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U.N. OKs More Compensation for Kuwaitis
GENEVA (AP) - A U.N. panel overseeing compensation for victims of Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait approved an additional $380 million in claims, officials said Friday. Most of that money is to go to Kuwait for individuals and companies, said Joe Sills, spokesman for the U.N. Compensation Commission.The claims approved by the 15-member panel this week bring to $48.6 billion the total payments authorized for individuals, corporations and governments that suffered losses in the invasion. The commission also agreed to set up a procedure to process late claims by up to 38,000 "bedouns," stateless or undocumented Arabs whose name comes from the Arabic word for "without," Sills said. The Kuwaiti government said such people were never given an effective opportunity to file their claims before the original deadline of December 1995. Sills said the government will have until Dec. 31 to collect and submit bedoun claims to the commission. They will be handled under a special, fast-track process that will give each approved claimant $2,500. Only bedouns who were aged 18 or over on Aug. 2, 1990 - the day that Iraq invaded Kuwait - will be eligible. The commission hopes to complete the bulk of its work by the end of this year. Payments are running well behind the approvals, however, because of the slow pace of funds coming in from Iraq. So far $18.4 billion has been released for payments, leaving more than $30 billion in approved claims yet to be paid. The panel is currently paying out $200 million every three months. Individuals get priority. It is expected to take decades to pay all the claims, with big oil companies having to wait until the end. Money to pay the claims comes from Iraqi oil sales. Last May, the U.N. Security Council decided the funds used to pay for the reparations would be 5 percent of Iraqi oil sales. Sills said that under the U.N. resolution, the new Iraqi administration is obliged to continue paying 5 percent of its oil revenues into the fund unless it agrees otherwise with the Security Council. "I have every expectation that they will do it, because it is binding on them," he said. Posted by: Steve White 2004-07-03 |
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