Economic embargo hurts children of Iraq
By Sylvia Shihadeh

Monday, February 28, 2000

The voices opposing the war against the Iraqi people are growing louder.

It began with a few brave citizens traveling to Iraq to learn about
conditions precipitated by a brutal and inhumane economic embargo and
challenging the notion that systematic killing of the most vulnerable --
the children, the sick, the aged -- was necessary.

Then 54 U.S. Catholic bishops voiced their concern. The pope and
religious leaders around the world joined in.

Now, 70 members of the House of Representatives have pleaded with
President Clinton to lift the sanctions, with one of them calling it
"infanticide raised to the level of policy."

And for the second time, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator,
the person in charge of saving lives in Iraq, has resigned in protest,
saying he could not be silent in the face of such suffering. The World
Food Program official in Iraq also turned in her resignation.

"The tragedy must end," said Hans von Sponeck, the U.N. official. The
cause of the tragedy is well known. After Iraq's civilian infrastructure
was destroyed by bombing during the 1991 Gulf War, the harshest regime
of economic sanctions in history has remained in place. The lack of
adequate nutrition, health care and clean water has turned Iraq from a
prosperous society with extensive social services into a devastated
wasteland.

As a direct result of the sanctions, at least 1 million -- more than
half of them children -- have died, according to U.N. statistics. Today,
about 5,000 children under the age of 5 to die every month.

Why are the sanctions in place? Because the United States rejects the
international consensus and demands that the embargo remain. The cover
story is fear of the Hussein regime rebuilding weapons of mass
destruction and threatening neighbors. Throughout the 1980s, such
concerns didn't bother policy-makers, for Hussein was a U.S. ally.

The real story of U.S. policy is about control of the resources of the
Middle East and the profits that flow from those resources. It is about
the imposition of unilateral control and a rejection of international
diplomacy.

The anti-sanctions movement is gaining strength, as people begin to
understand that systematically starving children is not an acceptable
policy. Sanctions are not an alternative to war; they are a different
kind of war, every bit as brutal.

In the past year in Austin, we have been lucky to hear from many experts
who have been traveling to raise their voices to tell the truth. Denis
Halliday, the first humanitarian coordinator to resign in protest, last
year pleaded with people to pressure the U.S. government to change
course. And Kathy Kelly, one of the courageous dissenters who has
organized countless trips to Iraq to deliver supplies and hope, asked us
to think about what we would say to an Iraqi parent cradling a baby who
would die from lack of simple medicine.

What would we say to that parent? And what will we say to the leaders of
this  country who have said that the deaths of more than half a million
children are  "worth the price"?

Will we raise our voices? Will we keep speaking the truth until the
administration hears, and this tragedy is ended?

Shihadeh is president of the Austin chapter of the American-Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee.