A small group of Canadians left Dorval Airport last night, bound for Baghdad. Their suitcases bulged with items prohibited under the United Nations embargo against Iraq. In a calculated act of defiance, they were carrying pencils.

The 10-day trip is being organized by Voices of Conscience, a Montreal-based campaign against the sweeping economic sanctions on Iraq that the UN imposed in 1991. Most of the delegation's members are Quebecers, the exception being New Democrat MP Svend Robinson. Among the group is Francoise David, president of the Quebec Federation of Women.

But why the pencils?

"They're banned under the embargo," explained Dr. Amir Khadir, who represents Medecins du Monde on the trip, "because the graphite in them could supposedly be used for military purposes. We're also taking chlorine pills for purifying water - chlorine has been banned, too.

"And we're taking about 12 boxes of medical supplies: sterilized gloves, aspirins, catheters, local anesthetics and so on. It's a symbolic gesture, of course. But it's a way for us to recognize that it's not Saddam Hussein and his army who are suffering under the embargo - it's the people of Iraq."

Khadir, a research scientist at Centre Hospitalier LeGardeur in Repentigny who specializes in pneumonia and tuberculosis, immigrated 28 years ago as a boy from Iran. His mother country endured a long and bitter war with Iraq in the 1980s. Khadir emphasizes that he has "no sympathy for the Iraqi government, which I believe should be condemned over and over - but what has happened to the Iraqi people over the past decade is truly shocking."

So shocking, in fact, that Denis Halliday, the relief co-ordinator for the UN humanitarian program in Iraq, resigned his job in October 1998. On resigning, Halliday said:

"We are destroying an entire society. It is as simple and as terrifying as that."

Soap, Toilet Paper Banned

Among the materials that are, or have been, prohibited from entering Iraq since the end of the Gulf War are: soap, combs, toilet paper, toothbrushes, nail-brushes, paint brushes, sandals, rugs, towels, wool, coats, books, notebooks, eyeglasses and bathing suits. Oh yes, and ambulances. They, like pencils, could be converted to military use.

The problem, in essence, is that no western government wants to be seen as backing down and giving Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, any cause to celebrate. Iraq is, after all, still ruled by the same regime that invaded Kuwait in 1990, that used poison gas against its Kurdish citizens in 1988 and that has, by some accounts, stockpiled enough deadly microbes to kill the entire population of the world several times over.

Last month, a divided UN Security Council opened the possibility of lifting the sanctions - if Iraq co-operates "in all respects" with a new team of weapons monitors. Iraq immediately rejected the proposal. The UN's Oil for Food program, in place since 1996, is widely agreed to fall short of providing for even basic economic needs.

The sanctions show no sign of weakening Saddam Hussein. But they have dramatically impoverished his subjects.

A litre of milk that cost one Iraqi dinar in 1989 is now reported to sell for 850 dinars - far beyond the reach of most families (it's nearly as much as a doctor earns in a week). Small wonder that, according to the Red Cross, one-quarter of all Iraqi newborn babies in 1998 weighed less than five pounds. A year earlier, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 70 per cent of Iraqi women were anemic.

"It's known as genocide," Halliday charged on a visit to Ottawa in December. "It is an intent to destroy Iraq and kill the people of Iraq through economic sanctions.

"There is no sign of the Canadian tradition of concern for human-rights issues and law. It's astonishing."

The Voices of Conscience delegation plans to visit several hospitals and schools, not only in Baghdad but also in the south of the country. Khadir is especially keen to look into the effects of depleted-uranium weapons on public health - about 350 tons of the radioactive material were used in shells and ammunition by U.S.-led forces during the Gulf War. Many kinds of cancers have become much more prevalent in Iraq since then.

Louis Azzaria, a geologist who is now retired from Universite Laval, traveled back to his childhood home in Iraq twice during the 1990s. Scientists complained at the time - and his family has told him by letter since - of skyrocketing inflation. One of Azzaria's cousins, for example, had to move out of his apartment because the rent far outstrips his pension.

5,000 Children Die Every Month

"And one of the cousins I saw on the first trip later died," Azzaria said yesterday. "Her family was quite traumatized by the bombing in the war, and she developed some neurological problem that they couldn't treat. I wonder what she really had, and whether uranium was involved."

The Quebecers now on their way to Baghdad aim to be witnesses - to see for themselves what's happening in the country. UNICEF has estimated that more than 5,000 children die every month in Iraq due to sickness and malnutrition; but some outsiders call that figure exaggerated.

"We're aiming for a diversity of information sources," said Raymond Legault, a leader of the Voices of Conscience campaign and a professor of computer science at College Ahuntsic in Montreal.

"We'll be talking to people in the NGOs (non-government organizations), especially French ones like Premieres Urgences and Enfants du Monde, who have been working in Iraq for years. We'll be using some of the contacts that other Western delegations have made. And one member of our group, Rachad Antonius, speaks Arabic, so we won't be totally reliant on translators."

Another member of the delegation, Suzanne Loiselle, is the director of Entraide Missionnaire, a Montreal group that offers training and support to Quebec priests and nuns at work in many developing countries. Loiselle points out that Iraq has a high level of co-operation between the Muslim majority and the Christian minority; she hopes to meet some Iraqi Christians during her stay.

But, like Legault, Loiselle speaks harshly of Canada's role in maintaining the UN embargo over the past decade: "There's a striking contradiction between what (Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd) Axworthy says about human rights and what Canada is doing with regard to Iraq. It's nearly a year since Canada became a member of the Security Council. And yet Canada still follows the U.S. line."

- To reach Voices of Conscience, write to 8166 Henri Julien Ave., Montreal, H2P 2J2; phone (514) 722-5538; or send an E-mail to: voices@colba.net