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IRAQ: Relief Agencies Wary of Returning

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 14 2003 (IPS) - The United Nations and some major international relief agencies say they have no immediate plans to return to Iraq despite a U.S. decision to accelerate the transfer of political power to Iraqis.

Nathaniel Raymond of Oxfam America told IPS on Friday that his agency’s relief operations continue to be thwarted by the deteriorating security situation in the occupied country.

Asked when Oxfam America would return to Baghdad, he said: ”your guess is as good as mine”.

Raymond said his organisation now has about 50 local staff in the country’s south but no one in Baghdad. A full return, he said, would depend primarily on improved security.

Oxfam America – like most international relief agencies such as Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) – has withdrawn all its international staff from Iraq and relocated them in neighbouring Jordan.

Without international staff, Raymond said, his organisation has been forced to decrease the scope of its humanitarian operations in Iraq.

”Unfortunately, the ultimate losers are the average Iraqis,” he said, adding that international relief bodies and U.N. agencies like the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) mostly provided health care to women and children.

The United Nations, which has withdrawn virtually all of its international staff – numbering over 500 – also has no plans to return to Baghdad until security improves.

U.S. President George W. Bush announced Thursday there will be a gradual transfer of power to Iraqis sooner than originally planned primarily because of the escalating violence against U.S. military forces in Iraq.

Iraqis are capable of running their country, Bush said, ”and the sooner that sovereignty is handed over in a way commensurate with a stable country, the better off it is”.

Asked if that decision would influence the return of international staff, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters Thursday: ”I think that is primarily a security issue.”

”I think the secretary-general (Kofi Annan) would be more willing to consider sending his people back in”, he added, ”should there be an improvement in security as a result of a change of approach by the United States”.

Eckhard said the U.N. Security Council has given the United Nations a key U.N. role in humanitarian operations. ”But the security situation there does not, at the moment, permit us to move aggressively to implement that mandate,” he added.

Annan’s primary responsibility, said Eckhard, is the security of his staff throughout the world. ”And therefore, he affirms his right to put people in or take people out according to his assessment of the security situation.”

The bombings of the U.N. compound in Baghdad in August and September – twice in less than six weeks – forced Annan to withdraw his international staff in late October over U.S. objections.

The first suicide bombing on Aug. 19 claimed the lives of 22 staffers, including Under-Secretary-General Sergio Vieira de Mello, who headed U.N. operations in Iraq. At least 150 others were injured in the attack, many severely.

The second attack took place Sep. 22, unnerving U.N. employees further. An attack on the ICRC in October claimed the lives of over 20, mostly Iraqis.

Following the U.N. bombings, two senior U.N. officials, Ramiro Lopes da Silva, acting special representative of Annan in Iraq, and Tun Myat, U.N. security coordinator, stepped down in early November.

Annan has also established a four-member team to determine accountability for U.N. security at all managerial levels, both at headquarters and in the field.

Currently, U.N. agencies are operating with about 4,000 local staff scattered throughout the country. But these staffers – mostly Iraqis – do not enjoy the high salaries and perks given to international employees.

The U.N.’s administrative and budgetary committee is currently debating a proposal to increase hazard pay for local staff to 30 percent of the midpoint of the local salary scale.

The increase was recommended by the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC), whose 15 independent experts are responsible for the regulation and coordination of conditions of service within the U.N. system.

But U.S. delegate Liz Nakian told the budgetary committee last week that increasing hazard pay for locally recruited staff was not the most appropriate approach to dealing with hazardous working conditions.

”Instead, the United Nations should focus its resources on improving the overall security of U.N. personnel,” she said.

But China’s delegate Hao Bin told the committee that hazard pay was both ”equitable and appropriate”.

At some duty stations, he said, living conditions were harsh and security was inadequate. ”Granting some compensation to staff members who worked there, in addition to salary, would provide recognition of the sacrifice they made in their service to the United Nations.”