of vulnerable women and children in non-government controlled

arears.

The UN system has had difficulty responding quickly and coherently to complex disasters. The system is not broken; it has not kept pace with the changing realities of humanitarian assistance emergencies. Remedies are available. UN officials, donors and international and private voluntary agencies must cooperate to identify the most effective modifications for the short and long term and work toward their implementation. I would call upon UN officials to intensify the efforts already underway so that the UN and the community of nations can work together more effectively to meet future humanitarian crises and the ones facing us today.

Humanitarian Relief Efforts for Kurdish Refugees Raise Political and Logistical Questions for US

By Rep. Tony Hall

Of all the consequences of war, the rarest and most valuable are those that offer opportunities for positive change. The Red Cross, international treaties banning genocide and chemical weapons, even the United Nations itself, all grew out of the wars that preceded them.

The Gulf war against Saddam Hussein has presented an oppor. tunity for tremendous humanitarian advancement that could benefit millions of hungry people. It's an opportunity we should seize quickly.

Don't get me wrong: Saddam is no humanitarian. He's responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. He committed horrible atrocities against the Kuwanis, used clicopter gunships against Shine civilians, and tried to starve the Kurdish refugees into submission.

But ironically, in the aftermath of the war against him, it is possible to talk about humanitarian breakthroughs that came about in response to his aggression. These are breakthroughs that hungry people around the world desper ately need.

The first is subtle but far-reaching. The decision by the US and its allies to provide humanitarian aid to the Kurds in Northern Iraq over Saddam's objections has created a crack in the previously sacred "wall of sovereignty."

In the past, tyrannical leaders have hidden behind international Sovereignty considerations while subjecting innocent civilians to suffering or death by denying them food or medical supplies. And while international law has been powerless to prevent it, mil

Hundreds of Kurds, mostly children, died each night on the evening news, and the world was moved to act.

lions of people have died. Often, their deaths have gone unnoticed h the media or the international diplomatic commu:uty: Food is a silen! weapon.

Here's the dilemma: Since its creation, the United Nations > mandate has been to uphold two principles-the sovereign rights of nations, and the human nghts of individuals. Whenever those principles conflict, sovereignty has always won. And behind the wall of sovereignty, hungry

Photo courtesy Department of Defense Rep. Tony Hall, chairman of the Select Hunger panel, has introduced HR 2258, the Freedom From Want Act. This legislation, derived from FDR's humanitarian efforts, would create a UN Convention on the Right to Food and Humanitarian Assistance and a permanent undersecretary for humanitarian affairs. Hunger legislation would have gone far in securing an immediate international response to starving Kurdish refugees, many of whom are children (above).

television via satellite. Hun-
dreds of Kurds-mostly children
- died each night on the evening
news. The world was moved to
act, sovereignty notwithstanding.

Using the authority of UN
Resolutions 687 and 688, which
ordered immediate access for
humanitarian organizations, sav-
ing the lives of the Kurds was put
above Iraq's sovereignty.

The second breakthrough is a newly invigorated and newly respected UN. Confronted with an international crisis, the UN General Assembly and Secunty Council swiftly transformed themselves into international policy organizations capable of defining and implementing the will of the world community.

The credit for this goes jointly to the thaw in Cold War tensions and to a President who skillfully used the levers of international diplomacy. After a decade of atrophy, the UN responded to Saddam's aggression with cohesion, decisiveness, and action.

Sort of. While the new UN was dramatically effective in New York, its agencies were often confused and counter-productive in the field, as I saw when I toured the border camps. Tragically, the

military reacted quickly because
the UN could not

I visited the refugee camps
along the Iraqi border. I saw how
great the need was and what our
troops were doing to help. I was
told that the Allies were airlifting
the equivalent of a supermarket a
day into the mountains. The scope
of the problem was immense, but
so was our response. This re-
sponse brings up what might be
called the third breakthrough: the
use of the military for humanitar-
ian relief.

While I was in Turkey, I talked to troops of Operation Provide Comfort, who were responsible for delivering food to the refugees. I can say, as the Congressman who represents Wright-Pat

terson Air Force Base in Ohio, I have never seen a group of military men and women so proud of the work they were doing as I did in Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

If one obstacle to feeding hungry people is poliucal, another is logisucal. As the best logisticians in the world, the US military can literally move mountains of food and medical supplies when the need arises. If the military were used as soldiers for peace," milhions of live around the world

and world indifference be elimi-
nated? When should the military
be used for humanitarian pur-
poses?

Two changes in UN policy, are
included in an omnibus anti-hun-
ger bill I've introduced, HR 2258,
the Freedom From Want Act,
could offer some answers.

The legislation takes its name from an earlier humanitarian legacy: the "Four Freedoms." Fifty years ago, Franklin Roosevelt listed freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from fear, and freedom from want as his vision for the post-WWII world. Half a century later, I've recalled Roosevelt's vision to help form

When should the

new concept of
human needs
over sovereignty'
be invoked?

the basis of a new era of humani-
tarian opportunity.

First, the US should propose a
UN Convention on the Right to
Food and Humanitarian Assis-
tance, similar to conversions on

assure that any "humanitarian invasion" would be a tool of international law, not a violation.

Second, the UN should establish a permanent undersecretary for humanitarian affairs who would have the exclusive responsibility for organizing relief efforts at the first indication of a crisis.

In the case of a natural disaster. the undersecretary would assign and delegate responsibilities among the various UN agencies involved. In a case where a hosule government or rebel group was blocking relief to a population at risk, he or she would notify the Secretary General and Security Council of a potential violation o the Convention on the Right to Food and Humanitarian AssisLance and allow them to take preempuve action.

