Economic and Social Council
17 July 95    Aggression and Human Rights: Ethiopia 1935, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Iraq 1995 -
         Will "Great Power" Complicity Undo the UN like it Destroyed the League of Nations?

UN Secretary General
26 April 95  UN actions favoring the Iraqi regime on the back of Kurdish rights & interests
14 Feb 96   Budgetary Relief - Independent of Eventual Implementation of SCR 986
27 April 03  Amsterdam Resolution adopted by the Assyrian Amsterdam Conference, *)
31 July, 10 August 06 Political Catalysts for Global Mideastern Package
9 Aug 06   Exit Pathway Indicators on Current Mideastern Conflicts
19 Aug 06   Si vis pacem para bellum!

Commission on Human Rights
10 Feb 95   Realization of Economic, Social & Cultural Rights of the Yezidi, J.B.Daud Baghistani
14 Feb 95   On the way to Mutually Beneficial New Horizons in the Middle East, Bianca Baghistani
16 Feb 95   Torture in Iraq (testimony), J.B.Daud Baghistani
27 Feb 95   Improving the Effectiveness of the Commission's Work, J.A.Keller
1 Mar 95   Towards a Europe-linked Referendum in Former Yugoslavia
2 Mar 95   Beyond Responsibility, Co-Responsibility and Guilt on Former Yugoslavia
3 Mar 95   Human Rights Situation in Iraq and in the Mosul Vilayet

Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination & Protection of Minorities
3 Aug 95   Hostage-Takings Are Not Helpful to Kashmir Cause
4 Aug 95   Towards a United States of Abraham in the Middle East, David Littman
7 Aug 95   Systematically Violated Minority Protection Obligations & Guarantees in Iraq
         (testimony), Sheik Adnan Othman Barzani
11 Aug 85   Vivant Sequentes: Let Them Live, Learn and Prosper (testimony), Hadi Baghistani
11 Aug 95   A European Solution to Turkey's Minority Problems
14 Aug 95   Christians as a Religious Minority in Iran (testimony), Father N.A.G. Topouzian
14 Aug 95   Recognizing the Rights & Legitimate Aspirations of all Peoples of Former Yugoslavia
16 août 95  Vers une véritable jouissance des droits économiques, sociaux et culturels,
    notamment par la jeunesse Algérienne (testimony), Said Lahlali
23 Aug 95   Promoting Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples, J.A.Keller
24 Aug 95   Religious Liberty versus Religious Cleansing & Genocide, David Littman
8 Aug 96   A Pathway to Human Rights for Northern Iraq, Senator John Nimrod, **)
8 Aug 96   "OIL-FOR-FOOD" vs. ASSYRIAN PROPERTY RIGHTS IN IRAQ, **)

Commission on Human Rights - Working Group on Minorities - others
30 Aug 95   Evolution of the Term Minorities; Validity & Usefulness of Minority Protection Treaties, J.A.Keller
15 June 05   Quo Vadis Europa Helvetica?
16 May 06   Harvard & other impulses for unlocking the U.S./Iran nuclear gridlock, Philip Wainwright et al.
26 June 07   Edouard Brunner, MPD (Master of Parallel Diplomacy), obituary, Anton Keller
13 July 07   Rebirth of the Mosul Vilayet?, Ekopolitik, Anton Keller
9 Nov 07    Mosul Vilayet: a Pathway Out of Mideastern Gridlocks, Today's Zaman, Anton Keller
*)    developed in cooperation with the Mosul Vilayet Council
**)    submitted jointly by Transnational Radical Party & Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers

NGOs in consultative status with ECOSOC, 25 July 2005, p.27
official I.C.E.S.C. profile
(http://www.un.org/esa/coordination/ngo/pdf/INF_List.pdf ¦ http://esa.un.org/coordination/ngo/activities/activities.asp?OrgID=308&Mode=view ¦ http://esa.un.org/coordination/ngo/search/DisplayOrgInfo.asp?OrgID=308)

YEARBOOK OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 1995/1996
Edited by Union of International Organizations            entry #06695

International Committee for European Security and Cooperation (ICESC)
Comité International pour la Sécurité et la Coopération Européennes (CISCE)
Internationaal Comite voor Europese Veiikjheid en Samenwerking (ICEVS)
Contact: [cp. 2580, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland - t+f: +4122-7400362, swissbit@solami.com]

Founded 12 May 1968, Brussels, at First Advisory Meeting. First European Conference: 29 Nov - 1 Dec 1969. Vienna: First Assembly of Representatives of Public Opinion: 2-5 June 1972. Brussels. Also referred to as: European Security and Cooperation — Sécurité et coopération européennes.
Aims Permit public opinion to express options and claims concerning a system of European security and cooperation; ensure representation of this public opinion; promote and support actions based on such ground principles as renunciation of resort to force, inviolability of existing frontiers, non-intervention in domestic affairs, respect of national independence, equality in rights, sovereignty and territorial integrity of European States, respect of the right of peoples to self-determination, peaceful coexistence and good-neighbour policy.
Structure International Committee (meeting at least once a year): International Secretariat (meeting 4 times a year). Commissions (3): Cultural; Social and Economic; Human Rignts (all meeting once a year).
Languages English. French.
Staff Voluntary.
Finance Financed by national committees.
Consultative Status ECOSOC (#11719) (II); UNESCO (#11720) (C).
NGO Relations Member of NGO Committee on Disarmament (NGOCD, #09453).
Activities Meetings, seminars and scientific conferences on disarmament, European security and cooperation problems; exchange of information; cooperation with similar organisations. Supports the actions of the United Nations and the specialized agencies to consolidate peace and develop cooperation, especially in Europe.
Events Colloquium Berlin 1993, Paris 1994.
Publications Meeting reports and proceedings in English, French and German.
Members Committees or national groups in 22 countries: Canada, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Rep, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, [Iraq,] Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, UK.

[ICESC's 1995 contributions to UN Human Rights Commission: www.solami.com/ICESC.htm ¦ .../a32b.htm]

    Mr. Chairman, our decision-making body, the International Committee for European Security and Cooperation adopted last Friday a mandate to support in particular the case of a little known Kurdish religious community, i.e. the Yezidi. I may thus be permitted to try to illustrate briefly some aspects of the present situation and prospects of the Yezidi in particular with regard to their economic, social and cultural rights, as well as with regard to their right to development. Originally, all Kurds were Yezidi - until they were converted to Islam, which was mostly by force. After centuries of suppression by other peoples and regimes, there are still some 500'000 Yezidi living in Northern Irak, while most of the some 200'000 who lived in Turkey have by now emigrated as refugees to Western Europe. This compares to a total Kurdish population of some 35 millions, of which 18 millions live in Turkey, 8 in Iran, 6 in Iraq, 1,5 in Syria and 2 millions in Europe and North America. At a later stage in this session we intend to present testimony on systematic gross violations of human rights through State agents in some of these countries, including genocidal practices, and we plan to submit for your consideration some proposals for effective remedies.

    To begin with, I am myself a Yezidi, i.e. an adherent of a Zarathushtra branch of the tree of the great One God religions. From 1971 to 1973, I have served as mayor of a key Yezidi town, Sindjar, which is situated near Mosul in Northern Iraq. From 1975 to 1984 I was a political prisoner in the Abou Ghreb prison of Baghdad, but I do not now want to testify about the tortures I experienced there.

    This being said Mr.Chairman, I am also not about to grind other personal axes. Rather, I am quite aware of the responsibilities which come with wearing a hat of an NGO who has been at the forefront of political research, networking and leadership. Concretely, the ICESC has contributed to practical achievements, like the Helsinki Agreements. It is sponsoring a lawmaker effort to resolve the Yugoslav crisis [see its Written Statement under item 12 "Beyond Responsibility, Co-Responsibility and Guilt on Former Yugoslavia", E/CN.4/1995/NGO/51]. And in the case of the Yezidi, particularly with regard to their right to economic, cultural and social development, the ICESC is looking at them with a view to help resolve some of Europe's actual and/or future political, security and energy headaches at its South-Eastern flank.

