March 28, 2003	Friday	Muharram 24, 1424

GENEVA, March 27: The United Nations on Thursday rejected a call by eight countries including Russia and Syria to examine the human rights and humanitarian situation in Iraq as a result of war.

An Iraqi delegate to the UN Commission on Human Rights immediately condemned the decision, saying it was a “dark day” for the organisation because Iraqis were “suffering psychological torture”.

The 53-state forum is holding its annual six-week session in Geneva as US-led forces push ahead in their week-old invasion of Iraq.

The eight members, which also included Malaysia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Algeria, Burkina Faso and Libya, had called for a special sitting of the committee on “the human rights and humanitarian situation in Iraq as a consequence of the war”.

Western countries, including Australia, Canada and Ireland on behalf of the EU, opposed the call, saying the UN Security Council was already addressing the issue.

Neither the US nor British envoys took the floor during the nearly three-hour debate.

Iraqi delegate Dari K. Mahmood said after the vote: “This commission has lived today a dark day when it refused to discuss the important issue of the humanitarian situation in Iraq under military aggression.

“The whole Iraqi people is subjected to genocide,” he added. “Twenty-six million people are suffering psychological torture.”

Over the last decade, the Commission has held special sessions during conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda, East Timor and the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel.

“THROWBACK TO MIDDLE AGES”: The result was 18 countries, including all Arab and Muslim states, in favour, 25 against, with seven abstentions and three delegations absent during the public vote, officials said.

Introducing the resolution, Syria’s envoy Salloum Toufiq denounced the US and British invasion as a “throwback to the Middle Ages” depriving civilians of water and food.

“We were told that this would be a clean war, that it would not affect civilians. That is not true,” he said.

“We were told it was intended to come to the aid of Iraqi people. All they have been offered is bombs... There are a number of dead and wounded among civilians in Iraq. How can we not react?” the envoy added.

The US delegation, led by former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, and the British delegation voted against the session — as did France, which is fiercely opposed to the war.

China, which had formed a Security Council alliance with Russia and France to block UN backing for the military assault, supported the call for a special sitting.

Speaking on behalf of the EU, Ireland argued that no special sitting was needed because the commission was already due to examine Iraq as part of its annual scrutiny of individual countries’ rights records.

The Geneva-based commission has regularly condemned the Iraqi government of President Saddam Hussein for rights abuses.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello said: “We must also remember that the human rights crisis in Iraq did not begin a week ago. The human rights of the Iraqi people have been violated for many years, as has been abundantly documented.”

He reminded Iraqi and coalition forces that they must “never direct attacks against the civilian population or civilian objects, even if the purpose is to strike at a military target”.

In a statement, Amnesty International urged the commission to still hold a “thorough discussion” on Iraq.

The London-based group called for widening the mandate of Andreas Mavrommatis, UN special investigator on Iraq, to also cover violations committed “by any party in Iraqi territory”.

Mavrommatis is due to address the Commission on Monday.

CONDEMNATION: Most speakers in a public session of the UN Security Council on Wednesday condemned the US-led war on Iraq, noting that it was not authorized by the council and likely to cause a humanitarian disaster.

“We call upon you to put an end to this war and to call for the immediate withdrawal of invading forces,” the Arab League’s representative to the United Nations, Yahya Mahmassani, said.

“The credibility of the council, the credibility of the whole international system, is collapsing under the bombing of Basra and Baghdad,” he warned.

The meeting, the council’s first on Iraq since the war began, was called at the request of the Arab League and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

Speaking on behalf of the NAM, Malaysian deputy ambassador Yahya Zainuddin said the US government’s assertion of the right to pre-emptive action “is not acceptable and threatens the basis of the international law.”

Iranian ambassador Javad Zarif dismissed the implicit claim in the military code-name Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein.

“Democracy is not something that can be imposed by tanks and helicopter gunships,” Zarif said.—Reuters/AFP