Modtaget 13.01.03:
LETTER
FROM BAGHDAD
Dear
Friends,
From 3rd-
8th January 2003 a group of NGO representatives and former UN
officials was able to meet with cabinet ministers in Baghdad including Deputy
Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Foreign Minister Nagi Sabri and Oil Minister Amer
Mohammed Rashid, as well as to talk with doctors, teachers and scientists. We had the opportunity to meet ordinary
Iraqis and visit sites recently inspected for weapons of mass destruction. The aim was to contribute to efforts to
prevent war and to gather information not available in the western press,
particularly with regard to the human situation.
Attached is
a brief summary of a very intense series of visits, as well as suggestions
responding to the frequent question asked by citizens of western countries
"What can we do to help prevent war?"
Please
circulate these documents as widely as possible, asking NGOs and individuals to
act quickly on the practical suggestions offered. Your help will be very valuable.
With warm
wishes,
from
Margarita Papandreou, former First Lady of Greece
Scilla Elworthy, Director, Oxford Research Group, UK
Denis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN
and UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq
Christian Harleman, the Transnational Foundation for Peace and
Future Research, Sweden
Jan Oberg, Director, the Transnational Foundation,
Sweden
Zeynab Oral, Winpeace and Peace Initiative, Turkey
Omaima Rawas, peace activist and Vice President of the
Syrian Arabic League, Syria
Fotini Sianou, President, Women’s Committee, European Trade
Union Confederation
**********************
NEWS
FROM BAGHDAD - a visit to Iraq 3rd – 8th
January 2003
including
meetings with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Foreign Minister Nagi Sabri and
Oil Minister Amer Mohammed Rashid, as well as conversations with ordinary
Iraqis in the street and visits to sites.
- Attitudes of Iraqis today. We experienced a mixture of fatalism,
faith and defiance in the El-zahrawi tearoom. Watching Saddam Hussein’s
Army Day speech on television, we talked with people at random, many of
whom spoke English. They said that twice now world opinion has predicted
that Iraq would collapse – after the Gulf War in 1991, and in 1998 when
350 cruise missiles hit the country – and once again they will survive. Yes,
their children are afraid. Yes, the teenagers do not know if it is worth
studying seriously or not. No, they will not go to the shelters. They do
not talk so much of US or UK aggression but rather of Bush and Blair: they
do not resent the people of the countries about to bomb them, nor the
civilizations, but the leaders.
In the words of Dr. Hoda Ammash “People
here bear every respect for western people and western civilization. We
respect your technological advancement, and your values. We know that
westerners are being given the opportunity to learn
- about Arabic civilizations. Yet hatred is being manufactured, by
some, to engineer a clash of civilizations.”
2. Food reserves. Iraqi households have been given three months’
(and now a further two months') food rations in order to get it out of the main
storage sites to prevent it being bombed. The food distribution programme,
according to Denis Halliday (former Assistant Secretary-General of the United
Nations and UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq (1997-98), is one of the most
efficient in history, involving 49,000 food distribution agents and minimizing
corruption through a system whereby if 100 people complain about an agent, he
or she is removed. Iraqis are also stockpiling water but have no suitable large
containers. People with gardens are being asked to dig wells.
Under the
UN Oil-for-Food Programme only about half the oil revenues can be used for
buying food and other necessities for the population of the centre and South of
the country; the rest being used for compensation to Kuwait and the costs of
the UN programme including the UNMOVIC weapons inspections.
Halliday
concludes: “ The twelve year sanctions
regime has become a weapon of mass destruction, built on the massive damage to
civilian infrastructure by US bombing and resulting in the deaths of over one
million people since 1991, over half of whom are children.”
According
to UNICEF 25% of Iraqi babies are born weighing 2kgs or less, a key indicator
of famine. One million children under 5 suffer acute or chronic malnutrition.
3. Shelters. Everyone we spoke to said they would not use
the 34 shelters provided for civilians in Baghdad because of the 1991 bombing
of Al-Amarya shelter when 408 out of 422 women and children in the shelter were
burned to death.
