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IRAQ
Ending the embargo
Outside groups call for lifting of sanctions
More than 150 religious, political, and cultural, non-governmental and humanitarian organization leaders launched a campaign to highlight the plight of the Iraqi people and call for an end to the decade-long UN embargo of Outside groups call for lifting of sanctions.
The delegation, lead by Father Jean Marie Benjamin, visited Baghdad from September 29 to October 1. During their stay in Iraq, members of the delegation met with representatives of UNICEF and diplomatic staff, and visited hospitals and social centers.
Organizers of the “An Aircraft for Iraq” campaign are drawing attention to the 135,000 tons of bombs and more than 1 million depleted uranium bullets that have strafed the country over the last decade since the devastating Gulf War. The Iraqi population runs a serious risk of contamination from such weapons, including increased leukemia and cancer rates and immune system disorders, the campaign organizers say. However, since the weapons are made of depleted uranium, they are non-radioactive and cannot cause the mutations that create cancers and other illnesses, according to US government reports. US military personnel have handled the weapons every day for decades without special protective equipment.
According to a UNICEF report published in 1999, one child under five years old dies every 8 minutes in Iraq from disease and malnutrition. The death toll amounts to more than 5,000 children every month and 1.5 million civilians annually. “An entire population is shut up in a real extermination camp,” Father Benjamin said. “The people afflicted by the embargo are on their knees, psychologically and as a society. Islamic fundamentalism, which previously barely existed in the country, has spread to 60 percent of the population,” he added.
“Of the 10,000 schools in the country, more than 8,000 are out of action. An entire generation is facing a hopeless future with a ten-year gap in its schooling,” said Father Gian Maria Polidoro, OFM, a Franciscan from Assisi Pax International. The organization, whose mission is global peace, is a member of the delegation that visited Baghdad. The social and economic fabric of Iraq has been totally destroyed, he said.
In the southern part of the country, cholera and other infectious diseases are spreading. Hans Von Sponeck and Denis Halliday, former UN humanitarian aid coordinators in Iraq, resigned from their positions, saying they did not want to be “accomplices to genocide.”
“The international community cannot look on silently as the Iraqi people writhe in agony. It is an act of legalized genocide being carried out by two major powers acting in the strategic and military interests of economic lobbies and multinational companies. The two ‘no-fly-zones’ unilaterally imposed by Anglo-American administrations, which have never been recognized by the United Nations, are a clear violation of international law,” Father Benjamin said. “Our campaign is entirely in accordance with the views of the Pope, who has repeatedly declared his opposition to the embargo,” he added.
According to Vatican State Secretary, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Pope John Paul II has not abandoned the idea of a pilgrimage to Ur of the Chaldeans. The Pope expressed this wish in 1999 in his letter entitled “Pilgrimage to the places linked to the history of salvation.”
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