    Indeed, the proven petroleum reserves in the area formerly inhabited by the Yezidi are among the biggest in the world. Accordingly, far-sighted politicians consider investing in related efforts as securing Europe's strategic oil reserves. Some oil companies and governments have thus sought to make special deals with the respective governments in place. However, they seem to have overlooked some fundamentals, such as developing a more solid answer to the question:

For art.1 al.2 of the Declaration on the Right to Development of 4 December 1986 provides that

     "The human right to development also implies the full realization of the right of peoples to self-determination, which includes ... the exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources."

    Mr.Chairman, this is the point were we would like the Commission and all related UN bodies and experts to reconsider their position on old and mostly forgotten legal texts from the League of Nations. Fortunately, the UN General Assembly, with its Resolution 24 (I) of 12 February 1946, provided for the transfer to the United Nations system of the related political powers and functions. Yet, it remains for the General Assembly to take the necessary steps, and we recommend this Commission to develop and adopt corresponding language. Indeed - and at least in as much as the Yezidi are concerned - the UN and national authorities involved may wish to draw inspiration from the international minority protection clauses inscribed in both the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the 1932 Declaration of the Kingdom of Iraq.

    In the case of Iraq this could provide an overdue way out - at least with regard to the humanitarian deadlock. A politically critical mass appears indeed to be shaping up in favor of a partial lifting of the sanctions on that part of the Mosul Vilayet which is no longer under the control of the Baghdad regime but is dependent on ever scarcer humanitarian relief paid by ever more overburdened Western taxpayers. In fact, already in November 1991, the former UN Special Unit for Iraq has agreed to such a differentiated approach by authorizing the demonstration of the technical feasibility to pump and refine oil for covering the local humanitarian needs. But so far, neither the Yezidi nor other internationally protected landowners have been able to arrange for the effective implementation of this formally recognized right to development. In the event, the Iraq/Turkey pipeline could be reopened under corresponding agreements. Properly arranged, this would not strengthen the hands of Saddam Hussein; instead it would benefit the sanctions-weary Iraqi people, notably the Assyrians, Kurds and Turkomans living in the liberated part of the Mosul Vilayet.

    Mr.Chairman, in the case of Turkey proper, it is less the Yezidi's landownership rights than their non-Muslim religion which avails itself for development. With fundamentalism a growing phenomen, it may be indicated for the Kurdish and the Yezidi leadership and for the Turkish Government to consider the international minority protection obligations Turkey incurred with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne as an opportunity to effectively strengthen the ranks of those opposed to an erosion of the laïc State. In return for their contribution to the stability of society and the State, the Yezidi could be recognized and effectively treated as the internationally protected minority which they are on paper - and should be in reality. Thank you, Mr.Chairman.

    Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the opportunity to address this Commission and to expand on matters which my colleague discussed last Friday under the angle of the right to development of one non-Muslim minority, namely the Kurdish Yezidi who still live in Iraq and Turkey (in order to clarify things, the term Yezidi refers to the disciples of the One God and Creater, who is called Chode).

    Today, I will focus on practises notably in these countries which are seen to be contrary to the stipulations contained in the UN General Assembly "Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief". Some of these practises are not limited to Yezidi but affect fundamental treaty and human rights notably of other non-Muslims, such as Alawis, Armenians, Assyrians, Copts, Chaldeans, Druses and the Zarathushtrians.

 So, let me begin by quoting from this UN Declaration. Its article 2 says:

     1.     No one shall be subject to discrimination by any State, institution, group of persons, or person on the grounds of religion or other belief.

     2.    For the purposes of the present Declaration, the expression "intolerance and discrimination based on religion or belief" means any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on religion or belief and having as its purpose or as its effect nullification or impairment of the recognition, enjoyment or exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms on an equal basis.

    In Turkey, under the leadership of visionary and courageous personalities, the ill-advised failed policies on the Yezidi Kurds in particular seem to be on the verge to radical changes. Under the growing menace of a take-over by Islamic fundamentalists, even hard-core nationalists have begun to question old clichés and convictions and to look at the Kurdish question more in terms of possible alliances and genuine partnerships. This process has been helped by commendable positions and policies of restraint by the Kurdish leadership. This concerns not only the formal humanitarian law where the Kurds are now pledged to honor the fundamental Geneva Conventions and the Additional Protocol. It also has to do with their positions vis-à-vis all religious faiths, including non-Muslim minorities, such as Yezidis and Alawis. Some time down the road, this can be expected to bring effective help to these beneficiaries of the international minority protection guarantees written into the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

    However, on the surface of things and for the time being, the noticeable developments still point in the opposite direction. As an illustration, consider the following. As you know, this Commission's Special Rapporteurs on the Situation of Human Rights in Iraq and on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Execution have yet to be allowed into either country for obtaining testimony on the spot. The Geneva Representative of the Mosul Vilayet Council (1) thus decided last autumn to avail his good offices in cooperation with friendly governments in order to bring witnesses and victims to the UN in Geneva for personal testimony. And while these on-going operations were successfully sabotaged by authorities in Istanbul, Damascus and even Amman on a number of cases, it is our privilege to convey to the Commission the following summary of the personal testimonies thus received from eyewitnesses and victims who made it to Geneva and who, in some cases, are available to give direct testimony to the Commission if it so wished. We bring this summary to your attention with all due care and reservations, and invite you to seriously consider what, if any, action to follow it up with.

     1.     In the government-controlled part of Iraq, the Yezidi, on religious grounds, are exposed to wide-spread, generalized and officially tolerated discrimination in the labor market, public offices and even in commerce (e.g. yoghourt produced by a Yezidi is shunned by Muslims).

     2.  In the government-controlled part of Iraq, some 300'000 Yezidi have been rounded up in seven concentration camps and are about to be "relocated" to unknown places.

     3.     Yezidi are being arbitrarily persecuted and depossessed of their property and real estate. Their wifes and daughters are being wantonly taken away from their family and raped, their husbands wantonly killed, and in practice no charges can effectively be brought by any Yezidi against, notably, government agents, for reason of an alleged governmental decree which provides the latter immunity from prosecution.

     4.     Reportedly, since the early seventies, Yezidi children were systematically brought to Iraqi health centers for vaccination, purpurtedly, but for sterilisation in fact.

 ________________
(1)     constituted on 15 May 1992 and consisting of some 250 personalities, parliamentarians and representatives of the Assyrian, Kurdish and Turcoman community of the 91000 km² Mosul Vilayet which is situated to the North of the Baghdad Vilayet and which the League of Nations, in 1926, conditionally attached to the Kingdom of Iraq rather than to Turkey

      Mr.Chairman, I am not now speaking as a representative of our organization. Rather, with your permission Sir, I would like to give testimony and to speak of circumstances of which I have been a victim during nine years in the prison of Abou Ghreb in Irak. My personal testimony is going to be on what I have experienced myself and on other things which I have seen during those nine years, and which have been inflicted on others, including representatives of the Iraqi people and of Iraqi minority groups.

      In 1975 I was arrested near Dohuk in the village of Holure by agents of the Iraqi security appartus. Then I was brought to the governorate of Kirkuk and later transferred to the Keradetmeriem at Baghdad for questioning by the Iraqi intelligence services.

      Mr.Chairman, all this is factual and can be verified. I am not going to make any false allegations, and I invite the Commission to examine these matters very thoroughly, e.g. by appointing a fact-finding Special Committee on Torture in order to verify in particular the things that I am going to speak about. I thus speak as a witness and there are other witnesses here in this room right now and who are willing to testify to the Commission at its convenience. I am not giving you any names now, as I have my reasons for that. And I am sure everybody understands that.

      It all has to do with the permanent scars, the torture signs you can all still see on my body. I am speaking not only about the cigarette buts which were extinguished on my hands. I am speaking also about the nails that were driven through my hands and through other parts of my body into the wooden panels of a room of the Abou Ghreb prison. This was at a time a certain Barzan Tikriti was at the helm of the Iraqi intelligence services. By now, of course, he is the head of the Iraqi Mission to the United Nations in Geneva.

