Deeply disturbed by the mounting humanitarian crisis in Iraq, a group of US activists set up Voices in the Wilderness in the US in 1996. Voices US started sending delegations to Iraq, taking medical supplies in violation of the sanctions and despite a warning from the US government that they risked a $1m fine and 12 years in prison. By August 2000, Voices US had sent more than 30 delegations to Iraq.

After two UK activists joined a delegation in 1998, a sister organisation was formed in the UK. Two British sanction-breakers' have been arrested for their actions, although not prosecuted. Voices UK has sent six delegations to Iraq. In addition to breaking the sanctions, we produce regular newsletters and briefings, run letter-writing and postcard campaigns and provide speakers for groups throughout the UK. Voices UK also organises non-violent direct action.

Sanctions - The UN imposed economic sanctions on Iraq in August 1990, with the stated purpose of ending Iraq's occupation of Kuwait. They were continued after the Gulf War, when a new set of obligations was created, including the destruction of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons. The decision to maintain sanctions came shortly after a UN mission to Iraq reported a situation of 'near apocalyptic' destruction, in the wake of the Gulf War, with 'most means of modern life support.... destroyed or rendered tenuous'. Sanctions ban all imports to Iraq except food, medicines and supplies for 'essential civilian needs'. Foreign investment is prohibited as are all exports from Iraq, except for oil sold through the UN oil-for-food programme (see below).

Why we break the sanctions - The UN now has lists of foodstuffs, medical, agricultural, and educational goods, water/sanitation goods, and now even some oil spare parts, which can be imported by Iraq by simply notifying the UN. They don't go to the Sanctions Committee for approval. These 'green lists', however, do not cover all the goods needed in these categories, and they leave out important health infrastructure sectors such as power generation. The lists also do not apply to donations, such as the supplies carried by voices delegations. Such donations are still supposed to be approved by national governments and/or the Sanctions Committee.

We refuse to submit to this process. We continue to assert the morality and legality of breaking the sanctions. We do not break the sanctions because the application process is onerous or lengthy. We break the sanctions because:

• we do not accept the right of the government to a moral veto over our attempts to help sick people in Iraq. To submit our applications to the Department of Trade and Industry is to accept their right to refuse our applications. We do not accept the legality or the morality of this veto.
• because we believe that the licensing system is an integral part of the sanctions regime, and that to cooperate with the licensing process is to grant legitimacy to an illegal and immoral system, and to collude with it.
• because we believe that breaking them is an effective way of directly challenging a criminal policy.

We recognise that humanitarian aid from outside, whether from individuals or from governments, cannot solve the humanitarian cisis in Iraq. We understand that the current crisis is rooted in the destruction of the civilian health infrastructure over the past ten years, and the paralysis of the Iraqi eceonmy. Aid cannot match the scale of these needs. We are covinced that aid is not the answer, but that lifting the economic sanctions is an essential pre-condition to solving the humanitarian crisis in Iraq.

Voices in not an aid organisation. Our primary purpose is not to deliver (pitifully inadequate) amounts of aid. Our primary purpose is to try to help bring forward the day when the sanctions will be lifted. Breaking the economic sanctions by delivering medical supplies is one contribution to this task.

Infrastructure breakdown - The crisis in Iraq is not simply about a lack of food and medicine, it stems from lack of clean drinking water as a result of Iraq's war and sanctions stricken sanitation, water and electricity systems. This massive deterioration in basic infrastructure has been identified by the World Food Programme as the main reason for the ongoing nutritional crisis. Prior to the Gulf War the Iraqi welfare state was 'among the most comprehensive and generous in the Arab World' (Economist Intelligence Unit) and nearly all urban dwellers and 72% of rural residents had clean water (Unicef 1993). As long as children are deprived of clean water, they will continue to sicken and die. Waterborne disease is one of the biggest killers of children in Iraq.

Oil for food - Since January 1997, Iraq has been able to purchase a limited amount of humanitarian supplies under the UN oil-for-food programme. All money from oil sales under the programme goes into a UN bank account and all purchases have to be approved by the UN, which then monitors the distribution of goods within Iraq. The UN allocates 33% of the proceeds from these sales to purposes other than the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people, namely payments to the UN Compensation Fund and to pay for UN operations in Iraq. Despite British government claims that oil-for-food can meet the needs of the Iraqi people, the programme has failed to resolve the humanitarian crisis - hardly surprising, since it 'was neither designed to, or is sufficient, to meet the basic needs of the Iraqi people,' according to Unicef.