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South Africa To Send Humanitarian Aid To Iraq
by Na'eem Jeenah
Special to IslamOnline
JOHANNESBURG, May 7 (IslamOnline) - After long delays, a humanitarian relief airplane to Iraq is to fly from South Africa later this month with a delegation led by the country's deputy foreign minister.
Official sources this week finally confirmed that a relief plane would leave Johannesburg following postponements, rescheduling and rumors of cancellations.
This would be the first such flight from the major African country to the U.N. sanctions-hit Arab Muslim nation and would come at a time when the U.S. is working with its Western allies to impose new "smart sanctions" on Baghdad.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has repeatedly said the U.S. and its allies should work toward revitalizing sanctions against Baghdad imposed in 1990 after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait.
Despite Western objections, several flights to Baghdad from France and Russia have heartened other countries to follow suit. Western countries, particularly Britain and the United States, still oppose a lifting of air embargo.
In South Africa, a traditional Western ally, the planned aid operation was the brainchild of South Africa's Iraq Action Committee (IAC), a Durban-based independent group formed mostly by Muslims.
Committee coordinator, Abu Bakr Dawjee, began lobbying the South African government last year to obtain state support for relief to Iraq after several other countries flew planes to the Arab Muslim country.
The South African Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed to provide an airplane and to support the relief mission but shied away from providing any direct financing. The IAC and its affiliate organizations collected the relief and medical supplies, and baby food.
Mainly local black business groups, whose representatives were to be on board the plane, sponsored the flight originally scheduled to leave South Africa on February 23rd.
But two weeks before the scheduled departure date, the government announced that the flight was postponed due to "logistical problems".
The postponement fuelled speculation in the media, and in sections of the Muslim community, that the South African government got cold feet after pressure was applied by the U.S. embassy in Pretoria.
Two postponements later, that speculation became stronger.
Doubts increased with news that the embassies of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had raised concerns about the next flight planned for March.
Saudi Arabia is a strategic secondary supplier of oil to South Africa and a potential arms purchaser and telecommunications partner.
Saudi ambassador to South Africa, Saud Zedan, admitted that his government had reservations regarding the relief trip.
"The matter was raised by me and the ambassador of Kuwait," he reportedly said.
"We were concerned about the high profile of South Africa as president of the Non-Aligned Movement [NAM] and it would be seen as the movement breaking the boycott on Iraq."
In radio interviews, he emphasized that his government would be unhappy with the flight despite South African Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad 's assurances that the U.N. had agreed to the flight. He did not clearly state, however, whether he supported the continuation of sanctions against Iraq.
Following the postponement of the March flight, and speculations and that the flight was to be cancelled completely, Pahad then issued a statement early in April stating that "the government remains committed to the spirit of the partnership" between itself and the IAC and was not reneging on its decision to "undertake a humanitarian flight to Iraq at a later date".
As well as relief supplies being transported, the flight will carry a delegation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed by Pahad, representatives of national Muslim organizations, media people and representatives of Eskom who, it is becoming clear, will use the trip to pursue business interests with Iraq.
U.N. economic sanctions have hit Iraq hard according to relief agencies. Iraq said last month that sanctions have cost the lives of 10,000 people, mostly children, in February alone. The U.N. embargo on Iraq, among many things, bans the import of medicine and chemicals. The U.S. says Iraq could use the material in manufacturing chemical weapons.
Although the U.N. has, since December 1996, allowed Baghdad to sell oil to buy food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies for its people, the U.S. and Britain, both powerful lobbies in the sanctions committee, managed to block the implementation of many contracts under the agreement.
Under the Iraq-U.N. Oil-for-Food program, revenues from Iraqi oil exports go into a New York escrow account where the U.N. sanctions committee can monitor the money's use. Part of the fund is used to pay Kuwait reparations for Iraq's 1990 invasion.
Iraq says the U.S. and Britain are depriving the Iraqi people of oil revenues and that the Oil-for-Food deal is a failure, as it has not fulfilled its purpose. Iraqi officials say they exported more than $38 billion worth of oil, but only $8.5 billion worth of contracts have arrived. About $3.5 billion worth of contracts are on hold, while $14-$15 billion is frozen in Western banks.
News agencies recently quoted the Iraqi health ministry as saying mortality rates from disease had soared since the curbs were imposed 10 years ago.
The U.S. wants the sanctions in place until Iraq has fully complied with U.N. arms inspectors. Baghdad said it would not allow inspectors back into Iraq.
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