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| Campaigns:
SANCTIONED MURDER -THE
CASE OF IRAQ |
"We
are in the process of destroying an entire nation. It is as
simple and as terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral."
Dennis Halliday, Former United Nations Humanitarian Co-ordinator
in Iraq.
In July 1979, Saddam
Hussein became President of Iraq. A continuing dispute between
Iraq and Iran over territorial rights and the Shatt Al-Arab
waterway led to the Iran-Iraq war. More than one million people
had died by the time the war ended in July 1988. Iraq was armed
and supported by both the US and the USSR during the Iran-Iraq
war. Ongoing disputes between Iraq and Kuwait over land and
oil issues led to the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. This invasion
provoked outrage in the West and on August 6th 1990 the UN voted
to impose sanctions against Iraq, in order to get them out of
Kuwait. This action failed and on the 17th January 1991 the
Gulf war began.
"Sanctions
are amongst the most powerful and lethal weapons in our armoury".
US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright.
Sanctions still remain in place today, effecting innocent Iraqi
civilians. The sanctions have put a stop to all trade with Iraq.
They are the only sanctions of this kind imposed this century
on any country. This means that the civilian population has
no access to products that were in the past imported into the
country. The embargo includes food, medical equipment, drugs,
medical technology, and spare parts for machinery and water
sanitation technology. The lack of access to equipment for vital
repair work on the main water treatment plant is leading to
people drinking contaminated water, which in turn is causing
an increase of disease and death in children under five.
A Poisoned land.
The organisation 'Voices in the Wilderness' was set
up in February 1998, in England. This is a group of volunteers
who bring medical supplies into Iraq. For anyone found 'guilty'
of doing this there is maximum five-year imprisonment penalty.
One member of the delegation, which went to Iraq in May 1999,
was Andrea Needham, who visited three major hospitals in Baghdad
and spoke to the medical staff working in these hospitals. In
the Paediatric and Maternity Hospitals in Basrah she spoke to
a consultant Dr. Abdul Kerim who estimates that there had been
a threefold increase in leukaemia since the end of the Gulf
war, mostly amongst children living in areas where there was
heavy fighting. He put this down to the use of depleted uranium
by the US and Britain.
Depleted Uranium is a cheap nuclear waste, which is highly radioactive.
The immediate effect of depleted uranium is that it enters the
human body through the air and contaminates the food chain via
the soil and water supplies. It is estimated that there are
at least 900 tones of depleted uranium travelling wherever the
wind blows in Iraq and surrounding areas. It will take 4,500
million years for the radioactivity released into the atmosphere
during the war to diminish.
Dr. Kerim told Andrea that when he was working at the same hospital
in 1983, he saw one case of leukaemia every three months. Now
he sees at least one case a week. The lack of medicines and
the facilities for bone marrow transplants mean that in Iraq
100% of children with leukaemia will die - in Ireland the cure
rate is 70%.
In all three hospitals there was a familiar pattern of broken
equipment, shortages of medicines, gloves, sheets for the beds,
syringes and antibiotics. Doctors were in despair, knowing how
to treat their patients but being denied that right through
the lack of medicines and equipment
Oil for Food.
The United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) was set up in
April 1991 to ensure that Iraq disclosed and disarmed all its
weapons. The lifting of sanctions is conditional on Iraq's full
co-operation in these Inspections.
In May 1996, Iraq signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
- more commonly known as the oil for food agreement. Under this
agreement Iraq is allowed to sell oil in exchange for aid and
medical supplies. But Iraq cannot supply enough oil because
of destroyed infrastructure and pipelines, which continue to
be bombed. According to the UN Security Council Generals Report
of February 1999, $500 million in humanitarian aid never reached
Iraq because of insufficient oil revenues. NATO is still bombing
Iraq on a daily basis.
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