Date: Sun, 29 Sep 1996 06:58:49 +0100
From: Richard Bos <Richard.Bos-AT-hagcott.meganet.co.uk>
Subject: Statement on US and Allied sanctions and threats against Iraq


This statement was send to the New Worker. I guess it would have been
widely circulated, but just in case it hasn't..........


Ahmed ben Bella, former President of Algeria;
Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, former Prime Minister of Malta; 
Margarita Papandreou, former first lady of Greece, 
Fr Miguel D'Escoto, former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua; 
Ramsey Clark former US Attorney General;
Tony Benn MP, former chairperson of the Labour Party of Britain;
Romesh Chandra, President of Honour, World Peace Council;

 Co-presidents of the Intemational Commission of Inquiry on Economic
Sanctions.

THE RECENT United States bombing raid on Iraq was a direct violation of
the Charter of the United Nations and of all internationally recognised
law and norms of behaviour.

 It adds a new cruel chapter to the untold sufferings of the Iraqi
people under the sanctions blockade which has led to the deaths of half
a million people, most of them children.

 Neither the sanctions nor the bombing are of any relevance to the
achievement of the stated policy objectives of the US and its allies.

 These measures have in particular no possible relation to the question
of protecting the Kurds in the north of Iraq as claimed.

 Rather they are clearly dictated solely by the economic and strategic
interests of the United States. And many have the impression that the
recent bombing was specifically designed to serve the electoral
interests of the present US president.

 The result of the raids can only be to embitter relations between the
West and the countries of the Middle East and consequently to endanger
still further the prospects for peace in that region.

 We call for all governments to dissociate themselves from the current
aggressive US war moves, and for all the world's people to take all
possible steps to impress upon their governments and all their
representatives the extreme urgency of taking this step at the time when
world peace is being so dangerously threatened.



Comradely,

Richard.                     
      New Worker Online http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2853



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