4. Weapons Inspectors. Dr. Sami Al-Araji, a nuclear engineer and Director General of
Planning at the Ministry of Industry, is facilitating the work of the UNMOVIC
inspectors. Everywhere we went there was a remarkable willingness to co-operate
with the inspections, but patience is being tested. During our visit there was
a routine inspection near the University of Baghdad where there are 6 science
centres. The inspectors wanted to investigate one of these, but froze the
entire complex meaning that nearly 3,000 people could not move for six hours,
even though their place of work was not under inspection. This meant that
toddlers were left uncollected at nursery schools. Not even the Iraqi Ambassador to the UN, there for a visit,
was allowed to leave.
A professor
of microbiology at the University of Baghdad told us that during 1991-98
inspectors re-examined the university every three weeks, searching minutely. “They enter exam halls where students are
doing their finals and search under their chairs.” Iraqi people thought the inspections
would last 2-3 years, and then they could go back to normal life. The inspections are now into their 12th
year, are more intense than ever, and there is no end in sight.
We visited
the al-Dawrah Foot and Mouth Vaccine Institute which was high on the list in
the UK Government dossier (published September 2002) of biological weapons
sites. Since 1994 the site has been inspected 60 times, it has been closed
since 1995, when all the equipment was destroyed or removed and there were
cameras everywhere connected to the former UNSCOM Monitoring Centre in Baghdad.
The place was wrecked.
5. Civil and political rights. Since Oct 2002, laws and
regulations have been or are being revised as follows:
- Amendments to the constitution
to allow for a multi-party system.
- Abolition of special ‘security
violations’ courts which had no rights of appeal
- Abolition of laws requiring
cutting off hands of thieves
- Amnesty for political prisoners
- Exiles not linked to
intelligence services may now return to Iraq with the right to criticise
the government
- Reduction of fee for exit visa
from Iraq from $200 to $10.
6. Oil. Current Iraqi production is approx 3 million
barrels per day (current world production approx 77 million) but it has the
second largest reserves in the world.
If controls were lifted, and with infrastructure investment, with its
immense reserves of easily extractable oil Iraq has the potential to supply 10%
of the world’s oil needs, and to continue to do so for at least a century (since
less than 1% of reserves are being used up each year). Iraqis are very
conscious of the energy needs of the western economies - the US has to import
60% of its oil needs - and know that the main reason for military invasion is
to gain control of its vast reserves of oil. Iraqi ministers fear that if the
US were to control Iraq's oil production, it would manipulate the economies not
only of the Far East, but also of Europe. Iraq takes a long-term view, wants a
stable oil price, and would like to adopt normal trading relations rather than
be subject to crises, threats and manipulation.
7. Depleted Uranium (DU). Water-borne and air-borne dust from
DU shells, used by the US and the UK in the 1991 Gulf war, is spreading over
vast areas of Iraq but the government has no way of detecting the direction of
the spread because airborne radiation sensing equipment is prohibited. People
are developing cancers by consuming meat and milk from animals grazing in
polluted areas. Cancers of all
kinds are increasing dramatically in Iraq particularly amongst women with
breast cancer and leukemia. Members of our delegation have visited hospitals in
Iraq since 1991 and observed that current conditions in the hospitals have
worsened. Equipment needed for treatment lies idle because the computerized
controls have been removed due to sanctions. There is one nurse for every 16
beds where previously there was one for every two beds. Every child has a
mother or grandmother giving full time care. Omar, three years old has a plastino blastoma*, which attacks
kidneys and then destroys the brain and nervous system: his head is enlarged to
twice normal size, his face swollen unrecognizably out of shape and his eyes
blind. His mother sits with him like a madonna, waiting for her child to die. Tiny
Aia (‘Miracle’) was born with a second head, a brain sack attached to the back
of her own head, a condition known as meningoceal*
and not seen in Iraq before the mid-1990s. Dr. Ahmed Fadeh of the Baghdad
Children’s Hospital told me there are unlimited cases he simply can’t treat
because his equipment is worn out or lacks spares, and he has not got the drugs
or even the suture thread that he needs because of sanctions.
