Published on Sunday, August 13, 2000 in the Baltimore Sun
Radicalized By US Disregard For Iraqi People
by Robert Jensen
 DENIS HALLIDAY spent 34 years in the bureaucracy of the United
Nations, rising to assistant secretary general as he ran development
programs around the world and managed the human resources office.
Halliday's work gave him a behind-the-scenes look at the realities of
world politics and the hidden agendas of the world powers. It's the kind
of work that usually produces insiders -- not radicals. But seeing U.S.
policy up close in Iraq changed that for Halliday.
In September 1997, he took over as humanitarian coordinator in Iraq,
where he saw first-hand the results of a policy he now calls genocidal.
The economic embargo, which is technically imposed by the United Nations
but remains in place because the United States demands it, has killed at
least 1 million innocent Iraqis, at least half younger than 5, according
to U.N. studies.
Halliday's resignation-in-protest in October 1998 pushed him into public
view, where for two years he has talked in increasingly more radical
terms, going so far as to say that the past two U.S. presidents are
guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq.
I met Halliday a few months after he resigned, when he landed in Austin,
Texas, on a national speaking tour. He wasn't hard to spot as he got off
the plane; he looked, well, so diplomatic -- dressed similar to the
businessmen getting off with him.
Halliday's message on that trip was clear -- lifting the sanctions to
stop the death of innocents was a moral imperative --- but his rhetoric
was cool, not inflammatory. His criticisms of U.S. policy were sharp,
but expressed in measured, even polite, terms.
For two years, I have kept an eye on Halliday's activities, reading
numerous interviews and speeches he has given while traveling the world
to speak out against the sanctions. As time passed -- as more and more
Iraqi children died from malnutrition and disease -- I noticed
Halliday's criticism becoming sharper-edged.
Had this diplomat and bureaucrat turned into a radical?
Noting that the Financial Times had labeled him a "Quaker militant,"
Halliday said he had no problem being called a nonviolent radical.
"Yes, I am a radical on this genocidal embargo," he told me. "I have
been radicalized by the policies of the USA."
Although Halliday is one of the most public people in the anti-sanctions
movement, his experience mirrors that of many I've talked to. Americans
who want to believe that their government takes seriously the ideals of
peace and justice have had to face a painful reality: U.S. officials are
willing to kill children and other innocent people, especially nonwhites
in the Third World, to protect and extend U.S. power. That fact has
turned many mainstream folks into radicals.
Last Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of the sanctions, which were
imposed after the illegal Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. At the time, many in
the peace movement supported temporary sanctions to force Iraq to
withdraw, hoping to avoid the bloody war that eventually did take place
at the behest of President George Bush.
Now, an international movement is working to lift the embargo so that
Iraq can begin rebuilding a society devastated by the destruction of the
Persian Gulf war, the strangulation of the sanctions, and the ongoing
(and quite illegal) U.S./British bombing campaign in the so-called
"no-fly zones."
U.S. officials say the sanctions are necessary to keep Iraq from
rebuilding weapons of mass destruction, though they also talk of using
the sanctions to force the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
From the beginning of his activism, Halliday has made it clear that even
if the sanctions had the effect of blocking Iraqi weapons plans, it is
unacceptable to knowingly let innocents die to accomplish that.
He also has always pointed out that instead of helping the Iraqi people
bring about a democratic government, the sanctions have strengthened
Hussein's control over the country and left the Iraqi people isolated
and alienated.
His assessment of the policies and the leaders of the United States and
Britain has grown more blunt over time. In an interview last month with
an Egyptian newspaper, Halliday said genocide was the appropriate term
for "an intentional program to destroy a culture, a people, a country."
"The United States and the United Kingdom in particular have continued
the economic embargo despite their knowledge of the death rate of Iraqi
children," he said. "That is genocide."
In the interview, Halliday criticized what he called the U.S. corruption
of the U.N. Security Council, suggesting that U.S. leaders are imposing
neocolonialism "to dominate the Arab world in order to control the
supply of oil, and destroy and suppress perhaps the strongest country
within the Arab world, which in 1990 dared to challenge the West."
Halliday is no supporter of Hussein, nor does he apologize for Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait. But he said Hussein's "grave mistake" provided an
opening to crush the Iraqi people, which Bush seized.
In the course of the gulf war, the U.S. officials "broke international
law and the Geneva Conventions. They deliberately targeted the civilian
infrastructure -- committing crimes against humanity," Halliday said.
Desert Fox, the December 1998 bombing of Iraq that President Clinton
ordered without U.N. Security Council approval, was also a crime,
according to Halliday. So, should Clinton face a trial?
Absolutely, Halliday said. "There was no justification for this, no U.N.
resolution. It is a breach of international law. It is outrageous, and
it is, of course, a crime against humanity."
Halliday also has been blunt in analyzing U.S. motivations: "To control
the financial and oil resources of the Arab world in order to provide
opportunities to sell American weapons and the American Army."
"The Americans have got what they wanted," he said. "Who cares about
6,000 to 7,000 people dying every month?"
Halliday cares, which is why he resigned rather than stage-manage a
humanitarian program that was by design inadequate to meet the needs of
Iraqis.
After he realized how Washington was playing the game, he concluded that
it was futile to continue working for the United Nations. He left the
job, and his U.N. career, to be free to speak out. "There was no way I
was going to be associated with this program and manage this ghastly
thing in Iraq," he said.
In the past year Halliday's successor, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned
in protest, as did the director of the World Food Program in Iraq, Jutta
Burghardt. Slowly, the anti-sanctions movement has gained strength. Last
Sunday, about 1,000 activists protested in Washington, marking the day
the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 55 years ago and 10 years of
sanctions against Iraq.
The anti-sanctions movement is made up of a wide variety of people, from
religious pacifists to left/progressive activists. While Halliday does
not have the stereotypical appearance of a radical, he's not afraid to
be called one. A friend in the movement describes him as "our guy with
banker's shoes."
--
Robert Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism at the
University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at
rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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