After passing resolution, IPU closes its conference

JAKARTA (JP): The 104th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) closed its week-long conference by calling for a review on the effectiveness of embargoes and economic sanctions to resolve international issues.

The conference also called for a reassessment of various international and unilateral sanctions such as those imposed on Burundi, Cuba and the United Nations' sanction on Iraq.

The resolution stressed that while economic sanctions -- although still a legitimate political instrument -- should be avoided because they inflict suffering on too many innocent people.

As many as 834 delegates voted in favor of the resolution titled "Are embargoes and economic sanctions still ethically acceptable, do they still work, and are they suited to achieving their purpose in an even more globalized word".

There were 245 against and 159 abstained.

"Embargoes and economic sanctions affect a wide range of people, especially woman and children," IPU president Najma Heptulla remarked.

The resolution, proposed by Belgium, also demanded medicines and foodstuffs be systematically excluded from any multilateral or unilateral sanction.

There was an attempt during the plenary to amend a paragraph in the resolution which would directly call for a lifting of sanctions against Iraq.

But it failed to gain the two-thirds vote required to be accepted as 595 voted in favor, 517 against and 105 abstained.

In the end it was accepted as a note of the resolution.

The United States was also called on to exercise the utmost circumspection by examining the humanitarian repercussions of sanctions.

The conference also approved a resolution titled "Financing for development and a new paradigm of economic and social development designed to eradicate poverty".

It called on both developed and developing countries to pursue development with a human face through economic measures, such as credit facilities for small and medium-scale enterprises, small- scale financing initiatives and household debt relief.

The other resolution unanimously adopted was titled "The prevention of military and other coups against democratically elected government and against the free will of the peoples expressed through direct suffrage, and action to address grave violations of the human rights of parliamentarians".

It strongly condemned all attempts, successful or otherwise, to overthrow democratically elected government by military or other undemocratic means.

Najma said the resolution was based on events which occurred in Fiji, Myanmar and Pakistan.

"The topic was decided last year in Amman Jordan, it has no relation with Indonesia," she remarked, adding that a military coup seemed far from likely here.

The conference a day earlier also adopted a resolution on violence in the Middle East. However it stopped short of condemning Israel.

The next IPU conference will take place in Havana, Cuba. (jun)