Discrimination and Protection

of Minorities

48th Session, item 6

Written Statement submitted by the Transnational Radical Party a non-government organization in consultative status (Category I)

"OIL-FOR-FOOD" vs. ASSYRIAN PROPERTY RIGHTS IN IRAQ *

1. Six years of an effectively applied economic boycott could not fail to take its toll, even if its authors carefully sought to cushion the effects of the UN sanctions regime for the Iraqi population in that they exempted from the beginning food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies. These programs in favor of the Iraqi people (and the way they were handled) developed a dynamic of their own with some unforeseen consequences. The longer the sanctions lasted and produced ever graver effects on Iraq's inhabitants and social fabric, the more effective aid grew into a humanitarian, moral and political imperative. In light of the growing donor fatigue- due to the increasing needs created by natural and man-made disasters taxing the world community's relief resources- it was also indispensable to devise ways and means for financing these humanitarian aid programs for Iraq without reliance on already burdened foreign taxpayers.

2. Accordingly, the United Nations Security Council adopted successively improved ""oil-for-food"" resolutions SCR 706, 712 and 986, providing notably for covering the external costs of related humanitarian aid programs.(1) Thereby, an old and unsettled question, i.e. "Who owns Iraq's oil?", seems to have been overlooked, if not prejudiced without due process - at the expense of the "internationally protected" Assyrian (2), Kurdish, Turkoman and other landowners, and in favor of the Iraqi State. Alternatively, being alerted to this delicate legal problem by way of an internal UN memorandum dated April 1992, the authors of said resolutions seem to have not only recognized the pitfalls but left it to the courts to finally settle eventual claims. For SCR 986 provides immunity against seizure only while "petroleum or petroleum products", or proceeds from it, are "under Iraqi title", suggesting that the Iraqi State, in the event, would have to carry the burden of proof that it has good title for the petroleum re

sources located in Iraqi territory, i.e. that it obtained these rights with due process and in line with Iraq's international obligations.

3. In 1932, when the League of Nations carved Iraq out of the remains of the Ottoman Empire, Iraq incurred permanently binding international minority protection obligations which were supposed to protect also the Assyrians. These freely accepted obligations cover not only such specific human rights as freedom of practicing the Assyrian's Christian beliefs, language privileges and preferential employment stipulations but, most importantly, the obligation of the Iraqi State to respect the land ownership and other private property as it existed prior to Iraq's independence.(3) Some of these rights and special privileges concern in particular the Northern part of Iraq, called the Mosul Villayet which was conditionally attached to the Kingdom of Iraq in 1925 (4). Iraq thus incurred international obligations which it could not alter unilaterally, and from which it could be relieved only by the League of Nations or, in the event, by the United Nations acting as the League's successor in accordance with UN General

Assembly resolution 24 (I) of 12 February 1946.

4. The conditions under which Iraq obtained the Independence have never been altered. The circumstances which gave rise to these international minority protection and other conditions have essentially remained. According to testimony published by the UN Human Rights Commission's Special Rapporteur on Iraq, past and present human rights conditions in Iraq have provided no justification for abrogating any of Iraq's related international obligations (e.g. E/CN.4/1993/45, 89-126; E/CN.4/1995/138, p.8). Iraq's constitutive international obligations, too have thus remained fully binding (E/CN.4/367/Add.1), in as much as the ruling on South-West Africa, handed down by the International Court of Justice, by analogy, applies to Iraq:

"These obligations represent the very essence of the sacred trust of civilization. Their raison d'etre and original object remain. Sincetheir fulfillment do not depend on the existence of the League ofNations, they could not be brought to an end merely because this supervisory organ (i.e. the Council of the League of Nations) cease to exist. Nor could the right of the population to have the Territory

administered in accordance with these rules depend thereon."

(ICJ Reports, 1950, p.133).

5. In the above-mentioned internal UN memorandum of April 1992, these legal elements are summed up as follows:

With regard to the oil ownership question, these documents provide a prima facia ownership case in favor of some Turkish citizens and Kurdish tribes in whose ancestral lands the largest oil field, in Kirkuk, is situated. Accordingly, the seizure protection wording of Resolution 712, paragraph 5, may not stand in a tribunal. It is thus advisable to execute Resolutions 706 and 712 either exclusively on the basis of oil pumped from uncontested Iraqi fields not in the Mosul Vilayet area or on the basis of corresponding agreements with

the Turkish Government and the involved Kurdish tribes."

