File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2003/postcolonial.0304, message 86


From: jaclynr-AT-free.fr
Subject: More on Kouchner and War in Iraq
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 14:09:40 +0200 (CEST)



For those interested in Kouchner's position on the war on Iraq.
This is a more nuanced presentation of his views.
Best,
Jaclyn

 
March 20, 2003

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/03.20/11-kouchner.html
  
Bernard Kouchner: 'I know some of them will accept the bombing. They have a 
right to say so and be delivered. I believe that thousands and thousands of 
Iraqis are waiting for deliverance.' (Staff photo by Stephanie Mitchell)  

Kouchner: Iraqi voices remain unheard:
People are the silent players amid all the talk
By Alvin Powell 
Gazette Staff 

Calling himself a traitor to France's peaceful position on Iraq, yet not on 
board for America's looming war, Doctors Without Borders founder Bernard 
Kouchner said it is the Iraqi people - machine-gunned, gassed, and murdered by 
the hundreds of thousands - who are forgotten in the debate. 

To view an on-demand video Webcast of this event, visit 
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/iraq/webcast.html.  
 
Kouchner, a visiting professor at the Harvard School of Public Health and a 
fellow at the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights, 
squarely straddled the line between war and peace Friday (March 14) during a 
speech before several hundred in a packed Snyder Auditorium. 

"Nobody is taking into account the Iraqi people. They are the only ones who can 
say yes or no to the war," said Kouchner, who has also served as France's 
minister of health and as the United Nation's administrator of post-
intervention Kosovo. "I am not supporting Mr. Bush, I am not supporting [French 
President Jacques] Chirac. I will support to the end of my days the victims, 
and they are the Iraqi people." 

Kouchner, in a talk called "Iraq: The International Dilemma," made a convincing 
case for the ouster of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. He described Hussein's 
brutality toward his own people in anecdotes culled from Doctors Without 
Borders' years of working in the Middle Eastern nation. 

Kouchner described victims of the 1988 Iraqi gas attacks on Kurdish villages, 
the piles of bodies left after Iraqi troops machine-gunned a crowd from 
helicopters, and described the continuing stream of refugees from razed 
villages in Hussein-controlled Iraq into the independently run Kurdish zone in 
the north. 

"Still they're suffering and they have not been taken into account," Kouchner 
said of the chemical attack victims from Halabja in northern Iraq. 

Despite the ongoing brutality, however, Kouchner said he also knows the 
brutality that war brings and said he does not support an American war on Iraq. 
He criticized both sides in the ongoing international debate, saying there is a 
small window of time in which to avoid war, but only if international powers 
begin to work together. 

Kouchner said it is still possible to force Hussein from power, given the ever-
tightening noose of American military force. That could be used to expand the 
no-fly zones in Iraq's north and south, coupled with increased aid to the Iraqi 
people and unified international pressure. 

But even Kouchner didn't seem hopeful that would happen. He repeated his 
opposition to war several times in his half-hour speech and during a subsequent 
question-and-answer session. Yet even as he said the Iraqi people's voices 
should be considered, he also said he's sure some would approve of their nation 
being bombed if it meant being rid of Hussein. 

"I know some of them will accept the bombing. They have a right to say so and 
be delivered," Kouchner said. "I believe that thousands and thousands of Iraqis 
are waiting for deliverance." 

Kouchner was also critical of peace protests, saying he supported their goals 
but that they were forgetting Hussein's brutality. He counseled protesters to 
include anti-Hussein slogans among their banners and signs in the future. 

The questions following the speech explored different facets of the Iraq 
debate, with one School of Public Health faculty member saying he thought 
Kouchner was "being used" by those who support a war in Iraq. The aim of 
supporters of the war, said James Robins, professor of epidemiology and 
biostatistics, is not to help the Iraqi people, but to redraw the Middle East's 
geopolitical map. 

Kouchner also handled a question about America's thirst for Iraqi oil, saying 
though there may be some interest in Iraqi oil fields, he didn't believe the 
problem was that simple. Oil, he said, doesn't explain a similar American 
intervention in Kosovo, which has no oil. It also doesn't take into account the 
deep shock to the American psyche done by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 

Two Iraqi expatriates also spoke, one thanking Kouchner for finally bringing 
the Iraqi people's voice into the debate and the second saying Kouchner's "No 
to Saddam, and no to war" stance was really no stance at all. 

"You cannot have it both ways; you have to say we have to remove Saddam 
Hussein," said Harvard Medical School Assistant Professor Jamil Kirdar. "There 
is no alternative to this war." 

Saddam should have been dealt with, Kouchner said, after the first Gulf War, 
but instead the withdrawal of international forces when the Iraqi people were 
ready to rise up amounted to supporting Hussein's repression of dissent. 

"It should have been done years and years before," Kouchner said. "We were 
stupid. No, we were not stupid, we were guilty of complicity." 

The voice of the Iraqi people, though not heard so far, is beginning to be 
raised, he said. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been talking about human 
rights in Iraq, Kouchner said, and stories from Iraqis have begun reaching 
France. 

"The French opinion is going to change. It is changing already," Kouchner said. 

 



 

 
       


Copyright 2003 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College  

En réponse à Jaclyn Rosebrook-Collignon <jaclynr-AT-free.fr>:

> touch
> i've been debating too long with people who live in stereotypes ...
> Jaclyn
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Salil Tripathi" <salil61-AT-hotmail.com>
> To: <postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2003 12:05 AM
> Subject: Re: RE: Scientists urge people to stop using English terms
> 
> 
> >
> >
> >
> > Jaclyn,
> >
> > I believe Kouchener (sp.?) supported the war. He is neither a monarch,
> nor
> a
> > B-School director. He set up MSF and ran UN operations in the Balkans
> (and
> > was criticized for being media-conscious).
> >
> > I do think we simply don't know how many people may be ambivalent
> about
> the
> > war, or quietly supporting it. Indeed,  I have seen the polls, and
> indeed,
> > some of my close friends who are French, are opposed to the war. But
> I
> > wouldn't generalize and assume that most people, except monarchs and
> > B-School directors in France, oppose the war. Most French people I
> know
> > oppose the war, yes; that's true. We can read what we want in polls --
> the
> > fact that some 80% of French voted for Chirac -- does it mean I
> should
> > conclude 80% of French people support a controversial, conservative
> > politician facing corruption charges and known for shoddy and shady
> > accounting practices during his Paris mayorship, whose country's
> businesses
> > have much to lose if the oil-for-food program is stopped, and whose
> > country's businesses may lose some lucrative oil concessions in Iraq
> now...
> > should I assume that 80% of French want him to be the leader of
> their
> > Republic?
> >
> > Salil
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
> > Stay in touch with absent friends - get MSN Messenger
> > http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger
> >
> >
> >
> >      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> >
> >
> 
> 
> 
> 
>      --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
> 


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