The biggest threat to peace

Monday February 03, 2003 15:57

by Michael Jansen

Higgins: ''Sanctions are a weapon of mass destruction''

The Indians, Chinese and Europeans are beginning to understand that the US is seeking to gain “leverage against them” by securing control of the oil. Tareq Aziz said that a US war would not be a war on Iraq alone, but a war on the region, India, Sri Lanka and Europe. “Iraq is the first, but not the only target,” Aziz told the Irish lawmakers. The ultimate US aim is to “recolonise Iraq” and secure “control of its oil” in order to dominate the entire global economy.

The biggest threat to peace
Michael Jansen
Frontier Post
ZILHAJ 1, 1423 ------- MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2003
http://www.thefrontierpost.com.pk/articles.asp#44

A two-man delegation from Ireland’s foreign affairs committee recently arrived in Baghdad on a fact-finding mission and departed five days later on a peace mission. Michael D. Higgins, foreign affairs spokesman for the Labour party, Senator Michael Kitt and Padraig Allen, of the committee’s secretariat, then came on a flight from Amman and began their visit with a sightseeing trip to Babylon. Their investigations took them to the Iraqi Red Crescent, a hospital, non-governmental organisations, UN humanitarian agencies, the ministries of health and trade. They were briefed by Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, and Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and dined with the family of an Iraqi friend residing in Dublin. Higgins, a campaigner against sanctions, had visited Baghdad on two previous occasions, in 1990 and two years ago, to look into the impact of the punitive sanctions regime on the lives of ordinary Iraqis. He found the current situation much worse than before. “Sanctions,” he said “are a weapon of mass destruction” which has leveled Iraqi society and reduced entire families to penury. While it is known that the Iraqis are being subjected to collective punishment, a breach of international law, the Irish lawmakers learnt that they are being cheated and humiliated as well. Cheating people in dire need can be fatal. Higgins and Kitt were shocked to find that the UN Sanctions Committee occasionally removes components from medical equipment because the US and Britain consider that certain items could be used to make arms of mass destruction. This renders essential equipment, often very expensive, totally useless. One drug is sometimes withheld from cocktails of several medications used to treat cancers, making the treatment ineffective. And due to shortage, a course of 20 doses of a certain medication can be discontinued before the course is complete, so the patient could relapse and even die. This means doctors often find themselves in the position of deciding which person should receive treatment and which should not. “No doctor should be put in such a situation,” asserted Francis Dubois, the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) country representative, during a meeting with the Irish delegation. The UN-controlled mechanism — created under the oil-for-food programme — is unwieldy and slow. It lends itself to political exploitation by the US and Britain and to corruption on the supply side. Urgently needed equipment may take six months to several years to “pass” the UN’s committee which is dominated by the US and UK. Once a consignment is delivered and inspected by the UN at its place of importation into Iraq, equipment is shipped to buyers who often find that machinery is faulty. Food and medicine is occasionally contaminated or beyond its expiry date. The Iraqis have no leverage on suppliers because full payment is made from the UN controlled escrow account before delivery. Unscrupulous suppliers often dump shoddy goods, bad food and faulty equipment on Iraq, take their money and run, knowing full well that Baghdad is in no position to claim redress. Having made, literally, what could be a killing on one shipment, such companies do not present themselves as suppliers again. The looming war was, of course, the other issue on which the Irish lawmakers were briefed. Tareq Aziz said that a US war would not be a war on Iraq alone, but a war on the region, India, Sri Lanka and Europe. “Iraq is the first, but not the only target,” Aziz told the Irish lawmakers. The ultimate US aim is to “recolonise Iraq” and secure “control of its oil” in order to dominate the entire global economy. “Britain, the former colonial power in the Gulf, wants to return,” Aziz told the delegation at a meeting, which I, as a member of the Irish press, attended. “All the countries of the region say war is a danger to them,” he remarked. Furthermore, the Indians, Chinese and Europeans are beginning to understand that the US is seeking to gain “leverage against them” by securing control of the oil. Aziz made the point that European and other consumers of Iraq’s oil now buy it from the country’s national oil company, SOMO, but if the US takes control of the country, its customers will have to go through Washington which will set prices and decide who has access. The 1991 war, which Aziz said, was part and parcel of this drive to gain a hold on the oil of the Middle East, and 12 years of sanctions have reduced Iraq — a country with an ancient civilisation, an educated population, industry and the second largest oil reserves in the world — to the status of Lesotho, a poor country in war-torn Africa, Dubois from UNDP told the lawmakers. This brief visit to Baghdad, a “pilgrims’ progress” through a suffering land about to be bombed back into the pre-industrial age for a second time in just over a decade, transformed the Irish parliamentarians from fact finders into peacemakers. They are now in Amman, discussing with senior members of the Jordanian government a proposal, launched by former UN coordinator in Iraq Dr Hans von Sponeck, for a mission of distinguished world leaders aimed at halting the march towards a war no sane person wants. This mission, which must be mounted as soon as possible, would come to Baghdad to discuss implementation of Security Council Resolution 1441. Tareq Aziz said the mission would be welcome if it gives priority to inspections and disarmament, the war issues, and is prepared to deal with the other issues of human rights, democracy and regional security once the threat of war recedes. Senator Kitt pointed out that the current crisis could be resolved without war if the parties adopt the method used in “the Irish peace process and bring in outside parties to interpret UN Security Council Resolution 1441” in such a way as to avert war. The “outside parties” suggested for the Iraq case include former South African President Nelson Mandela, former US President Jimmy Carter, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Foreign Minister George Papandreou of Greece, which currently holds the European Union presidency. Papandreou was the man who initiated reconciliation between Greece and Turkey, which have a long-standing history of antagonism. The Irish lawmakers hope Jordan will agree to officially sponsor the mission of distinguished personalities, which all the humanitarian bodies working here say could be the world’s chance to avert a war which could bring catastrophe to Iraq and the entire region. At the end of the delegation’s stay in Baghdad, Higgins said that due to the threat of war and the ongoing sanctions regime, “no one will be able to speak about international law again. The Geneva Conventions and customary international law for the protection of children have been ignored. The Security Council ... may never recover. America and Britain, acting on their own outside international law, are the biggest threat to peace at this time.