,
and their own health deteriorate. They are witnessing a national depression and a
social collapse. The genocidal impact of economic sanctions on Iraq is a cruel
tragedy.
There remains another tragic consequence of the genocide in Iraq—the
irreparable damage it has done to the integrity and credibility of the United Nations itself. By sustaining economic sanctions on Iraq in full knowledge of the
deadly consequences, the member states of the Security Council have undermined
the very legal basis of the organization itself—the Charter. Economic sanctions
are provided for in Chapter 7 of the Charter. But one could query the intentions
of the victors of World War II who drafted the Charter in 1945, at a time when
the infant UN was generally made up of large and powerful rather than small and
weak member states. Then, as today, the concept of economic sanctions, bilateral
but also multilateral, is more attractive and viable to the powerful, the “bully boy”
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states, than to the smaller potential victims. As Richard Haas has written in his
book of the use of economic sanctions in U.S. foreign policy, these sanctions have
become too commonplace and have been used by Washington without adequate
planning, intent, monitoring, and care. Regardless of their original purpose, the
prolonged and uniquely comprehensive nature of the economic sanctions on Iraq
have undermined the very purposes and principles (Articles 1 and 2) of the United
Nations Charter, the preamble of which calls inter alia for the well-being of all
humanity. Likewise, prolonged economic sanctions neglect the rights spelled out
in Articles 25 and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In reality, there are numerous international conventions neglected by the
deliberate continuation of economic sanctions regardless of human cost. Among
the neglected is an oversight device or devices on the dangerously out-of-control
Security Council. The Security Council is desperately in need of reform to introduce permanent North/South balance. It must begin to act in compliance with
the essential provisions of the UN Charter itself.
In the meantime, men and women of conscience and integrity must continue to demand the termination of crimes against humanity that member states
of the present Security Council commit against the people of Iraq. On a wider
international front, many would expect to see respect for the rule of law by the
member states of the G-8 and the UN Security Council. Now that we have entered the new millennium, it is time to address the double standards in which the
countries of the North indulge themselves. It is time for a world that is better
balanced and represented not only within the United Nations, but in all international endeavors of humankind. WA
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