UN Compensation a Mirage for Kuwait-Returned Pakistanis
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LAHORE, Apr 20 (OneWorld) - Thousands of Pakistanis forced to flee the Gulf state of Kuwait overnight after its occupation by Iraqi forces in 1990 have still not received the promised compensation from the UN, thanks to bureaucratic inertia and mismanagement.
Worse, around 100,000 Pakistanis who returned home economically devastated, failed to get employment, due to the absence of government programs for expatriates. Most of them were working in mid-ranking technical and clerical positions in Kuwait's private and government sectors. Only a few ran their own businesses. Later, their hopes were revived when the UN Security Council passed Resolution 687 on April 3, 1991, making Iraq liable under international law for any direct loss, damage, including environmental damage and depletion of natural resources, or injury to foreign governments, nationals and corporations, as a result of its unlawful invasion and occupation of Kuwait. After the Iraq government accepted the UN resolution, the UN secretary-general established the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) on 20 May 1991 to verify and value the claims and administer the payments, announcing a deadline of December 1995 for filing claims. But by that time most of the war victims were untraceable. From 1992 to 1996, only 44,498 expatriates submitted their claims, receiving compensation in installments, but the remaining 50,000 were left out in the cold altogether due to lack of knowledge about the mandatory procedures. Fixing a cut-off date was in itself a clear violation of the UNCC mandate. Declares prominent civil rights advocate, Suhail Raza Aarbi, "Fixing a time frame to claim the right virtually amounts to denying it." The UNCC assigned the state-run Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) the task to locate and distribute money among the war victims. An official of the OPF says 44,480 applications were received till the UNCC's cut off date, with the commission approving 43,852 claims and awarding compensation of US $300.25 million. He claims the OPF is still trying to locate around 350 victims of the Kuwait crisis, whose compensation of over $5 million arrived a long time ago. Locating them is proving impossible, as most of their passports just listed addresses of sundry hotels. Many of them hailed from remote areas of the southern Sindh province and southwestern Balochistan province. His assertion notwithstanding, claimants allege the distribution of compensation lacks transparency, and OPF officials are employing delaying tactics in an bid to get bribes. Over 5,000 expatriates of Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin and Jhelum districts of the eastern Punjab province complain they have not received the announced compensation. Before the Iraq invasion, more than 10,000 residents of the three districts were residing in Kuwait. Recalls Riaz Hussain, one of the returnees from the Samanabad area of the eastern city of Lahore, "My family and I fended off starvation during hard times with difficulty." Hussain adds that although he has filed his claims with the OPF, he has received only partial compensation. "I am still waiting for the rest of the amount," he says. Another returnee, Muhammad Islam, claims only those with smaller claims were reimbursed, while others who presented higher claims remain empty-handed. A spokesman of the Ministry of Labor, Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis says he is helpless, as the government is pursuing the case of more than 50,000 war returnees for the last eight years. Currently, over 100,000 Pakistanis work in Kuwait, out of which 64,000 are employed in the private sector. |
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