RIYADH, 2 February — A five-member UN committee on Gulf War compensation arrived here today for holding talks with Saudi government officials to estimate the damages suffered by the government and private sectors during the Gulf War.
The team, headed by Anil Clara, will study the compensation claims to be settled out of the Iraqi oil revenues accruing from the “Oil for Food” program set up in 1995. The amount will be paid out of the oil revenues under the UN resolution 986 issued on April 14,1995. Iraq’s oil revenues rose to $8.29 billion in 1999.
During its stay in the capital, the committee will hold talks with senior officials in the Ministry of Finance and National Economy as well as others from private sector organizations, the Council of Saudi Chambers of Commerce and Industry, besides individuals. The Security Council had established the compensation committee by UNSC resolution 692 in May 1991 to compensate foreign governments, firms and individuals for their losses sustained during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990. To date, the commission has disbursed a total of $11 billion in damage claims.
Professor A.M. Mathew of King Saud University, was one of the expatriates who fled to India during the Gulf War. Back then, he was teaching at Kuwait University. When he had returned to Kuwait a year after the liberation to rejoin the Kuwaiti university, his claim for 12 months’ salary and $60,000 in compensation for damage to his car and household items was settled only last week after his credentials were established by the Indian Embassy in Riyadh.
He said that the Indian embassy school in Riyadh had accommodated all the displaced NRIs from Kuwait. He was provided with food, accommodation, clothing, medicine and air tickets by the management committee in association with the Indian Embassy and different associations and establishments.
