Annan denies UN seeking to help US colonize
Iraq
Reuters | 3/24/03 | Irwin
Arieff
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Secretary-General Kofi Annan denied Monday angry charges from Baghdad that he was helping a U.S.-led coalition colonize Iraq, insisting he wanted only to get aid to needy war victims as soon as possible.
"I think I can understand the anger, the frustration," Annan told reporters. "But of course, I am doing my work as secretary-general."
"The U.N. or I have no interest in becoming a high commissioner, and it is ironic that as a former colonial subject, I will be accused of being a colonialist," said Annan, who was living in his native Ghana when it won independence from Britain in March 1957.
Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan told a news conference in Baghdad Sunday that Annan was "following the orders of his U.S. masters" by withdrawing U.N. weapons inspectors ahead of the war.
And Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Aldouri said in New York on Friday that Annan's plans to revamp the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq had been dictated by the United States and Britain to turn the region "into colonies under the control of the world American and Zionist oil Mafia."
Annan said he was working with the U.N. Security Council to revise oil-for-food to assure aid could resume flowing to the Iraqi people as soon as possible despite the war.
And he said he had been obliged to pull out U.N. aid workers and peacekeepers monitoring the Iraq-Kuwait border as well as weapons inspectors to assure their safety after the United States and Britain informed him war was imminent.
U.N. WORKERS EAGER TO GO BACK IN
More than 60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people are entirely dependent on the oil-for-food program, which has been jointly administered by the United Nations and Iraq since 1996. U.N. officials estimate Iraqis have enough food at this time to meet immediate needs unless they are forced out of their homes.
The program allows Iraq to sell oil and use the proceeds to buy food and other civilian goods despite economic sanctions including an oil sales ban imposed after Baghdad's 1990 invasion of neighboring Kuwait.
"The U.N. workers were the last to leave. Quite a lot of governments had pulled out their diplomatic staff before we did because of the impending war," Annan said. "But as I have indicated, they will go back as soon as it is practicable."
As for the inspectors, withdrawn despite pleas from France, Germany, Russia and others that they be given more time to try to peacefully disarm Iraq, Annan said the Security Council believed their mandate had been only temporarily suspended.
The U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission "still has the responsibility for the disarmament of Iraq, and if the situation permits ... they will be expected to go back to Iraq and inspect," Annan said.
Washington said it was disarming Iraq by force to carry out Security Council
resolutions ordering it to rid itself of any biological, chemical or nuclear
weapons. Baghdad has denied having any such weapons.
