May 15 , 2000 Collateral Damage BY JOHN PILGER Ten years of sanctions in Iraq Under Siege BY ANTHONY ARNOVE Hans von Sponeck steps down The IMF: Kill It or Fix It? BY G. PASCAL ZACHARY How to Fix the IMF BY DAVID MOBERG First, do no harm Water Fallout BY JIM SHULTZ Bolivians battle globalization ICANN: Secret government of the Internet? BY STEVEN HILL The fight over who will control the Web The Big Payback BY SALIM MUWAKKIL African-Americans renew the call for reparations News & Views Editorial BY JASON VEST Capital crimes Appall-O-Meter BY DAVID FUTRELLE A Terry Laban Cartoon No Justice for Janitors BY DAVID BACON L.A. workers take the first step toward a nationwide strike Wal-Martyrs BY KARI LYDERSEN Unionizing means job cuts at the world's largest retailer Fishy Business BY JEFF SHAW Washington State is failing to protect endangered salmon Wasted BY JEFF ST. CLAIR Russia moves ahead with shady nuclear scheme Profile BY DAVID MOBERG Luis Alfonso Velasquez: Wanted man Culture The Culture Vultures BY LAURA BRAHM BOOKS: Art as instrument of foreign policy Left in the Dust BY TED KLEINE BOOKS: A HIstory of the Small & the Invisible Queer Godfather BY DOUG IRELAND BOOKS: Martin Duberman, intellectual No Jacket Required BY JOSHUA ROTHKOPF FILM: American Psycho Rememberance of Things Trashed BY CALEB MASON

Under Siege By Anthony Arnove When Hans von Sponeck announced in February that he was resigning as coordinator of the U.N. humanitarian program in Iraq effective March 31, State Department spokesman James Rubin suggested that the 36-year U.N. veteran was unsuitable for the position and had acted "beyond the range of his competence or his authority" in speaking out on the limitations of the oil-for-food program. "His job is to work on behalf of Iraqi people and not the regime," Rubin charged. Hans von Sponeck. Credit: Reuters/Faleh Kheiber To defend sanctions in the face of growing awareness of their devastating toll on millions of Iraqis, the State Department has sought to discredit von Sponeck. The process started last fall, when pro-sanctions forces in Britain and the United States said von Sponeck had come under the influence of his predecessor in Iraq, Denis Halliday, a vocal opponent of sanctions who resigned in protest in September 1998, after 34 years at the United Nations. But, as von Sponeck told In These Times in a recent interview in Baghdad, the oil-for-food program created by U.N. Security Council Resolution 986 is fundamentally inadequate and has failed to meet its stated objectives. Not enough food or medicine is reaching ordinary Iraqis. "The net of empirical evidence is increasingly dense," he says. "We are not just talking with our hearts, but we are also talking with our minds. We can back up what we are saying." Anthony Arnove is editor of Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War (South End Press). He recently traveled to Iraq with members of Voices in the Wilderness and the Fellowship of Reconciliation.   TOP HOME SUBSCRIBE MAIL   In These Times © 2000 Vol. 24, No. 12