Counting the cost of UN sanctions against Iraq

By Nadia Hijab in Baghdad

BAGHDAD: The road to Baghdad was completed just before the 1990-1991 Gulf war. Today, not a scratch mars the 340-mile highway from the Jordanian border to the capital of Iraq, a country which has been living under sanctions for a decade.

Baghdad is a sprawling, flat city. The absence of high-rise buildings is partly explained by 20 years of conflict (first with Iran, then with Britain, the United States and their allies following the invasion of Kuwait).

The hotel balcony overlooks a landscape of green trees and dun-colored homes -- and of United Nations flags atop many buildings.

The UN plays a complex role in this country: part sanctions- manager, part provider of humanitarian aid in an attempt to alleviate the consequences of the sanctions for 22 million Iraqis.

Saddam, sanctions and suffering seem to be all the news fit to print. Yet there are other stories, of ordinary people getting on with life, of writers and artists changing the shape of their world.

It is not easy being an intellectual in Iraq. Many writers have sold their libraries to survive. A street in the Souq used to be full of antique books. It is now occupied by stationery stores. It is not clear who can afford the stationery -- certainly not government departments, where everyone carefully conserves and uses the other side of printed pages.

Close by, Al Mutannabi Street hosts an open-air book market every Friday. Old books and magazines line the pavements. You can see where the clock has stopped. There are few books from the 1990s.

But the sense of humor that helps Iraqis cope is never far from the surface.

Many personal libraries sold over the past decade included books dedicated by authors to their friends. Authors often stumble across signed copies of their books on sale on Al Mutannabi Street, and then take their friends to task.

One Iraqi bought a large number of signed copies from the market and organized an exhibition: Books Dedicated and Sold.

There is a serious debate about development in Iraq. At a workshop convened last month by the Beitul Hikma thinktank, economists and social scientists discussed the indices used by the UN's annual global human development report, which measures progress and poverty.

In 1990, Iraq ranked 55th out of 130 countries on the human development index (HDI). By 1995, it had slipped to 106th, and by 1999 it had plummeted to 125th, behind Bolivia, Mongolia, Egypt, and Gabon.

According to the HDI, an Iraqi born in 1987 could expect to live 65 years. But whereas neighboring Jordanians saw their life expectancy improve from 67 years in 1987 to 70 years in 1997, life expectancy in Iraq dropped to 62.4.

Whereas Jordan saw its literacy rate rise from 75 percent in 1985 to 87.2 percent in 1997, Iraq's dropped from 89 percent to 58 percent.

In the 1990 HDI, Iraq ranked three places above Jordan. By 1999, it ranked 31 places below.

A few days after the Beitul Hikma workshop, experts from the planning commission discussed an Iraqi human development report.

But discussions in Iraq are regularly interrupted by power cuts. The government provides power to Baghdadis according to a strict rota -- three hours on, six hours off.

In outlying areas and the provinces, the power cuts are longer. People plan their lives according to the rota -- work, laundry, cooking, haircuts. A lucky few, including UN staff, have generators.

Soon, temperatures will soar to 50 C (122 F). During the summer, few people sleep at night, and children get sick. Repairs to the national grid proceed at a snail's pace; more than US$500 million worth of contracts are currently held up at the UN sanctions committee.

Deprivation has made recycling a thriving business, and families can earn a living collecting plastic and glass. Women are particularly enterprising at devising new ways to earn a living -- becoming landscape gardeners, caterers, taxi drivers, nursery managers or wedding consultants. Apparently, people still want to get married, and want to do things right.

In fact, a few families can be spotted at one of the restaurants beside the River Tigris. The scene is unexpectedly serene: a few motorboats ply the Tigris carrying customers from the restaurant; the girls' hair streams out behind them.

The Tigris is lower than ever because of the Turkish dams upstream, according to every Iraqi who raises the subject. They all do: the siege mentality has many dimensions here.

But the low waters provide an opportunity to repair the riverbanks. The bridges damaged by bombing have long since been rebuilt.

-- Guardian News Service