UN Condemns Use Of Food, Water, As Weapon Of War

by Thalif Deen

Jean Ziegler, Special Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights, says in a 26-page report that his office has received reports that Afghanistan in particular is in violation of some of the key provisions of international humanitarian law that outlaw the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.

Ziegler says he hopes to be able to carry out a UN mission to Afghanistan to examine the allegations and assess the overall food situation in that war-threatened nation.

He adds that he has received a joint submission -- from Israeli, Palestinian, and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) -- accusing Israel of denying access to food and water for communities in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

These communities have been besieged and cordoned off by Israeli military forces since the beginning of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000.

"Siege policies" have prevented or impeded access to food and water, according to the UN report. In April, the Israeli military destroyed large parcels of land, together with fruit trees and water wells that were the source of livelihoods for 135 families in the occupied territories.

"Several NGOs allege that the Israeli government policies have created hunger and threaten starvation of the most destitute, and have documented long-term or permanent damage to the nutritional needs of especially vulnerable groups, including children and refugees," the report says.

Ziegler says the allegations also suggest that closures constitute collective punishment and a violation of the provision that food should not be used as an instrument of political or economic pressure.

These rights were reiterated in the 1996 Rome Declaration on World Food Security and numerous resolutions of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

Ziegler also says he has asked Israel for a visa so he can conduct an official UN investigation of the allegations against Israel but the country continues to deny access to all UN special rapporteurs on human rights.

Even the UN Israeli Practices Committee, mandated to investigate human rights abuses in the occupied territories, has been denied access since its creation in the 1950s, say officials.

In addition to Israel, the military government of Burma, also known as Myanmar, is alleged to have committed "gross violations of the right to food" in its bid to quash insurgencies and civil opposition, according to Ziegler's report.

Since March 1996, the junta allegedly has forcibly resettled more than 300,000 people from some 1,400 villages.

"Reported malnutrition rates are extremely high in both war-affected areas of eastern Myanmar and peaceful areas, in particular the Karen, Karenni and Shan states, as well as the Delta region," the report says.

Other alleged violations of humanitarian law include the deliberate destruction by government forces of staple crops and confiscation of food from civilians.

Conversely, the report also takes to task the United Nations for using food as an instrument of political and economic pressure in Iraq.

Quoting Assistant Secretary-General Dennis Halliday, a former UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, the report says that "there can be little doubt that subjecting the Iraqi people to a harsh economic embargo since 1991 has placed the United Nations in clear violation of the obligation to respect the right to food of people in Iraq."

Meanwhile, the United Nations is making frantic efforts to feed the thousands of near-starving people in Afghanistan even as the country is threatened with U.S. military attacks.

Catharine Bertini, executive director of the World Food Program (WFP), said today her agency is planning to aid drop about 30,000 tons of food to an estimated 100,000 families who have been cut off from food deliveries.

"Unfortunately, given the current situation on the ground, it is impossible to pre-position the necessary supplies to last these people through the winter," she said.

Without food, they will either have to leave their homes in search of supplies, or die, she added.

WFP has appealed to donor nations to provide about $230 million in emergency funds in order to feed some 7.5 million people caught up in the crisis in Afghanistan. The agency is feeding about one million people using existing stocks, which it says will soon run out.