New Iraq Sanctions Challenge
Link here for a chronicle of the first Iraq Sanctions Challenge
Dear Iraq Sanctions Challenge Delegate,
We are excited to announce our second Iraq Sanctions Challenge, to take place December 6-15. We will again be breaking the sanctions with a delegation of fifteen to twenty lead by Ramsey Clark that will deliver another large shipment of medicine and a new ambulance that was donated to us.
We hope that once again you will be directly involved.
There is a great expense for these important trips, so any contribution you can make or any fundraising you can do will be essential for success. Once again, we want the Iraq Sanctions Challenge to be known nationally, so please spread the word through meetings where you can show the new video, Let Iraq Live (which we now have in stock in our New York office), and distribute the new book, Challenge to Genocide.
The other aspect to the delegation is a support apparatus that needs to exist from the week preceding the trip through the trip itself. In May, we had a network of thousands in case of emergency. The drama and intensity of this second trip is greater, making the need for support even greater. A U.S. bombing currently appears immanent, and may occur while we are in Iraq. In this case or in the case of any of the legal action that was a possibility for all of us in May, the support apparatus will be essential.
We look forward to hearing back from you.
Below is a letter from Ramsey Clark.
Dear Friend,
At the very moment that the U.S. is planning more devastating cruise missile strikes against Iraq, the Iraq Sanctions Challenge is planning another large shipment of medicine to Iraq on December 6-15. In addition to a large quantity of life-saving medicine, we will also be sending a new fully equipped ambulance.
Our delegation will arrive in Baghdad in time for activities commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Parliamentarians, religious leaders, human rights activists, writers, artists and trade unionists from all over the world will gather in Iraq to launch a campaign to include economic sanctions in any universally accepted definition of human rights abuses.
We are urging our friends and supporters to again support this effort by sending a financial contribution, by organizing rallies and demonstrations and by helping to organize a nationwide support apparatus to support this Challenge.
When we organized the first Iraq Sanctions Challenge in May 1998, the 84 delegates received the concrete support of tens of thousands of people inside the United States. We were able to send nearly $5 million in medicine and we got substantial media coverage in scores of newspapers, including the New York Times, as well as national TV and radio coverage.
World opinion has rapidly changed into opposition to the economic sanctions. But the U.S. political establishment is hardening its position. Every concession made by Iraq, such as opening the Presidential sites to inspectors, is met only by new obstructions and new allegations. The U.S. government seeks to maintain sanctions no matter what the cost to the civilian population.
The sanctions policy is wrong! It is immoral! We must work unceasingly until this policy is ended. We will not sit by while 8,000 precious Iraqi children die each and every month!
In addition to sending a direct financial contribution, we would like to urge you to use the new book, Challenge to Genocide, and the excellent new video, Let Iraq Live, as organizing tools to educate and draw in other people to become active in this campaign.
We are asking everyone to stay in close contact with our office. If the U.S. orders another round of missile attacks against Iraq, we will be holding demonstrations in cities around the country.
Please read the enclosed literature, fill out the coupon and help us again, as you have so generously in the past. It is only the commitment and sacrifice of people of conscience that can end this genocide.
Sincerely,
Ramsey Clark
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