Responding to Baghdad charges, head of UN Iraq Programme defends its work

Responding to charges put forward by Baghdad, the Executive Director of the United Nations Iraq Programme has defended its record on humanitarian issues.

"I feel obliged to make this statement because I do not wish our silence to be misinterpreted as a reflection of our agreement with what was stated recently," Benon Sevan said on Thursday in an address to the Security Council committee which monitors the sanctions against Iraq. His comments came in response to a speech by Riyadh Al-Qaysi, the Under-Secretary-General of Foreign Affairs of Iraq, during a Security Council meeting on 28 June.

"I owe it to all my colleagues, both at Headquarters and in particular to those in the field, who have been carrying out the tasks entrusted to them in implementing the mandates set forth by the Security Council, under very difficult conditions and often with personal sacrifice," he said. "Some of my colleagues have made the ultimate sacrifice in losing their lives while working with the humanitarian programme, the objective of which is to serve the Iraqi people."

Mr. Sevan detailed the Programme's accomplishments as well as the obstacles it has faced in such areas as banking arrangements, the processing of applications for humanitarian contracts, payment to contractors, and programme implementation. "My colleagues and I, as international civil servants, have been carrying out all the tasks entrusted to us in full compliance with the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)," he said, referring to the legal agreement between the UN and Iraq on the humanitarian "oil-for-food" programme. The MOU, he stressed, "should be fully complied with by both parties."

Recounting some of the difficulties caused by Iraqi actions, Mr. Sevan said, "on the one hand we are denied the essential means and the tools to implement the programme effectively and on the other, we are accused of failure to implement the programme effectively."

In carrying out its work, the Iraq Programme is "inevitably caught between various parties," he said, adding that no effort has been spared "in ensuring that those of us involved in the implementation of the programme observe fully the parameters governing the humanitarian programme, in full compliance with the relevant resolutions of the Security Council and the Memorandum of Understanding."