MOMENTUM TO END IRAQ SANCTIONS REFLECTS
WORLDWIDE PRESSURE
U.S. ANTI-SANCTIONS GROUP REACTS TO RECENT
UNSCOM MEETING IN BAGHDAD
International Action Center
1247 'E' Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
June 16, 1998
Growing worldwide sympathy for Iraq and increasing
political isolation of the United States sanctions policy
is making the continuation of this policy impossible,
according to the International Action Center (IAC). The
IAC was founded by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey
Clark. The organization initiated the Iraq Sanctions
Challenge which was made of 82 U.S. delegates who
delivered $4 million worth of medicine to Iraq on May 6-13
as an act of international civil disobedience and
solidarity.
"UNSCOM has carried out 7,800 inspections and visits
looking for Iraqi weapons in the last seven and a half
years and they have been cynically used as a pretext to
carry out a genocidal policy that has killed more than 1.5
million Iraqis from hunger and disease. In the name of
eliminating weapons of mass destruction, U.S./UN sanctions
are actually a device to strangle Iraq's economy,
destabilize the country and then overthrow the current
government and replace it with a client regime," stated
Sharon Ayling of the IAC and delegate of the recent Iraq
Sanctions Challenge.
"The U.S. government's criminal policy has succeeded in
killing many people but it has failed in accomplishing its
political objectives. The Iraqi people feel that their
very sovereignty and independence are at stake and
consequently their anger is directed at the perpetuators
of the sanctions policy.
"Moreover, even those Arab governments that are seen as
U.S. allies in the Middle East are alarmed about the
seething anger from their own masses who want this
slaughter ended," Ayling continued. "It is really the
growing worldwide movement of tens of millions of people
that is forcing the U.S. and UN to adopt a different
political posture toward sanctions."
The IAC issued the following special alert to anti-war
and anti-sanctions activists: "We are urging the tens of
thousands of activists who have worked together in the
last months and years to intensify their work against
sanctions. It is only the worldwide mass movement that has
made a difference. Without mass pressure the U.S. would
not even consider a change in its orientation. We must
stay very active. This policy must be brought to an end
right now because every day another 250 innocent civilians
are killed. Beside, the U.S. still has 17,000 troops in
the Gulf area equipped with the latest weapons of mass
killing. Until they are removed from the Middle East there
is a very real danger that the politicians and generals
will be tempted to strike Iraq once again if the
negotiations should break down as has happened so
frequently throughout history."
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