      Three months after my arrest in 1975, my first wife gave birth to a son, and a year later she was killed by Iraqi agents. Twelve years later, I saw my son for the first time in Germany, for I was not allowed to receive any visits when I was at the Abou Ghreb prison. Some of the inmates at the time were foreigners, and some of them are now also free and available for testimony, like John Smith, Donald Hager, Mr.Frank, and Mr.Charles who was sentenced to 20 years and who, as a close relative of a member of the British House of Lords, was released after three years due to the intervention by the King of Jordan.

      To give you an example of how the criminal justice system in Iraq operated at that time, the procedure I was involved in before the Revolutionary Court may serve as an illustration. The Court was presided by Muslim Al-Jeburi, who later became Iraq's Minister of Justice. We were 36 accused of political crimes against the State. Our group included innocent farmers, Kurdish peshmergas and three Iraqi opposition leaders of which one was wearing a red shirt. The presiding judge passed the following summary judgement without even a pretense of a court hearing: he said that those sitting to the right of the red-shirted man, me included, are to be executed, while those sitting to his left side are to serve life-sentences. And when the thus unaccounted-for red-shirted Iraqi opposition leader asked what is going to happen to him, the judge said simply that he can go home. So much for the mockery of justice which has passed as justice in Saddam's revolutionary Iraq.

      Mr.Chairman, as all of you can see in my case, and as investigations would verify in many others, Saddam's prisoners have been exposed to various routine torture practices, such aselectro shocks and unbearably painful beatings particularly of already swollen feet which then often necessitated amputations. Abdel Aziz Ukelli, the former Minister of Defense of Iraq, was also among the inmates of Abou Ghreb where, for twelve years, he was expected to be executed. During the Iran/Iraq war he was called by the Iraqi authorities for consultations, and when he refused to cooperate or share his views with his tormentors, he was given poison and he died fifteen days later. A sample of his blood was smuggled out of the prison for analysis in England. Dozens of other prisoners I got to know were also wantonly killed; I have transmitted a list of them to the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iraq.

      Since my escape from Saddam's Gulag, I have never been safe from Saddam's henchmen, and I hope my testimony and undeterred work will encourage others to effectively stand up against this intolerable scourge on the Kurdish and the Iraqi peoples. On the 8th of July 1987, I was gunned down by Iraqi intelligence operatives near Stuttgart. Even after the Gulf war, Iraqi diplomats stationed abroad continue to threaten me and my family. Only two days ago, in this very room of the United Nations and in front of everybody of this Commission, I was advised of a veiled yet further Iraqi death sentence against me when, once again, they replied to our presentations by accusing me of having been trained in Israel and that my present wife is Jewish. Indeed, and those familiar with Iraqi laws know it well: anyone considered by Baghdad to be an Iraqi citizen who is accused of links with Israel is automatically and mandatorily subjected to a death sentence.

      In our presentations concerning the Yezidi as a persecuted Kurdish religious minority, we did not really address the religious discriminations of Jews by the present horror regime in Baghdad - simply becausethere are not too many Jews left in Iraq. We left the demonstration of this regime's persistent violations of Iraq's related international obligations to its own spokemen. And in this we were not disappointed when they blindly and repeatedly accused me of what, in the minds of some Iraqis, seems to be the ultimate crime, namely to be married to a Jew.

      Mr.Chairman, I am concerned with the freedom from mental and physical torture not only for myself and my family but also for those still in prison or otherwise subject to the arbitrariness of Saddam's regime, be they Yezidi or other Kurds or Iraqi. A few months ago, when I was in the liberated part of Kurdistan, I found children still to be totally scared of the American fighter planes which keep Saddam's army at bay. The reason for this is that they still confound these aircrafts with Saddam's death-bringing planes which strifed their villages and unloaded their poison gas bombs on them only a few years ago.

      Also, Iraqi prisons still hold hundreds of political prisoners which are incarcerated since around 1975 and thousands more who were thus muffled in more recent times. I can give you the names of Khalef Omar Askar andAlah Hashim, a Syrian, who was put in Abou Ghreb in 1978 when he was 14 years old. There are also some 5000 Tabaié who are not accounted for. All these "forgotten" prisoners, just as the rest of the Iraqi people who manage to survive in the prison called Iraq, have nobody to turn to and they cannot be effectively cared for as long as this rogue regime will remain in place.

      In conclusion, Mr.Chairman, I may add that Saddam achieved one thing in his life: with the exception of his family clan, he brought all Iraqi down on their knee, to a level of pre-industrial misery and helplessness. They are victims of a tyranny which has plundered Iraq's treasures, ruined its environment and betrayed its heritage of a great civilized culture. Iraq has degenerated and been turned into a fully brutalized society. In the interest of its excessively abused inhabitants, but also in the interest of regional peace and security, Iraq, in the borders of 1925, must remain under an international quarantine until conditions will have re-emerged there for the Rule of Law to be reality and to rule supreme. To this effect, the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iraq, as well as the proposed fact-finding Committee, should be empowered and given the means to visit Iraq freely and independently of the whims of the butchers of Baghdad, e.g. by basing their mandate directly on the all-too-long-neglected and yet-to-be-enforced Security Council resolution 688.

Mr.Chairman, since the end of the cold war - and partially even as a substitute for it - individual and group human rights have become a central issue in international relations. And both they and the related mechanisms are likely to become ever more important vehicles for seeking to bring about changes in many parts of the world not least in the political, social and economic realms. In this light, there is every reason to look not only for real and prompt improvements in the Commission's work, but also to ask whether the Commission's mandate, its structure and its mechanisms are still adequate.

Mr.Chairman, it is notorious that the UN General Assembly and the Security Council increasingly find it necessary to refer to NGOs and to call on their comparatively more flexible and more efficient cooperation for addressing man-made and other humanitarian disasters. Take for example the Security Council resolutions 688 on Iraq and the corresponding ones on former Yugoslavia. Sadly, this trend has yet to find its proper reflection in the way this Commission is set up and works. Indeed, a contrary picture is apparent here, where NGOs, year after year, find themselves ever more marginalized and even physically crowded out. Previously agreed upon practices, such as daily consultations between the Secretariat and NGO representatives have yet to be heard of again. And in one case, the response is still outstanding to a repeated request for proper guidance on particularly sensitive testimonies and on the recent blatant arrest at the airport in Istanbul of torture victims who were on their way to Geneva for testimonies in front of this Commission. But this is perhaps not the right moment for addressing those issues. Instead, I may point at some sources of inspiration for improving the effectiveness of the Commission's work. One is of the more distant past and concerns the mechanisms of the League of Nations's international minority protection guarantees. A second involves the Nonproliferation Treaty. And a future-oriented solution to the problem of disappeared persons involves possibly the INTERNET.

Mr.Chairman, in 1932, as a sine qua non obligation of its independence and continued existence as a sovereign State, Iraq solemnly incurred comprehensive and still binding international minority protection obligations (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/NGO/27, annex), providing, a.o., a) that "Full and complete protection of life and liberty will be assured to all inhabitants of Iraq without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion", b) that these and other minority protection stipulations "constitute obligations of international concern and will be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations", c) that Iraq may not alter or abrogate them unilaterally, and d) that in case of "infraction or danger of infraction" of any of these international minority protection guarantees, the United Nations General Assembly, in line with its Resolution 24 (I) of 12 February 1946 as the legal successor of the League of Nations, may now "take such measures and give such directions as it may deem proper and effective in the circumstances."

Mr.Chairman, the Iraqi Government likes to ignore or belittle this recently re-discovered Iraqi Declaration, but it has yet to demonstrate that it was ever relieved of any of these constitutive undertakings, or that they no longer apply in international law. In fact, the UN General Assembly formally and effectively transferred these and other political powers and functions to the United Nations system already in 1946, and the UN Secretariat confirmed the validity of these international obligations of Iraq in a special report (E/CN.4/367). Accordingly, and in light of the vast body of evidence compiled by the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iraq (E/CN.4/1995/56) this Commission might start to make a real dent in the human rights conditions in Iraq and elsewhere by undusting and getting this old but readily available minority protection mechanism back into operation.

A further avenue for improvement concerns the Special Rapporteurs who are deprived of an opportunity to visit the countries concerned. Iraq and Turkey are cases in point. The leadership of the Mosul Vilayet Council decided to turn the table around by bringing the victims and witnesses to the UN in Geneva for direct testimony. This program is under way, and it cannot be blocked by either Iraqi or Turkish officials. But the recent arrest of 4 such Iraqi witnesses at the airport in Istanbul also highlights the Commission's responsibility for making sure that such obstructions of its work will not be encouraged by its failure to even take note of them.

To be sure, neither Iraqi nor Turkish officials have a monopoly for regrettable behavior. Nor are human rights violations confined to governmental levels. In fact, significant human rights abuses are often committed by non-governmental and even private sources and outside the reach of a free society's effective governmental controls. Of course, this phenomena is not new and the Commission has attempted to deal with its effects on numerous occasions. But there seems to be scope for improvements when one considers it from the angle of human rights violations associated with the proliferation and eventual use of weapons of mass destruction.

So far public attention almost exclusively concentrated on the governmental level of proliferation. This is particularly noticable in the presently re-debated Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Indeed, not all that can and should be done is in fact done on the very real and growing danger of proliferation by criminal organizations and other non-governmental entities (NGEs) with regard to materials which are capable of mass destruction, mass poisoning and mass infections. And while there appear to be neither ready nor easy answers for this, it would seem to be indicated that both the governments concerned and the Commission would take a close look into that.

On a more traditional human rights track, there is another universal phenomena of growing proportions. The subject is disappeared persons, persons being held in detention without trial, and persons being held incommunicado. This is an unbearable situation for the families concerned. And it is a stigma not only on the authorities involved but also on the responsible individuals.

From a huge number of cases, the following examples may serve to illustrate the problems. They concern another area which is outside of the world's public attention, i.e. Sindh on the Subasian continent. A Sindh leader, Dr Maqbool Khushik and two others reportedly were taken away from their homes by the Pakistan Security Forces three months ago. As yet they have not been produced in any Court of Law. The families have failed to locate them as the authorities have persistently refused to give any information regarding their safety, conditions and whereabouts. Experiences show that it cannot be excluded that they have been tortured and might in fact already have died in custody. Another illustrative case is that of the 92 year old Father of Sindhi nation, H.E. G.M. Syed, who is being detained without trial for demanding the right of self-determination for his people, and the government blankly refuses to produce him in front of any Court of Law, inspite of the appeals for his release from all over the world.

Perhaps, in these, as in most other cases around the world, an adapted version of the old principle of habeas corpus could provide effective relief. Concretely, the walls of silence and darkness must be broken down. Effective measures to make governments more responsive and accountable are thus called for. And if, e.g., some motivated and competent representatives of NGOs were to put their heads together and to start coordinating their intellectual, networking and other resources, appropriate ways and means are likely to be found to get the detaining authorities, or the responsible ministry, to effectively furnish the crucial information they have on any given person.

Perhaps, the agrieved family could be helped to effectively sideline the local and the national authorities and access directly the existing inquiry mechanism built into the mandates of the UN Commissioner on Human Rights, the Working Group on Forced or Involontary Disappearances, or of another suitable human rights body. The Center for Human Rights (CHR) might be equipped to make full use of the information technology. In cooperation with interested NGOs, it might allow itself to be accessed by individuals through INTERNET. And with the help of the information highways and corresponding resources, their present fax hotline might be developed into a joint CHR-NGO Red List which would be regularly updated and published on the INTERNET and as a Joint Written Statement under ECOSOC Resolution 1296 (XLIV).

And perhaps these already overloaded and underfunded UN institutions could be assisted by regional representatives who might be supported by local NGOs and funded from alternative sources not dependent on the themselves overburdened taxpayers, including sponsorships by privately funded Arts Ambassadors and imaginative commercial firms and private persons.

          "In accordance with the right of self-determination of peoples, no part of this territorial totality may without infringement of justice be detached and incorporated with some other State without the consent of the nation itself.
          In the interests of freedom and of the equal rights of all nations, the Adriatic shall be free and open to each and all.
          All citizens throughout the territory of the Kingdom shall be equal and enjoy the same rights with regard to the State before the Law."

3.        On 12 February 1946, the United Nations General Assembly adopted its Resolution 24 (I), providing that

     "The General Assembly will itself examine, or will submit to the appropriate organ of the United Nations, any request from the parties that the United Nations should assume the exercise of functions or powers entrusted to the League of Nations by treaties, international conventions, agreements and other instruments having a political character."

5.    In either case, the peoples and minorities of former Yugoslavia, with their active participation in this referendum, could demonstrate their determination to remain an integral part in particular of the European family of nations and, jointly, to become a full Member of the European Union as soon as possible - under either a joint Yugoslavian or Balkan umbrella.  They would thus vote neither for nor against, but remain open for an eventual peaceful partial or full reorganization of Yugoslavia ⁽⁴⁾ within or outside the framework of a Balkan Union, or of another suitable frame for economic, political and cultural cooperation and links.  No party should oppose corresponding efforts, and the Principal Allied and Associated Powers should avail their good offices to these effects.  In the event, any dispute involving territory might be bindingly settled by arbitration, with the President of the Swiss Confederation invited to preside over the proceedings.  The International Court of Justice could be called upon by any signatory to provide Advisory Opinions on questions of law or fact. Furthermore:

a)   Those peoples and minorities who would have voted to confirm the breakup of former Yugoslavia would be free to organize their institutions within the newly defined - or eventually renegotiated and redefined - internationally recognized borders, and within the constitutional frameworks they agreed upon, eventually linked to such international minority⁽⁵⁾ protection and other guarantees as may be indicated, and with proper direct representation via-à-vis the guaranteeing powers and international governmental organizations.
b)   Those peoples and minorities who would have rejected the dissolution of former Yugoslavia would be free to create their own independent federal or confederated State, with the name of Yugoslavia, whose international borders, in consultation with the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, should be negotiated and worked out among the involved internationally recognized States.
c)   This referendum should be carried out under the protection of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers with the assistance of the leadership of the Catholic, the Islamic and the Orthodox faiths, and under the supervision of the Council of Europe and the European Union.

7.        Upon signature of this or a similar plan by all parties concerned, and at least until the referendum would have been carried out, all contested territories in former Yugoslavia should be placed under the effective protection of a suitable international organization or alliance ⁽⁶⁾. Corresponding administrative agreements should be worked out forthwith between the latter and the local authorities and peoples.  And all military units presently stationed in these contested territories should be placed under an agreed over-all command:  in cooperation with UNPROFOR, this shall be implemented by the forces in place which are to be directed by correspondingly appointed senior officers and which shall be responsible for disbanding and disarming the militia, de-mining, rebuilding the infrastructure, etc.
 

NOTES

*     Reflecting the mandate given in June 1991 by the Presidency of the Yugoslav Chamber of Republics and Provinces (reproduced in E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/NGO/29), this paper was prepared in cooperation with the Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers and its research branch, CORUM (POB 2580, 1211 Geneva 2), with the participation notably of G.Arif, G.Arangio-Ruiz, D.Baghistani, M.Best, S.Keller, D.Kreuter Grant, P.Martin, D.Morrow-Patty, R.J.Parsons, A.Poulin, F.Ruiz, W.Simon, W.Spalding, A.Teitelbaum, C.Vieira dos Santos, P.Wainwright, A.Zilic and A.Zumach.  The editor, J.A.Keller, was alone responsible for eventual errors and omissions.  He wished to express his gratitude for the assistance and numerous services provided by the United Nations Office in Geneva, by the director of the United Nations Geneva Library and by the League of Nations archivist and their staff.

(1)     Peace Handbooks, Austria-Hungary, vol.II, Foreign Office, London 1920, p.35;  reproduced also in: UN document E/CN.4/1994/NGO/54.
(2)     Oarry, CTS 226, 182, also reproduced in: UN Document E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/NGO/29, annex.
(3)     Andreas Zumach, in "The EU can break the deadlock" (The Geneva Post, 8 February 1995), stated:
          "A solution would be for the European Union to offer membership to Croatia, Bosnia,
     Serbia/Montenegro, Slovenia and Macedonia - under two conditions:
     1)   the return of all land, homes and property which were seized since June 1991 by military force or ethnic cleansing, thus providing for the return of all refugees and displaced persons and the rebuilding of a multi-ethnic society in each of the states.
     2)   the continuation of the war crimes prosecutions through the International Tribunal in The Hague and through national courts.  The offer of membership should be combined with a "Marshall" plan for the reconstruction of the war-torn regions.
          As citizens of EU member countries, the Serbs living in Croatia and Bosnia would no longer be dependent only on the governments in Zagreb and Sarajevo to ensure their minority rights and settle grievances.  They could turn to the EU institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg.  The same would apply to the Albanians in the Kosovo or to the ethnic groups in Macedonia.
          If the territory of the former Yugoslavia became part of the EU, the borders between Serbia and Bosnia or Serbia and Croatia would become as irrelevant as the borders between Belgium, Holland and Germany are today.  ...  Despite all of Belgrade's anti-EU propaganda since 1991, many Serbs and international observers  are convinced that in a referendum for EU membership 80 per cent of the population would vote yes.
          At the moment, the only one among the 15 heads of EU governments who - if at all - would have the political standing to initiate a correction of the EU's policy would be German chancellor Kohl. Such an initiative by the Bonn government could also finally overcome the suspicions about Germany's motives for recognition of Croatia and Slovenia felt in London, Paris and other EU capitals since 1991. These suspicions played a major role in shaping the British and the French policies toward the conflict in Yugoslavia, which in return are being perceived in Bonn as pro-Serb.  Because of these perceptions, the EU until today has (despite all declarations to the contrary) no common and coherent policy toward the conflicts in Ex-Yugoslavia.
          To grant membership to the former Yugoslav republics will undoubtedly cost the current EU members and their taxpayers a lot of money in the short term.  But to use this fact as a reason to refuse membership would be very shortsighted.
          A continuation of the current EU policy for another year and beyond will, in the long term, prove much costlier - financially and politically.  It might in the end even contribute to the disintegration of the EU."
(4)      Flora Lewis, "The Yugoslav Solution Is Yugoslavia", International Herald Tribune, 10 February 1995, and in: Foreign Policy Magazine, March 1995.
(5)      John Packer, "On the Definition of Minorities", in: "The Protection of Ethnic and Linguistic Minorities in Europe" (ed. J.Packer, K.Myntti) Abo Akademi University (Finland), 1993, p.23-65
(6)      based on the corresponding rights, obligations and authorities provided for notably in the 1919 Treaty, the United Nations Charter, UN General Assembly resolution 24 (1) of 12 February 1946, etc.

...1.     The International Law Commission presented its "Draft Statute for an International Criminal Court" and its "Draft Commentary" (A/CN.4/L.491/Rev.2; A/CN.4/L.491/Rev.2/Add.1, 2 and 3).  This coincided with numerous reports of alleged "genocidal practices" ⁽¹⁾ in former Yugoslavia.  An ill-prepared post-cold war Europe had allowed old patched-over wounds from the First and the Second World Wars to fester and break open again.  It had witnessed in its midst grave violations of international humanitarian law for over three years.  And the daily horrors brought into its living rooms through television were authoritatively confirmed and further detailed by the Special Rapporteur in his reports on the human rights situation in former Yugoslavia (E/CN.4/1994/110).  Were the victims of these human aberrations thus about to begin to see some justice to be done?  But also: were the root causes of the conflict properly addressed, giving the wounds a chance to be healed and the spiral of violence to be arrested? ⁽²⁾

2.     If the responsibility for these crimes was not limited to their physical perpetrators, did it extend to the "Schreibtischtätern" here and there, as was already admitted in the Nuremberg trials?  Did it include those in power who, through their actions and inactions, unwittingly or not, seemed to have violated the fundamental Corfu Pact among the constituent peoples of former Yugoslavia (see annex; E/CN.4/1994/NGO/54)?  For had they not opened up the Pandora's box, weakened the forces of reason, and strengthened the hands of those who had discovered lies, deceit and atrocities to be shortcuts to their objectives, entailing no real risks for those eventually invited to the table?  Were they all free of at least moral co-responsibility for what happened and failed to happen in former Yugoslavia?  Also: what about the States and their leaders and officials who, through their actions or omissions had materially contributed to the course of events and thus may have committed internationally wrongful acts engaging the State's responsibility?  The still-to-be-investigated case of the allegedly legal UN arms embargo against Bosnia-Herzegovina shed some preliminary light on related questions which seemed to be worth pursuing beyond these introductory observations.

3.     The International Court of Justice, in its Order of 13 September 1993, inter alia, observed that while "all parties to the [1948 Genocide] Convention have thus undertaken 'to prevent and punish' the crime of genocide", the Court was "not satisfied that all that might have been done has been done to prevent commission of the crime of genocide in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina" since the Court gave its Order of 8 April 1993.

4.     In his Separate Opinion, Judge ad hoc Elihu Lauterpacht raised the issue of co-responsability for the commission of the crime of genocide.  He did so by pointing out the foreseeable and under no pretext excusable genocidal consequences of an illegally, artificially and externally imposed weapons imbalance which in effect denied an internationally recognized State the most fundamental of its rights, namely that of self-defense.

5.     The British Foreign Office, in response to a letter to the Prime Minister on the matter, observed on 13 August 1993: "Security Council Resolution 713 applied to the territory of what was then the State of Yugoslavia.  In the view of the United Kingdom the Resolution continues to apply to the same geographical territory."  This novel approach to international law ignored that the UN deals only with States and not with geographical territories ⁽³⁾.

6.     Echoing a corresponding amicus curiae ⁽⁴⁾ to the Court, Judge Lauterpacht indicated that Security Council resolution 713 (1991) concerned an arms embargo against "Yugoslavia", that the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina was admitted to UN membership on 22 May 1992 without any reservation, that SCR 713 was never and, in as much as it would have been against jus cogens, could never in law have been extended to any of the new UN members who had formed part of former Yugoslavia, that in law, therefore, it could not be "valid and binding in its operation against Bosnia-Herzegovina", and that those who operated its factual application, maintenance and enforcement had done no service to regional stability, humanity or the Rule of Law and, in fact and in law, might even have made "Members of the United Nations accessories to genocide".

7.     Did responsibility for an act involve only those ordering and committing it, as an Ambassador seemed to imply in the quote attributed to her by Anthony Lewis ("Yes to War Crimes Trials of the Beastly Commanders", International Herald Tribune, 28 June 1994)?  Or did it extend to "Those outsiders who connived it with the perpetrators of these crimes, the 'accomplices'," as Salah Ezz quoted the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher ("Abetting Bosnian Genocide", IHT, 5 July 1994)?  What if the latter's contribution was perhaps less of a manifestly intentional or active, and more of an apparently "only" unwitting or passive nature, e.g. through omission?

8.     Largely inspired by the picture of Pontius Pilatus washing his hands in the case  the priests brought against Jesus Christ, i.e. innocenting himself through fence-sitting and deliberate non-exercice of his powers, Western thinking, as expressed in the common man's related attitudes tended indeed towards the general equation: inaction equals non-responsibility.  In contrast, Eastern concepts basically seemed to make no difference between action and inaction with regard to the responsibilities for the consequences entailed ⁽⁵⁾. The French penal code's article on "non-assistance to persons in danger" appeared to be the exception which confirmed the rule.

9.     The obligations under the Genocide Convention to which the Hague Court referred were not, of course, limited to the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.  The same held true for the Court's above-quoted critical comment.  Indeed, after the Second World War, with "never again" on everybody's mind, it was natural that each signatory unreservedly committed his State "to prevent and punish" the crime of genocide.