6. In addition to the Turkish and Kurdish landowners, the Assyrian community - whose diaspora has a strong foothold in the American economic and political scene - is known to have also significant land claims not only in the Mosul Vilayet but all over Iraq. In this light, serious legal challenges to the UN's "oil-for-food" program are conceivable. Those UN

department which are financially dependent on a smooth implementation and operation of SCR 986 no less than those concerned about the humanitarian fate of the people in either the government - or the Kurdish-controlled part of Iraq would thus be well advised to prepare for alternative solutions. This seems to be the more indicated as SCR 986 can be seen:

1. as a new source of economic and political power, and thus as a direct cause for further infighting between those who have essentially lost the confidence of the people yet continue to be supported by out-side forces for "governing" Iraq's non-government-controlled Norther Governorates;

2. as a bail out of the cash-short United Nations;

3. as a formal UN-sponsored transfer of title to the Mosul Vilayet's oil resources from the present, internationally protected Assyrian,Kurdis and Turkoman landowners to the Iraqi State without consultation, compensation or due process; and

4. as being incompatible with the U.S. Constitution in as much as it would deprive U.S. citizens to seek protection for their property rights from a U.S. Court.

7. In contrast, if the landownership rights in the Mosul Vilayet in particular would be respected by all concerned, significant opportunities for effectively safeguarding and promoting human rights in the Nosul Vilayet and beyond could quickly be turned into reality. Inspired by the positive experiences made by the United Nations with interim administrations in Cambodia, Eastern Slavonia and elsewhere, corresponding steps are called of to be taken in and outside of the UN System by the appropriate bodies

(E/CN.4/1994/NGO/48; E/CN.4/1995/NGO/52).

8. Most urgently, the power to distribute humanitarian aid must not be left in the hands of those who no longer have the confidence of the people. In order to provide the necessary de-mining, rebuilding and other services, including the equitable distribution of humanitarian aid, it has become indispensable to replace the present power structure in the Mosul Vilayet with an interim administration which is to be militarily supported by the Allies and which is also acceptable for the neighboring people and governments.

9. This sanctions-free and self-financed interim administration must adequately reflect Middle Est customs and traditions, and it must ensure freedom, liberty and justice for all. As such, it would have to provide the necessary services and security, giving the local inhabitants the opportunity to effectively pursue the reconstruction of their villages churches and homes, and ensuring their civil, human, and property rights. Authorized to develop the local resources and to trade freely, the necessary financial means would no longer depend on ever scarcer taxpayer money. Thus, these resources could finally become a source of regional stability, security and economic well being.

* Prepared in cooperation with John Nimrod, former U.S. Senator and Secretary-General, Assyrian Universal Alliance (7055 North Clark Street, Chicago, II. 6062, U.S.A.;

t:1312-2749262, f:1312-2745866) and the CORUM Research Group (box 2580, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland, f:4122-7338671)

Footnotes:

(1) In addition to various UN administrative costs and compensations payments for damages incurred in the course

of Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.

(2) Assyria is not to be confounded with Syria, even though the Assyrian Empire of some 4000 years ago did indeed embrace all of what is now modern Syria - and much more Assyria was destroyed as a political system in 612 BC but not as a nation, not as a race and not as a language. However, there are definite and continuous traces of Assyrians throughout history since 612 BC. They were among the first to embrace Christianity in the first century AD, and as a consequence they have suffered persecution and massacres. During the First World War they were invited by Great Britain as an ally, helped win a decisive battle against the Ottoman Empire and were caused to loose two third of their population in that war. The British had promised the Assyrians Independence, autonomy and a home for all Assyrians. Instead the British mandate in Iraq was terminated and the Assyrians were released to the Iraqi Government, covered by the international minority protection guarantees written into the Declaration of the Kingdom

of Iraq of 30 May 1932. Since then Iraq has failed to comply with most articles of its still binding 1932 Declaration (see also: E/CN.4/1995/NGO/52). In particular, Iraq has violated article 14 (covering land ownership rights), and it ignored special rights and privileges that were accorded to the inhabitants of the Mosul Vilayet which, in 1925, were placed under the conditional and limited authority of the Kingdom of Iraq.

(3) Declaration of the Kingdom of Iraq of 30 May 1932, article 14 (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/NGO/27).

(4) To the South, the Mosul Vilayet borders on Iraq's Baghdad Vilayet, to the West on Syria, to the North on Turkey and to the East on Iran. It includes the Dial District as defined in the League of Nations inquiry of 1925. According to the last available census (1920), its surface is 91009 Km , and its inhabitants were 579713 Sunnites, 22180, Shiites, 14835 Jews and 55470 Christians, i.e. mostly Assyrians (Report by HM's Government to the League Council on the Administration of Iraq for the year 1929, p.71).