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| Sunday, 9 November 2003 |
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Features |  |
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Iraq should have its own government - Sri Lanka's top diplomat Jayantha Dhanapala Interviewed by ASIFF HUSSEIN
He served in Sri Lanka's foreign service from 1965-1997 and held diplomatic appointments in London, Beijing and New Delhi before being appointed Sri Lanka's Ambassador to the US from 1995 until his retirement from the foreign service in 1997. Mr. Dhanapala has represented his country at the United Nations General Assembly and at many NAM and Commonwealth conferences. He has also chaired many international meetings including the widely acclaimed 1995 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference that permanently extended the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty designed to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. He was appointed Under-Secretary General for Disarmament Affairs in the United Nations from 1998-2003 and served as Commissioner in UNSCOM and the Head of the Special Group which visited the presidential sites of Iraq in 1998. Q: You led the Special Group that inspected the Presidential sites of Iraq in 1998. Could you tell us about the visit and what you concluded from it ? A: Within a month of my assuming the post of Under-Secretary General for Disarmament, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan visited Iraq and signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Iraq in February 1998. The Iraqi authorities at the time were refusing to allow the UNSCOM and IAEA inspectors to go into the presidential sites and this was resolved by Annan's visit. I served as Commissioner of UNSCOM at the time and was asked to lead a group of diplomats who accompanied the inspectors to the presidential sites. My mandate was limited to the task of visiting the presidential sites which I did in April 1998 and submitted a report to the Security Council which was accepted. It however did not become necessary for me to go back to these sites because in any case UNSCOM withdrew from Iraq and were not allowed to go back. I subsequently helped formulate the policy that led to the re-establishment of a new mechanism called UNMOVIK which replaced UNSCOM and was led by Dr.Hans Blix. In the report submitted to the Security Council we made some observations on the way in which the Iraqi authorities conducted themselves as well as the way in which UNSCOM conducted itself and we made some recommendations. In some instances, we found the Iraqis very co-operative. They were however sensitive about the use of GPS or Global Positioning Equipment by UNSCOM inspectors which they felt was likely to be misused because of the fact that it might have given targeting information for the US. The other sensitive issue was the use of helicopters. The UN asserted the right to use helicopters in the surveillence of the sites that were being inspected as it wanted to ensure that there were no trucks that moved material out through one side or the other and this was a very sensitive area as the Iraqi authorities felt it was undermining their sovereignty and disrespectful to their presidential sites. Q: Do you think that the Iraqis actually concealed their weapons or did they destroy them? A: UNSCOM first went into Iraq in 1991 as a result of Security Council Resolution 687. The team was led by Rolf Ekuus, an outstanding Swedish diplomat. It is uncontestable that at the time Iraq did have a secret nuclear weapons development programme as well as chemical and biological weapons. THe UNSCOM-IAEA joint-action team backed by the Security Council Resolution were able to destroy the weapons that existed then and were fairly confident that between 1991 to about 1998 they had successfully eliminated Iraq's nuclear weapon development programme. They were however of the view that constant monitoring would be necessary to ensure that such weapons were not re-developed. What happened then was that with the absence of inspectors from 1998 December to the end of last year, nobody knew what had happened in Iraq. It was quite conceivable that the nuclear weapons programme might have re-commenced. That was why it was so important for UNMOVIK to go in. Unforunately, the Iraqi regime prevented them from doing so which in turn led to much suspicion resulting in the intelligence agencies of certain western states portraying the situation as being a very dire one. Hans Blix and his team were subsequently allowed to go in and were in the process of implementing the resolutions of the UN beginning from November last year and needed more time when the US and UK decided to unilaterally invade Iraq. The US and UK may have had some intelligence with regard to Iraq's weapons, but that intelligence has not proved accurate because it is now several months since the invasion took place and we still do not have a 'smoking gun' to use the expression common in the US, which is to say we do not have concrete evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There is some speculation in the US press that Saddam Hussein may have sent his weapons of mass destruction out of the country, but this would not have been possible without being detected. Today, verification techniques via satellites are so sophisticated that one could easily detect the movement of vehicles on a mass scale and we did not have any reports of that. The more credible speculation and one with which I might agree is that of Dr. Hans Blix who has gone on record as saying that it was possible that Saddam Hussein was engaging in a dangerous game of bluff. He may have wanted the world to think that he had weapons of mass destruction hoping that it would deter his enemies from attacking him. But his bluff was called. If only Iraq had co-operated with the UN earlier, they would have avoided the invasion and of course the hardships visited on their own people by way of the prolonged UN sanctions. Sanctions are a blunt instrument. It affected the people of Iraq and not the regime and did not result in any change of policy. The oil-for-food programme however helped alleviate the harshness of the sanctions. There were of course restrictions with regard to what could be imported such as the prohibition on dual-use goods. There were mistakes made, but these were not mistakes on the part of the UN Secretariat, but rather political decisions taken by the Security Council which the UN had no alternative but to implement. It is however very unfortunate that the Iraqi people had to suffer. Q: Since the invasion has taken place, what role do you feel the UN could play now? A: The last resolution adopted by the Security Council following an earlier resolution this year has given the UN an expanded role. The UN Secretary-General's special representative Sergio De Mello was unfortunately killed in a bomb attack and an acting representative also from Brazil was appointed in his place. However the security situation in Iraq is fast deteriorating and the Secretary-General has been constrained to withdraw UN personnel, so that they are no longer in Iraq. The UN's role in Iraq is increasingly fraught with danger and this is a very serious situation. Secondly, the oil-for-food programme has to wind down and will be taken over by the occupying authorities. The UN will relinquish its responsibility even with regard to oil for food. The UN therefore is not in a position to play any role whatsoever. Q: What do you think is the role Sri Lanka can play in this connection? A: Clearly, we have to support the Secretary-General in his call upon the coalition forces to restore sovereignty to the Iraqi people as soon as possible. We are a country that has been under foreign rule ourselves. Even if a nation has been under a deictatorship, they still desire to have self-government rather than being subject to foreign rule. One can only hope that the Iraqis will soon be empowered to have their own government and be in control of their own affairs. Secondly, the Iraqis must have ownership of their own resources, particularly their oil resources which they should be allowed to use for their own benefit. |
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| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
Jayantha Dhanapala is Sri Lanka's seniormost diplomat in the UN. He is
a career diplomat by profession with extensive arms control experience.
