Voices Raised Against the Sanctions on Iraq. Please click here to read more about the impact of sanctions or browse the voices library for detailed analysis and information. [On the 'smart sanctions' resolution] 'It won't improve life for the ordinary Iraqi' anonymous officer with a high profile aid agency, Financial Times, 1 June 2001. 'What is proposed [so called 'smart sanctions'] at this point in fact amounts to a tightening of the rope around the neck of the average Iraqi citizen' Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday, former UN Humanitarian Coordinators for Iraq, 29 May 2001. UNICEF surveys revealed in 1999 that in the south and center of Iraq - home to 85 per cent of the country's population - the deasth rate of children under five years of age 'more than doubled from 56 deaths per 1000 live births (1984-1989) to 131 deaths per 1000 live births (1994-1999)'. 'Ms. Bellamy noted that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children under-five in the country as a whole during the eight year period 1991 to 1998.' UNICEF, 12 Aug 1999 'Does UNICEF think the type of sanctions imposed on Iraq are responsible for the rise in child mortality? It is certainly one factor. UNICEF, 'Questions and Answers for the Iraq child mortality surveys', 16 Aug. 1999 'Worldwide, poverty is the main determinant of malnutrition and child mortality. Hence it is not surprising that artificially induced poverty by economic embargo produces the same results.' 'Sanctions are not the humane alternative to war that they are purported to be, and if there were justice in this world these actions promoted by the United States and Britain in the name of the UN would be seen as the crime against humanity that they are.' Dr. Peter Pellet, Professor of Nutrition at the University of Massachusetts, and leader of several UN agency nutrition surveys in Iraq, letter, Guardian Weekly, 10 Jan. 1999 'Iraq needs massive investment to rebuild its industry, its power grids and its schools, and needs cash in hand to pay its engineers, doctors and teachers. None of this looks likely to happen under smart sanctions.' Economist, 26 May 2001. 'I say that Kuwait has no objection to the launching of a call to lift the economic sanctions from Iraq.' Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, 20 March 2001. '[T]he maintenance of a comprehensive embargo on Iraq is a disproportionate act in international law when the deleterious effect on the civilian population and children is so clear... a whole generation of young people have "lost" their childhood and prospects for the future.' - Save the Children Fund, 28 Feb. 2001 'A senior United Nations official in the Middle East has accused the United States of imposing unnecessary suffering on the Iraqi people for its own political ends. Voicing a sense of anger and disillusionment that the UN's humanitarian programme has been undermined, the official said that he could not think of a single success of the policy "except in killing children" and believed that the only reason sanctions were still in force in their present form was because no one could be seen to back down.' 'UN officials round on Americans as "real villains"', - Stephen Farrell in Baghdad, Times, 21 February 2001 'I am very angry that it takes such a long time for failed policy to be rectified.' - Hans von Sponeck, resigning as UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, AFP, 27 Mar. 2000 The UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights says economic sanctions on Iraq have 'condemned an innocent people to hunger, disease, ignorance and even death.' - Reuters, 18 Aug. 2000 'The Vatican remains opposed to the international embargo against Iraq, The Holy See's Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, told visiting Iraqi parliamentary speaker Saadoun Hammadi on Friday. 'John Paul II has repeatedly made it clear that he opposes the embargo.'- AFP, 9 June 2000 'The outlook for Iraq is pretty awful. It will take virtually all of the 21st century for Iraq to re-emerge as a regional power. You can rebuild the infrastructure in 20 years or so, but not the people.' Professor Anoush Ehteshami,, Durham University, AFP, 25 July 2000 Economic sanctions 'simply aren't working other than to harm the ordinary Iraqi people.' - Richard Butler, former UNSCOM head, UPI, 2 Aug. 2000 '...it is women and children who are suffering the most from illnesses as a result [of economic sanctions on Iraq].' - Edwin Borm, chair of the BMA International Cttee, 29 June 2000 'The sanctions are humanly catastrophic, morally indefensible and politically ineffective. They are a failed policy and must be changed.' - Julian Filochowski, Director of CAFOD, helping to launch a report on sanctions by leading European Catholic aid agencies, February 2001 'The theory behind economic sanctions is that economic pressure on civilians will translate into pressure on the government for change. This theory is bankrupt both legally and practically.' In Iraq, economic sanctions have led to 'a humanitarian disaster comparable to the worst catastrophes of the past decades.' The Security Council's decision to continue sanctions, knowing they caused an untold number of Iraqis to die, is 'unequivocally illegal' under international humanitarian law. - Marc Bossuyt, Belgian law professor, author of a report on sanctions for the UN Subcommission on Human Rights, AP, 16 August 2000 'It should now become the policy of the British Government that sanctions other than those directly relevant to military or military related equipment should be lifted. The removal of non-military sanctions will not prejudice the policy of containment.' - Menzies Campbell, Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Liberal Democrat Party Conference, 18 September 2000 'Instead of being content to put all the blame on Baghdad, as the US government continues to do, the [UN Security] Council has to face up to its own share of the responsibility'. 