Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 19, 1993 TAG: 9312190083
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS LENGTH: Medium
While the leaders of those countries are responsible for the actions that led to the embargoes, it is common citizens who suffer the most. United Nations members are paying more than $800 million a year to ease the pain sanctions cause poor and vulnerable groups in those countries.
The countries that traded most with Yugoslavia and Iraq, including Turkey and Jordan and struggling East European nations like Hungary and Romania, say the Security Council's actions cost them billions of dollars of income for which they receive no compensation.
"Sanctions may be the best weapon the Security Council has, but they are a blunt weapon that punishes people who aren't to blame," Jan Eliasson, the U.N. aid coordinator, said at a recent conference at Princeton University.
Many participants at the conference said isolating Belgrade and Baghdad economically had not yielded many political dividends, and the military rulers of Haiti have refuse to yield power despite an oil embargo.
President Saddam Hussein of Iraq is slowly complying with the terms of the cease-fire that ended the Persian Gulf War. But he continues to oppress Kurds, Shiites and other dissidents, diplomats say. In Belgrade, President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia says he wants to end the Balkan war, but he apparently lacks the will or ability to do so.
The Security Council has imposed trade embargoes on Iraq and Yugoslavia, banned oil deliveries to Haiti and the Angolan rebel movement, as well as arms sales to South Africa, Somalia, Angola and Mozambique. In each case, the council set up a committee of all 15 council members to oversee the embargo and consider exemptions.
A second category of requests covers other aid, such as spare parts, clothing, soap and school equipment. These requests are circulated to committee members and automatically approved if no one objects by a set date.
Some requests require a positive decision. Recently, Belgrade was allowed to import new fire trucks.
But the committee blocked sales of Russian natural gas for winter heating, telling the Serbian government to switch supplies from industry and the military instead, though it allows the United Nations to give fuel to some hospitals and orphanages without supplies.
But delays are common, frustrating those trying to help. Some delays are caused by a staff shortage. There are only nine U.N. officials assigned to help the sanctions committees. And the committees cannot meet when the Security Council is in session because they use the same interpreters.
While the Security Council enforces its sanctions against recalcitrant governments, relief agencies are busy picking up the pieces, appealing for money to lessen the impact on ordinary people.
The embargoes against Iraq and Yugoslavia have had similar effects: Prices soar as goods become scarce, and hyperinflation results as the government prints worthless notes to pay workers who produce less and less.
In Baghdad, where a chicken costs 75 dinars, some monthly pensions are less than 100 dinars. The Serbian government says average annual incomes have fallen from the equivalent of $3,000 before sanctions to between $200 and $250 today.
In Serbia and Montenegro, the two republics that did not leave the Yugoslav federation, the United Nations is spending about $130 million to help those affected by the sanctions.
by CNB