Along with other advocates for hunger issues, I have been pushing for a beuer and more effective way to help starving people.

This month's foreign aid bill included language taken from HR 2258 that proposed both a Convention on Food and an undersecretary for humanitarian affairs. The outrage at Saddam Hussein, s hain made the difine.

1

M

ORE than a year ago satellite photos provided
Sudan into a severe food crisis.
years of drought were on the verge of throwing
the first clear warning that three consecutive

Anxious to avoid a repetition of the devastating
develop a plan to stockpile emergency food supplies.
African famine that claimed more than 2 million lives in
1985, international relief agencies quickly prepared to

But for reasons having to do mostly with domestic
and international politics, Sudanese Prime Minister
Hasan Ahmad Al-Bashir refused to cooperate until it
was too late. The result: a famine that relief officials say
could have been avoided and that places the lives of 10
million Sudanese in jeopardy.

Determined to prevent food from once again be-
coming an instrument of politics, a group of members
heading a controversial proposal that would make de-
of the United States House of Representatives is spear-
nial of food a human-rights violation. The proposal is
its disaster response procedures and to create a perma-
passed last month that also calls for the UN to overhaul
contained in an amendment to a House foreign aid bill
nent UN undersecretary for humanitarian affairs.

Legal scholars say the plan is likely to be opposed
by many third-world nations, which will see it as license
sovereign rights won after decades of resistance to
for the international community to infringe on
colonialism. But sponsors of the measure say these very
sovereign rights have been abused too often by regimes
regard for the welfare of their own people.
that govern with tenuous mandates and with cruel dis-

"We shouldn't be forced to witness starvation from
the sidelines," says Rep. Tony Hall, an Ohio Democrat
who chairs the House Select Committee on Hunger,
we can to make it a crime to starve people to death."
which drafted the proposal. “We have to do everything
"Sovereignty has its privileges but also its responsi-
bility not to abuse civilian populations," adds Roger
you do, your sovereignty should be infringed."
Winter, director of the US Committee for Refugees. "If

If the plan is approved by the Senate and backed by
the Bush administration, the United States ambassador
to the UN would be instructed to propose that the Gen-
eral Assembly draft and adopt a food convention.

lives of millions of people."

Backers of the House legislation say the end of the
cold war has made it possible to discuss intervention
with the discrete aim of alleviating famine without run-
ning afoul of geopolitical concerns.

A significant precedent for intervention was set
when the UN broke with tradition last February and al-
lowed international relief agencies to deliver emergency
food and medical supplies to Kurdish refugees over the
protests of the Iraqi government.

"In the past, sovereignty has always taken prece-
dence, even if people suffer and die," says a congres-
sional source. "What happened after the Gulf war was
reaching legal and philosophical debate.
If the idea gets this far, it is likely to trigger a far- that the international community said the human rights
of Kurds were more important than the sovereign rights
course between two conflicting mandates:
Since its inception, the UN has steered a careful of Iraq. Having crossed that Ribicon we're not going to

N the one hand, it has forsworn intervention in
tent with provisions of the UN Charter.
the internal affairs of members nations, consis-

On the other hand, the charter gives the UN the right
peace is threatened or in clear cases of aggression.
to intervene if the Security Council determines that

The question posed by the House initiative is
rights when food is used as a political weapon.
whether human rights should prevail over sovereign

tomatic, say the bill's sponsors, but would be the cul-
The forced delivery of food supplies would not be au-
mination of a process that could first pass through a
process of appeals, resolutions of condemnation, and
refuse to accept outside aid.
perhaps even sanctions against governments that

"There's an evolving new morality about this issue,"
says Mr. Winter. "What we're calling for is an estab-
lished procedure that would apply when you have a
rogue government that places its own welfare over the

cross back.'

With several rebellious republics appealing for out-
side support, the Soviet Union is unlikely to welcome
any measure that would call into question the inviola-
bility of national boundaries.

Many third-world countries are also likely to view the
House proposal with suspicion because of painful mem-
ories of foreign intervention.

"The third world is much more sensitive on the
grounds of nationalism," says Ved Nanda, director of the
International Legal Studies Program at the University of
vention.
Denver law school and a strong advocate of a food con-

"They have seen the Security Council used by the US
in the Iraqi situation and fear that a convention could
be an instrument of colonial intervention."

"Famine is not an inevitable result of drought, it's a
man-made occurrence," Winter says. "We need the tools
of international law that would help us circumvent man-
made obstacles. Any new world order worth its salt
would provide for something like this."

102D CONGRESS

1ST SESSION

H. R. 2258

To help end hunger and human want.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

MAY 8, 1991

Mr. HALL of Ohio (for himself and Mr. EMERSON) introduced the following bill; which was referred jointly to the Committees on Education and Labor, Agriculture, Energy and Commerce, Foreign Affairs, Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, and Ways and Means

1

A BILL

To help end hunger and human want.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa

2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; TABLE OF CONTENTS.

4

(a) SHORT TITLE.-This Act may be cited as the

5 "Freedom From Want Act".

14

PART A-FOOD AS A HUMAN RIGHT

15 SEC. 211. FINDINGS REGARDING THE RIGHT TO FOOD.

The Congress finds that—

(1) the right to food remains an unfulfilled promise for hundreds of millions of people in many

countries around the world; and

(2) an international convention on the right to food could be a useful tool in increasing international respect for the right to food, especially among governments and armed opposition groups.

1 SEC. 212. UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE RIGHT TO

2

3

FOOD.

The United States should make a major effort toward 4 strengthening the right to food in international law. To5 ward that end, the United States should propose to the 6 United Nations General Assembly that a Declaration and 7 a Convention on the Right to Food be adopted and submit