10.      A signatory State, in apparent law, could thus fail to take effective preventive action only as long as it did not formally recognize the danger or existence of genocide.  Several permanent members of the Security Council, had indeed failed to do exactly that.  This seemed to explain why the U.S. Ambassador had felt obliged to counter criticism by publicly seeking to limit the responsibility for what happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina to "the people who ordered and committed the crimes."  And why the former Prime Minister felt compelled to show the flag of a higher-than-State morality and, by lending her voice to the ordinary citizen's growing outrage, to occupy the moral high ground.

11.      Article 3 of the International Law Commission's Draft Articles on State Responsibility ⁽⁶⁾, stipulated:
    "There is an internationally wrongful act of a State when:
    (a)   Conduct consisting of an action or omission is attributable to the State under international law; and
    (b)   That conduct constitutes a breach of an international obligation of the State."

12.      And while the Draft Statute for an International Criminal Court dealt with individual alleged crimes, it was of interest to note its Article 39 which stipulated that "An accused shall not be held guilty: (a) in the case of a prosecution with respect to ... [e.g. genocide], unless the act or omission in question constituted a crime under international law".  Also, e.g., the Swiss penal code explicitly provided for non-prosecution of crimes commited in the line of professional or official duties.

13.      Passivity, inaction and omission to fulfil an international obligation were indeed "regular" political instruments, i.e. they formed part of the prevailing "political culture".  Article 3 of the above-quoted Draft Articles on State Responsibility was to eventually provide for clear co-responsibility of a State and its officials for an internationally wrongful act of that State in case of either action or omission being the material cause or contributor to a given damage.  Yet, as ratification of these draft articles was not imminent, there was no apparent danger for those in power anywhere to be actually dragged into court for abetting genocide in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina for their passivity, i.e. because of inaction or omission.

14.      Their case would be different (in theory) if it could be shown, e.g., that some officials, be it on their own or at the behest of superior powers, were scheming, misleading, rule-bending, etc. in order to prevent the Security Council or the General Assembly from being properly informed, counseled and thus enabled to take appropriate action on whether or not the arms embargo on "Yugoslavia" was legally applicable to Bosnia-Herzegovina.  It was understood that several such cases existed ⁽⁷⁾.  Yet, not least because the Bosnian Ambassador to the UN in New York apparently had a conflict of interest for reasons of his double nationality, it would be difficult to deny that the thus colluding victim too became co-responsible for what happened - or failed to happen.

15.      That and related cases thus risked never to be brought into the halls of justice, with only some visible wrong-doers eventually serving as scapegoats.  Moreover, the audience here and there found itself rather abused, confused and without any real moral or political leadership.  It was in desperate need for a ray of hope and constructive elements.  And much more than partial justice, distracting show trials and pseudo vengence for past and actual human aberrations and failings were needed - if it was to find the path towards a more enlightened, stable and worthwhile future.

16.      The above considerations, of course, were not intended to belittle the individual responsibility and guilt for the crimes that took place particularly in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.  By putting into perspective those cases which might occupy the International Criminal Court, a voice is raised against the tendency to quickly forget all those cases which escape human justice.  And lessons were sought to be learned from the actions, inactions and omissions of those "Schreibtischtätern" and leaders who failed to live up to their responsibilities - and thus may have done more individual and collective harm than all those eventually brought to justice combined.

17.      Also, it was to remind all concerned, that they had a future to build and a past to repair and that they could not succede in either unless they faced the facts rationally, tolerantly and open-mindedly.  That each participant of the conflict had to live with and, in one way or another, had to stand for all of his actions and inactions, whether he "served" on the humanitarian or the conceptual, virtual or real killing, raping or torturing front, in the dirty tricks department and/or in the corridors of power at the UN or elsewhere.  And that irrespective of whether any one of those foreign and local "leaders" and "peacemakers" was ever to find himself in the docks for his hidden agenda and manifest co-responsibility for the desasters at hand, true salvation could only come from within, from working out solutions among all involved peoples themselves, and from looking and working ahead - together with his fellow-men.
....

*   This paper was prepared in cooperation with by the Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers and its research branch, CORUM(POB 2580, 1211 Geneva 2), with the partition notably of:  G.Arangio-Ruiz, G.Arif, D.Baghistani, M.Best, S.Keller, D.Kreuter Grant, P.Martin, D.Morrow-Patty, R.J.Parsons, A.Poulin, F.Ruiz, W.Spalding, A.Teitelbaum, C.Vieira dos Santos, P.Wainwright, A.Zilic and A.Zumach.  The editor, J.A.Keller, was alone responsible for eventual errors and omissions.  He wished to express his gratitude for the assistance and numerous services provided by the United Nations Office in Geneva, by the director of the United Nations Geneva Library and by the League of Nations archivist and their staff.
**   This document is issued as received from the organization concerned.

(1)   The International Court of Justice, by its Order of 8 April 1993 concerning the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 September 1948 in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), responded to the complaint about "genocidal practices", inter alia, by directing the Government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) to "take all measures within its power to prevent commission of the crime of genocide ... whether directed against the Muslim population of Bosnia and Herzegovina or against any other national, ethnic, racial or religious group".
(2)   To these effects, the "Action Plan for ex-Yugoslavia", proposed to the parties to the conflict on 9 March 1993, may still be helpful, as may the recently developed "Referendum Plan" (see also: E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/NGO/29, E/CN.4/1994/NGO/54).
(3)   If this were not the case, this ill-considered legal theory, if applied by analogy, would result, e.g., in the Eastern part of united Germany not to be covered by the NATO umbrella.
(4)   submitted by the Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers in line with its mandate of June 1991 (reproduced in: E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/NGO/29) to contribute to a peaceful and lasting conflict resolution in all of former Yugoslavia.
(5)   The market mechanism, e.g., offered an illustration of this difference: although decisions to sell or not to sell, like decisions to buy or not to buy, affected the wealth of any decider anywhere fully and on an equal level.  However, in comparison with their Eastern homologues, Western market players seemed to have more difficulty to recognize and adapt themselves to this fundamental market rule, and to give equal weight to one's market-related actions and inactions.
(6)Report of the International Law Commission (1973), A/9010/Rev.1, UN 1974, p.17.
(7)   As a result, the General Assembly resolution on Bosnia of December 1993 lacks all teeth; even the already integrated request to the International Court of Justice to provide an Advisory Opinion on the validity and applicability of the arms embargo to Bosnia-Herzegovina was thrown out at the last moment.

GE.95-12404

1.          The International Committee for European Security and Cooperation traditionally has availed its good offices for the analysis, debate on and eventual resolution of conflicts of an international character, particularly those involving or eventually affecting European interests. When its governing body decided to concentrate its energies on the political, ethnic and religious problems of the area some called Kurdistan, while others refered to it as South-Eastern Turkey, Mosul Vilayet or Northern Iraq, it had not only looked at this area in terms of Europe's strategic oil interests. For this cross road of commercial and cultural exchanges between East and West was also known as the craddle of civilization, as the birth area of major religions. And the further its research and consultations progressed and penetrated the surface of this world of 1001 nights, the more the researchers found themselves confronted with a multitude of gross human rights violations. But the more they also learned to appreciate the history of this area and of its peoples as a source of inspiration for addressing, with a better vision, some contemporary human rights, economic and political problems which had festered and poisened the atmosphere for decades in that and other trouble spots of the world.

2.          Throughdirect testimonies, the I.C.E.S.C. had become concerned about what appeared as a persistent pattern of gross violations of human rights in Iraq. This included violations of Iraq's constitutive minority protection and other international obligations. If Iraq was to retain its independence and continued existence as a sovereign State, there was no way around strict and unbroken observation of these permanent obligations. Iraq chose to ignore this. Its leaders had their chance. Yet they hardly ever missed an opportunity to demonstrate their capacity for excesses. They failed too many of their fundamental obligations for too long. They failed them dishonorably. And the family of nations owed it to itself to draw the proper conclusions.