'Blocking the government's access to foreign exchange is one thing, but chocking the entire economy to do so puts the burden mostly on ordinary Iraqis.' - letter to US Ambassador to the UN, from Human Rights Watch, 5 January 2000 'Slowy, inexorably, a generation is being crushed in Iraq. Thousands are dying, thousands more are leading stunted lives, and storing up bitter hatreds for the future..' 'If, year in, year out, the UN were systematically killing Iraqi children by air strikes, western governments would declare it intolerable, no matter how noble the intention. They should find their existing policy just as unacceptable'. - editorial, 'All wrong in Iraq' The Economist, 8 April 2000 'The eyes of the world aren't on us in Iraq. The RAF and the US Air Force can bomb whatever they like, and no one will listen when Saddam's officials say that civilians have been killed... 'As for the people dying of malnutrition and disease, that is an attested fact. We dig deep into out pockets at the thought that Ethiopians might soon start dying again of hunger; but Iraqis? Its because we don't see them. Our governements pour contempt and scorn on those who call attention to these things... 'If people could hear and see that is being done in their names in Iraq, they would be outraged. But they don't, so it contiues.' - John Simpson, BBC World Affiars Editor ('Inhumane war that puts us all to shame', Sunday Telegraph) 'The potential long-term benefits of sanctions should be weighed against the immediate and long-term costs to children, including the collapse of health and education infrastructures, reduced economic opportunities, increased child labour in informal sectors and increased infant morbidity and mortality.' 'The suffering of Iraqi children, as reported by UNICEF, and of children in the Balkans are troubling cases in point.' Children and armed conflict Report, by Kofi Annan, 19 July 2000 'Ten years on, Iraq's people still suffer grievously from sanctions which the US and Britain alone try to justify.' Editorial, Guardian, 2 Aug 2000 'Further modifications to the embargo should be examined, including the option of lifting civilian sanctions while maintaining a ban on arms sales and financial scrutiny over selected imports.' Editorial, Financial Times, 7 Aug 2000 'We should lower to virtual invisibility the bar that Iraq must jump in order to satisfy the incoming UN weapons inspectors and secure the lifting of sanctions.' Editorial, Independent, 2 Aug 2000' '...infanticide masquerading as policy.' sanctions described by David Bonior, Michigan Democratic Congressman, presenting anti-sanctions letter to President Clinton signed by 70 Congress folk Economic sanctions on Iraq are 'cruel, ineffective and dangerous': 'They are cruel because they punish exclusively the Iraqi people and the weakest among them. They are ineffective because they don't touch the regime, which is not encouraged to cooperate, and they are dangerous because they... accentuate the disintegration of Iraqi society.' French Foreign Minister Hubert, Vedrine, Reuters, 2 Aug. 2000 'How long [can] the civilian population be exposed to such punishment for something that they have never done?' 'The way out is to lift the embargo, and delink the disarmament discussion from the humanitarian discussion.' - resignation statement, Hans von Sponeck, former UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq '...we believe the vast majority of the Iraqi civilian polulation is suffering grievous harm both physically and psychologically as a direct result of the sanctions policy imposed on the country by the UN Security Council. 'Sanctions in their present form are ethically untenable, because they are hitting the weakest and most vulnerable.' - a report by a group of Anglican Bishops and others, (Conclusions of an Anglican visit to Iraq, May 3 to 10, 1999) 'The deterioration in Iraq's civilian infrastructure is so far-reaching that it can only be reversed with extensive investment and development efforts.' Letter to the Security Council, from Human Rights Watch, Save the Children UK, and four other NGOs, 4 Aug. 2000 'Even if not all suffering in Iraq can be imputed to external factors, especially sanctions, the Iraqi people would not be undergoing such deprivations in the absence of the prolonged measures imposed by the Security Council and the effects of war.' The Security Council Panel on Humanitarian Issues, 31 Mar. '99 'The courageous policy... is to suspend (not abondon) sanctions [without conditions, it seems] lest upcoming generations of Iraqis, out of resentment, suffering, and isolation, grow up to be as aggressive as their current leader.' - The Lancet, editorial 'Iraq's children', 27 May 2000 'The return of a viable weapons inspection regime to Iraq should be the overriding priority of the United States and the Security Council, even if this means trading the lifting of economic sanctions.' - Scott Ritter, ex UNSCOM inspector, Washington Times, 6 April 2000 'It is clear that children are bearing the brunt of the current economic hardship.' - Philippe Heffinck, UNICEF, Baghdad, November 1997 'It is hard to think of a more grave breach of child rights in modern history than the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of children under the age of five caused by a political dispute between "their" government and the international community. The Security Council shoulders a large measure of responsibility for these violations by maintaining sanctions without taking strong measures to prevent this suffering.' - Centre for Economic and Social Rights , (New York) 1996 Questions/comments/problems regarding this site, please contact the webmaster voices uk - working in solidarity with ordinary families in iraq 5 Caledonian Road, King's Cross, London N1 9DX telephone : 0845 458 2564 voices@viwuk.freeserve.co.uk