NGOs cautious about handover

As negotiations continue in New York and other spots where world leaders gather, humanitarian groups and other foreigners in Iraq are making their own calculations about where they'll be during the scheduled handover of power on 30 June to Iraqi officials. With maybe 30 international staff left in the country, according to estimates by aid agencies, it appears virtually all international organisations will put their operations on hold during the handover. At least two have announced plans to leave the country for good. Dangerous conditions in many parts of Iraq have already forced many international staff to leave the country. Most are going for 15 days before and 15 days after the handover period, said Giorgio Tarditi, director of Lifeline, Relief in Crisis, a South African-based NGO. Aid agencies are scaling down their presence even more in case things worsen, said Darren Nance, who works for the National Democratic Institute, a US-based democracy-building group working on preparations for planned January elections. Lakhdar Brahimi, Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General, has said he hoped the security environment after 1 July would encourage international aid agencies to return. Other officials have expressed optimism that handing over sovereignty to Iraqi officials on 30 June would help improve the security situation. Saboteurs who blew up an oil pipeline earlier in the week apparently don't think the same way. New oil minister Thameer Ghadhban has announced that his ministry is now operating independently of US-led advisers. That didn't stop the saboteurs from setting crude oil on fire that spewed into the Tigris River near the main northern power plant in Beiji and temporarily stopped electricity generation. New prime minister Iyad Allawi said anyone attacking Iraqs infrastructure is a traitor to the cause of Iraqs freedom and the freedom of its people. More than US $200 million in oil revenue to rebuild Iraq has been lost, Allawi said. Environmental damage from the attacks has polluted the water and destroyed farmland, he said. A spate of kidnappings and killings across the country in April caused many remaining aid agencies to flee. After an employee was kidnapped from the Research Triangle Institute, a US-based agency in Iraq, and later returned, workers remain low key, said Roberta Rossi, a spokeswoman for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which gives funding to the group. Many local workers and local aid agencies expect to continue their work through the handover period, however. Muslim Hands, a British-based aid agency staffed completely by Iraqis, has no problems, for example, said Nawfal al-Rawi, director of the Iraq office. Human Relief Foundation, a similar aid agency that has distributed food and medical supplies from donors in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, will also stay, officials there said. Some International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) workers will stay in Iraq, said Nada Doumani, a spokeswoman, as will Lifeline. But the Red Cross has kept a low profile following a bombing of its office in late October that killed at least 12 and wounded 20 more.