3.          One of the lessons of this failed experience was that if minority protection guarantees were to be reliable and to help resolve actual or future political trouble spots anywhere in the world, the beneficiaries of such guarantees should be given tangible instruments in order to effectively communicate related problems to the guaranteeing powers and obtain prompt redress. As repeatedly suggested by the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iraq, the answer might be Human Rights monitors. Duly nominated by the people concerned, these monitors would not only provide a permanent check on Iraq's application of the post-Second World War humanitarian instruments, but they would also help enforce Iraq's comprehensive and still binding international minority protection obligations of 1932 which - as the I.C.E.S.C Representatives repeatedly had pointed out in their statements to the Commission - Iraq incurred as a permanently valid sine qua non condition for its independence and continued existence as a sovereign State.

4.          It was also important to note that Iraq's violations of its fundamental international obligations were neither new nor neglectable or any further tolerable. They went back to the very beginning of this artificially created State which was carved out of the debris of the Ottoman Empire. Indeed, genocidal practices were carried out against Assyrians in 1933, i.e. only one year after Iraq gained its independence. Most of the Kurdish Jews were driven out of Iraq after 1948. On the background of the Algiers Agreement of March 1975, genocidal practices were started in 1975 against the Yezidi as a religious Kurdish minority. As the Special Rapporteur had indicated in his report E/CN.4/1993/45 (paras 89-126), the genocidal practices against the Kurds as a whole had come to a peak in 1988 with the infamous Anfal program involving the destruction of over 4000 villages, including poison gas attacks against some Kurdish villages.

5.          Furthermore, first-hand information obtained by the I.C.E.S.C. indicated that some 300000 Yezidi were still being kept in 7 concentration camps. Reportedly, the decision had already been taken to forcefully dislocate them to God knows where - as soon as the UN embargo will be lifted (as part of the Anfal program, some 180000 other Kurds purportedly were also forcefully moved "South" and were never heard of again; see the annexed list of wantonly distroyed Yezidi villages, as compared to the two Yezidi villages Iraqi diplomats cared to admit to still exist).

6.          And, of course, the conditions of attachment had never been met under which the League of Nations attributed the Mosul Vilayet in 1926 to the then still dependent Kingdom of Iraq rather than to Turkey. In fact, for the inhabitants of the Mosul Vilayet, the human rights situation had continually and gravely deteriorated ever since. The conditions for corresponding external intervention on humanitarian grounds clearly were spelled out as any "infraction or danger of infraction" of Iraq's internationally guaranteed minority protection obligations. On the background of the Special Rapporteur's already ten voluminous reports on human rights violations by Iraqi agents, the conclusion was inescapable that these conditions had long been fulfilled.

7.          To the surprise of nobody then, none of the numerous UN resolutions on the human rights situation in Iraq really had made a dent on the behavior of the regime in place. As a justification for its abhorrent practice of mutilations, the Iraqi Government stated in its reply of 19 January 1995 (E/CN.4/1995/138, p.8) that "the severest punishment of the death penalty was no longer adequate or a deterrent" and that some of these new punishments, "such as the amputation of a hand, are an application of Islamic law". It was doubtful that outside Iraq many Muslim wished to be seen to be associated with such a reading or interpretation of the Holy Koran, and even though there were not too many clear voices to object, no Islamic scholar or religious leader was known to have felt comfortably about the fact that the Baa'thist regime of Iraq continuously abused the Islamic religion and its tenets in order to prolong the political survival of some criminal and bankrupt leaders.

8.          What's more, and regardless where such atrocities occured, the torture and mutilation of children marked a low point of civilization. The testimonies that were pouring in showed ears and even a nose of a child cut off by Iraqi agents. The I.C.E.S.C. had participated in a programm providing for some of these children to come to Geneva for testimony before this UN Commission. The case against the rogue regime of Baghdad had become such that a line had to be drawn by this Commission if it wanted to remain useful, credible and to serve as a deterrent against such human aberrations. To these effects, the I.C.E.S.C. shared the recommendations which the Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers had previously addressed to the governments concerned and to those interested in prompt and effective changes of the human rights situation in Iraq.

9.          The Commission on Human Rights was thus called upon to take note of the international minority protection obligations which Iraq solemnly entered into with its Declaration of 30 May 1932 (E/CN.4/367; E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/NGO/27), providing, a.o.,

a)     that "Full and complete protection of life and liberty will be assured to all inhabitants of Iraq without distinction of birth, nationality, language, race or religion",

b)     that these and other minority protection stipulations "constitute obligations of international concern and will be placed under the guarantee of the League of Nations",

c)     that Iraq may not alter or abrogate them unilaterally, and

d)     that in case of "infraction or danger of infraction" of any of these international minority protection guarantees, the United Nations General Assembly, in line with its Resolution 24 (I) of 12 February 1946 as the legal successor of the League of Nations, may now "take such measures and give such directions as it may deem proper and effective in the circumstances".

10.          Accordingly, the interested governments were in a position to take appropriate actions, e.g. by way of the Commission

a)     inviting its Special Rapporteur and the General Assembly to consider the matter of gross violations of human rights in Iraq also in light of the rights and obligations the United Nations inherited from the League of Nations as the guarantor of the religious and other minority protection rights bestowed notably on the Assyrians, Kurds and Turkomans of the Mosul Vilayet, and to take urgently effective corrective measures and to give such directions as it may deem proper and effective in the circumstances;

b)     recommending that the General Assembly request, on an urgent basis, an Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on whether or not Iraq is still bound by the constitutive Declaration of the Kingdom of Iraq of 30 May 1932 and, in the event at the earliest opportunity, to attribute to the United Nations Trusteeship Council, or to another suitable United Nations body, the corresponding powers and functions referred to in its Resolution 24 (I) of 12 February 1946, i.e. those powers providing for the effective enforcement of said international obligations in those territories over which - in international law - Iraq never acquired full sovereignty, particularly in the Mosul Vilayet whose conditional attachment to Iraq may thus promptly be revoked, reversed or otherwise changed with appropriate unprejudicial interim measures (E/CN.4/1994/NGO/48), in accordance with the legitimate interests and aspirations of the peoples concerned, and in line with the applicable rights and UN Charter provisions; and

c)     inviting the General Assembly and other involved United Nations bodies to take into consideration and enforce the existing and future international minority protection obligations as contributing instruments for security, stability and rehabilitation in the Near East and other parts of the world (E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/NGO/27; E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/NGO/29; E/CN.4/1994/NGO/54), and to provide for direct contacts between the involved United Nations bodies and Special Representatives which are duly appointed by the beneficiaries of these international human rights guarantees.
 

ANNEX

Following the Algiers Agreement of 1975, the Iraqi Government carried out what amounts to a predecessor to its notoriously genocidal Anfal program which the Special Repporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Iraq has documented in his 1993 report (E/CN.4/1993/45, paras 89-126). It thus destroyed between July and December 1975 the following Yezidi villages and rounded up, confined and held ever since under quarantine some 300'000 Yezidi inhabitants in seven concentration camps situated near their ancestral villages (2) in the Shingal (Mosul) area.

Bakran, Barane, Borig, Depa, Duhole, Fayada, Ganne, Gatre, Girr-e-Araba, Girr-e-Gaure, Girr-e-Jame, Girr-e-Zirhe, Girr Zarik, Gund-e Fakira, Gund-e Jaffriya, Gund-e Khifsha, Gund-e Khinne, Gund-e Miskova, Gund-e-Pir Majdin, Gund-e Sheikh Baehri, Gund-e Sheikh Beshar, Guh-bel, Gund-e Hamde, Sheikh Halaf, Gund-e Hauweria, Gund-e Khidr Zohro, Gund-e Sheikh Khidr, Gund-e-Shune, Gund-ke-Ali Sorhe, Gund-ke Kushna, Halike, Hamadan, Karse, Khana Sor, Khane Shifra, Kolkan, Koyso Kecik, Kullakhan, Mamise Nakhsha Auty, Naniria, Nuhre, Oyse, Peelon, Rashd, Servar, Shenanik, Shkafta, Sikkenie, Simoka, Sinune, Sorka, Teraf, Tirbika, Usifa, Utjajime

Yezidi villages which still exist but are "Arabicized"

Ain Serni, Ba'adra, Bait Nar, Beristak, Bosa, Chorisa, Gabara, Issia, Jarachiya, Kandala, Karsafra, Mahmuda, Makubla (greater), Makubla (little), Mam Rasha, Nasiriya, Neiltshapa, Sheichan, Sheikhka, Taftiya
 

NOTES

(1)     Reflecting the mandate given by the Constitutive General Assembly of the Mosul Vilayet with its "Declaration of Separation from Iraq" of 20 October 1992, this paper was prepared in cooperation with the Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers and its research branch, CORUM (POB 2580, 1211 Geneva 2), with the participation notably of B. and D.Baghistani, M.Best, D.Hariri, P.Keller, S.Keller, D.Kreuter Grant, P.Martin, D.Morrow-Patty, R.J.Parsons, A.Poulin, P.Querio, F.Ruiz, W.Simon, W.Spalding, C.Vieira dos Santos and P.Wainwright. The editor, J.A.Keller, was alone responsible for eventual errors and omissions. He wished to express his gratitude for the assistance and numerous services provided by the United Nations Office in Geneva, by the director of the United Nations Geneva Library and by the League of Nations archivist and their staff.

