Further Provocation against Iraq and Contempt of United Nations

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Anglo-American UN Resolution:
Further Provocation against Iraq and Contempt of United Nations

Iran, Syria Oppose US Attack on Iraq

Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Human Rights: UN Envoy

The governments of Britain and the US are reported to have tabled a new draft resolution on Iraq in the UN Security Council, a continuation of their warmongering efforts to create the conditions for military invasion and "regime change" in that country.

The new draft resolution follows weeks of negotiations with the other three permanent members of the Security Council, China, Russia and France, and particularly with the latter two countries, which had refused to accept an earlier draft resolution which was clearly designed as a provocation, attempted to rob Iraq of its sovereignty and which would have been impossible for any government to accept. Britain and the US have been working closely together to cajole the other members of the Security Council to accept the new draft resolution, although there are reports that both Russia and France still have reservations. Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov stated that it was "vital that the new resolution contain no automatic mechanism for using force", wile the French president is reported to have called for the removal of certain "ambiguities" to make sure that there would be no automatic use of force against Iraq if it broke the terms of the resolution.

However it is clear that the new resolution only slightly differs from the original Anglo-American proposals. The new draft specifies that Iraq must, within 30 days, provide details of almost its entire defence programme including "chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other delivery systems…including any which it claims are for purposes not related to weapon production or material". Failure to comply or any "omissions" could lead to military action against Iraq. The government of Iraq must also supply the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with "immediate, unimpeded, unconditional and unrestricted access" to any area or person they wish to inspect or interview. Such interviews may be conducted anywhere, inside or outside of Iraq. UNMOVIC and IAEA will have the right to establish "exclusion zones" anywhere in Iraq and the right to destroy any materials and close any facilities they wish. Iraq is required to agree to this gross violation of its sovereignty within seven days of the resolution being passed.

Once again this resolution is a direct provocation to the government of Iraq, which it will find almost impossible to accept. Despite the protestations of Britain and the US that their aims are entirely peaceful, it is clear that this is a recipe for greater international tension and war. The terms of the new resolution require the UN Security Council to meet "in order to consider the situation and the need for full compliance with all the relevant Security Council resolutions in order to restore international peace and security", but it requires nothing more. If passed, it contains "no automatic mechanism for using force" but as it threatens that Iraq will "face serious consequences" for any "violations of its obligations", it provides the Anglo-US warmongers with ample justification for a future war against Iraq.

Speaking in support of this "tough new resolution" the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, again asserted that "the credible threat of force" was entirely justified. He said he would not rule out Britain and the US acting alone to, as he put it, "deal effectively with the defiance by Saddam Hussein of international law". Such sabre-rattling shows that it is Britain and the US who have no regard for international law, nor for the UN and its charter, which they ignore completely if it is in their interests to do so. It also flies in the face of increasing world-wide opposition to their warmongering both inside and outside the UN. But for Britain, the US and the other big powers "might is right" and bullying and the use of force has now been established as means to conduct international affairs and to resolve their growing rivalry and contention throughout the world.

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi and his Syrian counterpart, Farouq al-Shara, reiterated their countries' opposition to any attack on Iraq during a telephone conversation on Tuesday.

According to a statement released by Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) they also called for a peaceful solution of the Iraqi crisis within the framework of the United Nations.

The head of the Arab League also said on Tuesday that a US-led attack on Iraq would further destabilise the Middle East and aggravate Arab anger over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Amr Moussa, Secretary General of the 22-member organisation, told Reuters in an interview that an attack on Iraq "would open all negative possibilities", including more terrorism.

He said the whole Arab world was angry and frustrated over Israel's actions. An attack on Iraq in support of the declared US policy of regime change would be a "double negative". "You will have instability in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, as we have instability around the Arab-Israeli conflict. It will add to the negative aspects of the situation. It will add to the frustration, to the anger, to the agitation in the region."

Osama al-Baz, a top adviser to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, agreed in a separate interview that anger over any attack on Iraq "is definitely going to be translated into acts of violence and unruly expressions in many Arab countries".

He said Iraq posed no threat to regional security and had not threatened any country since the 1991 Persian Gulf War. "Many Arabs and Muslims outside the Arab world and other nations in the Third World might believe rightly or mistakenly that the United States is targeting Arabs and Muslims for disciplinary action while ignoring altogether Israel's obnoxious behaviour towards Palestinians and its other neighbours."

Such sentiments show both the reactionary character of the plan to attack Iraq and its danger in bringing about a conflagration in the Middle East as the Bush administration supported by the British government pursues its "New World Order". They also demonstrate how isolated are Bush and Blair in pushing through this programme, the difficulties they face, and the opportunities for the people in continuing to build a movement against aggression and for the alternative.

In the situation where US imperialism and the British government have declared that the "war against terrorism" takes precedence over all the world's problems, they have taken the lead in utilising this as a pretext for legislation which does violence to the right to conscience, criminalises dissent, and singles out certain minorities such as so-called "asylum seekers" as the spearhead for attacking the rights of all.

In this context, a UN special envoy expressed concern on Tuesday that a growing number of countries around the world were adopting post-September 11 anti-terrorism strategies that threatened basic human rights.

"The list is growing every day," said Hina Jilani, the special representative for UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on human rights defenders. "Threats to security must be eliminated through the rule of law rather than outside it," Reuters quoted her as telling a news conference after briefing the 191-nation General Assembly.

The United States, Britain, Australia, Indonesia, Colombia and Guatemala were among the countries that concerned her because of anti-terrorism laws and actions taken after the September 11, 2001, attacks that killed about 3,000 people in the United States, she said.

While anti-terror strategies varied from country to country, some threatened human rights champions and their families while others undermined independence movements, asylum-seekers, political activists or opposition parties and movements, she said.

In some countries, which she declined to name, "It has been very easy for governments to target the opposition by labelling them as terrorists," she said.

"In Africa, in Latin America, in the Middle East, in Asia – there is not a single region where countries are not fast joining the rank of those who are adopting anti-terrorist legislation," she said.

While she understood governments' need to protect their citizens from terror attacks, "I very firmly believe that the imperatives of security will not be served by violating human rights, and by undermining and derogating the standards that we have already adopted," she said.

The greatest onus of responsibility for this violence against human rights must go to those champions of state sponsored and organised terror and aggression, namely the administrations of George W Bush and Tony Blair. No matter how much they may protest they are acting for humanitarian reasons, they themselves are finding no alternative to such "anti-terror" laws.