*this
was told to us phonetically in a hurry, we are not sure of the correct spelling
8. Implications for the future. This visit was a shock treatment in
learning what it feels like to be an Iraqi. This is an ancient people with a
civilization 7000 years old (Iraqis point out that the United States is barely
300 years old), an economy that until the 1980s was a model for the entire
Middle East, and with a free health service that was ahead of the National
Health Service in the UK. The streets are now rubble-strewn, most of the middle
class have left, and people are selling their household goods on street corners
in order to survive. The currency has devalued 6000 (six thousand) % in 20
years; in 1981 one dinar bought three US dollars, today one US dollar buys
about 2000 dinars. To pay a modest hotel bill for 6 days, you need a pile of
dinar notes two meters high. Twelve years of sanctions, which were intended to
make the Iraqi people revolt against their leadership, have had the opposite
effect giving Saddam Hussein total control over his people through food
rationing. Sanctions have simply disabled Iraqi people through hunger and the
wholesale disintegration of their infrastructure. Rather than rebel against
Saddam Hussein, they feel defiance towards Bush and Blair which their leader
can constantly reinforce, since their sense of honour is continuously provoked.
The humiliation is very deep and very dangerous. In these circumstances a war
and subsequent occupation of Iraq will no doubt fuel the fires of hatred and
terror, and consequently the risk of attacks on the West.
For more information see websites: www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk
WHAT
YOU CAN DO
Time is
short. The UNMOVIC inspectors are
due to report on 27th January 2003. Military preparations indicate that an attack may begin in
early February. A pre-emptive attack will be a clear-cut violation of the UN
Charter and international law. Medical and public health experts in the UK[1] estimate that between 48,000 and
260,000 civilians could be killed in the first 3 months of conflict, and that
if WMD are
used, there
could be up to 4 million dead.
What can be
done to move towards a genuine solution of this conflict other than war and
occupation?
1.The free
press and NGOs must speedily step up their analysis
and reporting to challenge disinformation about the realities in Iraq. Please
distribute this report to all your media contacts.
2. Whenever
you hear a news broadcast on Iraq
which does not mention something about ordinary people, call them to ask for
some human interest stories. Iraq is not one man, it is 26 million fellow
citizens. They have points of views, hopes and fears like all of us.
3. A
consistent well-structured mediation process has not been tried by any
government or international organisation so far. The European Union has a
substantial potential role to play. It could convene and support a meeting
between the most senior representatives of the United States and of Iraq to
‘explore whether all avenues short of war have been exhausted’. This meeting
would need to be announced before 27th January, perhaps to
take place mid-February. It would need to take place in a very safe environment
and employ state-of-the-art conflict resolution techniques.[2] These moves could be
supported by France and by Germany in their chairmanship of the UN Security
Council in January and February 2003 respectively. Urge your EU government to
support such an initiative, and copy your letter to Prime Minister Costas
Simitis of Greece, 15 Vassilissis Sofias Avenue, 10674 Athens, mail@primeminister.gr which has the current presidency of the European Union.
4. If you
are yourself willing, go to Baghdad to become part of the Civilian Protection that has already begun with contingents from
Spain, the US and Austria. 5000 people are needed to stay at civilian sites
such as electricity, water and telecommunications facilities to try to prevent
them being bombed. Individuals taking this course of action should be aware of
the serious risks involved. Contact either Voices in the Wilderness www.nonviolence.org or www.iraqpeaceteam.org or Dr. Al-Hashimi, President of the
Iraqi Organisation for Friendship, Peace and Solidarity in Baghdad, Silm@uruklink.net Fax: + 964 1 537 2933 or + 964 1 8853298.
5. Call
your foreign office to ask it you have an embassy
in Baghdad. Many governments do not have any representation and thus cannot
collect first hand facts and impressions on which to base an independent
analysis. Neither Britain nor the US has an embassy in Baghdad, and
communications have to go through the Polish embassy.
6. Ask your
parliamentary committee for foreign
affairs whether they have visited Iraq to see for themselves and if not,
why not. Ask them to talk to Iraqi people at all levels.
7. Make it
known that the 12-year sanctions regime
has had the opposite effect to that intended; it has put Saddam Hussein in
total control of the Iraqi people, through the rationing programme. He can
withdraw food from any person or group, and they will starve.
8. Prime
ministers and presidents worldwide need to understand the strength and urgency
of public opposition to this
proposed attack, so that they will actively support mediation rather than
allowing themselves to be bribed or bullied into supporting an attack. See
George Monbiot’s article ‘Act now against war’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,869807,00.html for ideas on how to get the message
across, through non-violent civil disobedience. He suggests disrupting the
speeches of ministers, blocking the roads down which they must travel,
blockading important public buildings, or airports from which troops take off.
‘What comes to pass does so not so much
because a few people want it to happen, as because citizens abdicate their
responsibility and let things be.’ Gramscii