(2)     1. Al Uruba (original Kurdish name: Sorava); 2. Al Andalusa (Guh-bel); 3. Al Yarmuk (Burg); 4. Al Kadisa (Duhule); 5. Hut-tin (Dugirke); 6. Nahia; 7. Al Tamim (Khana Sor).

**     This document is issued as received from the organization concerned.

GE.95-12405

Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva
box 2580 - 1211 Geneva 2
tel: 022-7360323, Europhone (41)89-2020902 fax: 022-7338671

26 April 1995

       H.E. Boutros Boutros Ghali, Secretary General
       United Nations,
       New York, N.Y. fax: 1212-9632155

Your Excellency,

     This is to present our compliments and to bring to your benevolent attention our subsequently summarized preliminary findings for analysis and comment.

     Since last February, on several occasions, we have encountered many obstacles of an administrative nature. Regardless of the purported reasons, these roadblocks, in effect, have all tended to be harmful to the Iraqi Kurds and to help Saddam Hussein: E.g. by hampering, to say the least, through administrative actions and indecision, a delicate, difficult and costly I.C.E.S.C.-supported programme which consists of bringing Iraqi torture victims and witnesses to Geneva for testimony before the UN Commission on Human Rights or its Special Rapporteurs (nota bene: the Center for Human Rights welcomed our programme with letters of 16 and 22 December 1994). By requesting, with an administrative ukase, the deletion of all references to the SCR 688 term "Kurdish" from the invitation to a commemorative reception on UN premises in Geneva which was planned for the participants of the 51st session of the Commission on Human Rights last February. By thus appearing to follow the lead of, and thus to give further comfort to Saddam Hussein who, too, has missed no opportunity to stamp out everything "Kurdish". And by thus appearing to abet the ethnicide which the Iraqi regime has inflicted on the Iraqi Kurdish population.

     Curiously, on the political level, too, the UN seems to persistently pursue a policy which is seen to help the Iraqi regime on the back of the formally UN-protected Kurdish population of Iraq:

-      By the UN's unreserved acceptance of the Memorandum of Understanding of 18 April 1991 (S/23685) which set aside the very Security Council resolution 688 of 5 April 1991 which explicitly provided for the protection and humanitarian relief of the Iraqi Kurds (see: "UN RESOLUTION 688: A Mandate for 'Exceptional Responses'", CORUM Geneva, 6 April 1992).

-      By persistently ignoring Iraq's constitutive international minority protection obligations (E/CN.4/367; E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/NGO/27).

-      By failing to exercise the surveillance and enforcement functions for these Iraqi obligations which the UN inherited from the League of Nations (GA Resolution 24 (I) of 12 February 1946; E/CN.4/1994/NGO/48; E/CN.4/1995/NGO/52).

-      By neglecting and thus further undercutting Security Council resolution 688 which stresses the need for special UN protective measures in favor of the Iraqi "Kurdish-populated areas" and the "Kurdish population, suffering from the repression in all its forms inflicted by the Iraqi authorities".

-      And by granting the Iraqi regime petroleum property rights it apparently never had and which belong to the Kurds in particular (SCR 706, 712 and 986; viz: art.14, Iraqi Declaration of 30 May 1932; "League of Nations Documents which question Iraq's Claims and Ownership of Petroleum Resources in Kurdish Areas", internal UN memo, April 1992)

       J.A.Keller, I.C.E.S.C. Representative
       to the United Nations in Geneva

1.          Yesterday, The Pope, John Paul II, said we are witnessing in ex-Yugoslavia a "defeat of civilization". This appeared to be due mainly to the UN Security Council's persistent collective failure

-     to treat as such the modern highway robbers who block and loot UN humanitarian relief convoys,

-     to heed the principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter, to credibly, effectively and timely enforce its own resolutions for the protection of "safe areas", and to fulfil the obligations undertaken for the protection of civilian populations and minorities, and

-     to stand the ground against international outlaws, protect small Member States, and prevent the flags of civilization to be ridiculized, soiled and torn to pieces.

3.          And for the United States Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs,Richard Holbrooke, "Sebrenica is an absolute disaster, the worst mess we have seen in Europe since the end of World War II. It is the greatest collective failure of the West since the 1930s [i.e. Italy's unopposed aggression against Ethiopia which encouraged German aggressions against its neighbors]" (Anthony Lewis, IHT 15 July 1995)."

4.          Mr.Holbrooke's reference to the 1930s is a reminder of what may now happen with the UN itself. For the League of Nations never recovered from its failure to effectively stand up for the principles enshrined in its Covenant in the Ethiopian and successive cases. And the U.S. Congress, foreseeably, is increasingly loath to help foot the bills of an institution which is "lacking guts". Indeed, as the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Sadruddin Aga Khan observed in his Sorbonne address of 25 October 1992 where he advocated the creation of security zones, all too often there can be no effective humanitarian relief without adequate military protection and, if needed, militarily enforced UN resolutions.

 5.          The lessons of the fall of Srebrenica will not be lost on those willing to recklessly pursue their own agendas. In several man-made humanitarian disaster zones around the world, agile leaders have already demonstrated what the prevailing international power vacuum can mean to them and to millions of civilians driven into their claws by confused world leaders which pass off empty gesticulations for real leadership.

 6.          The seeds for purportedly religious and ethnic large-scale conflicts grow into thornbushes fast and well. Already, unexpected alliances of dark forces cast long shadows with world-wide implications for peace, security and prosperity not only in the Balkans, the Caucasus and foremost in the Near East. The present Iraqi leadership thus appears encouraged to tough it out and to increase pressures on the populations of liberated Northern Iraq. These populations have been protected until now by Allied air power "enforcing" Security Council Resolution 688. The debacle in Bosnia-Herzegovina means a green signal for renewed aggressions against these formally protected populations - and for possibly others as well. Indeed, unopposed aggression anywhere is a sure-fire recipe for awakening and encouraging dark forces to seek control over the world's oil resources in particular.

 7.          Worse, the debacle in Bosnia-Herzegovina is already creating havoc in Northern Iraq in that some Kurdish party leaders, convinced that the UN will be no more active against them than it has been in Bosnia, entertain the luxory of bloody infighting and selling out to the highest bidder. With such practices, the Barzanis and the Talabanis of today and tomorrow also jeopardize the UN relief effort and whatever goodwill that remains for providing material and political outside help towards a lasting solution of long-festering problems. Indeed, they further undermine regional security and stability.

8.          To be sure, in both the Yugoslavian and the Iraqi situation, there are alternatives to present policies. The legal foundations for any Allied or UN military intervention rests not only on routine Security Council resolutions but on solid international treaties which link the Western powers with the countries concerned. And instead of the U.S. Senate compounding existing problems with a unilateral lifting of the UN arms embargo against Bosnia-Herzegovina, it might be more advisable for an interested government to establish the legal nullity of that embargo against the victims through a Security Council or General Assembly request to the International Court of Justice for an urgent advisory opinion on the matter (article 96 UN Charter; e.g. Can a victim be considered to be a mere successor state of the aggressor?; E/CN.4/Sub.2/19