IRAQI PEOPLE RESOLUTE AGAINST ATTACKS ON THEIR SOVEREIGNTY
IRAQI PEOPLE RESOLUTE AGAINST ATTACKS ON THEIR SOVEREIGNTY
January 19, 2000 – Delegates from the Iraq Sanctions Challenge (ISC) report that the Iraqi people are firm in their desire to resist further UN weapons inspections. The UN Security Council has spent much of the past week discussing Kofi Annan’s nomination of Swedish diplomat and former UNSCOM chairman Rolf Ekeus to head up a new inspection team in Iraq.
Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told members of the ISC that Ekeus’ nomination was "suggestive and provocative."
"UNSCOM carried out spy operations on Iraq for the CIA in the years after the Gulf War and used their ‘inspection’ mission as a cover for collecting target data for the U.S. bombing campaign," said Deirdre Sinnott of the International Action Center. "The Security Council uses Iraq’s supposed non-compliance with inspections as a justification for continuing sanctions, but Ekeus’ appointment would be a blatant attack on Iraq’s sovereignty."
Sara Flounders, co-director of the ISC said from Iraq today, "While the U.S. tries to force the Security Council to continue the sanctions, thousands of Iraqi children die every week. We’ve seen it happening before our very eyes."
The ISC delegates are in high spirits as they wrap up their final day in Baghdad according to delegate Judi Cheng. "We feel that the Challenge has been a success. It is a wonderful expression of solidarity with the Iraqi people, and it has encouraged all of us to redouble our efforts in our side of the struggle against the sanctions and the bombings," she said.
Delegates from the ISC visited an institute for the blind in Baghdad today. Among the delegates was Ed Lewinson, Professor Emeritus of History at Seton Hall University and President of the Northern New Jersey chapter of the National Federation of the Blind, who is making his third trip to Iraq with the Sanctions Challenge. Professor Lewinson said that since his first trip to Iraq it has been one of his goals to meet with blind people in Iraq and learn about conditions for them there. He intends to continue traveling to Iraq until the sanctions are lifted. "As Americans, we must not blind ourselves to the effects of wrong-headed and destructive policies of the U.S. government," he wrote in his 1998 essay "A Blind Person Goes to Iraq."
The ISC will return to New York, JFK Airport on January 21.
To schedule an interview with the members of the delegation, call the International Action Center at (212) 633-6646.
For more information on the ISC and the UN sanctions, please visit our Website at http://www.iacenter.org
Contact: Deirdre Sinnott, Kenneth MacLeish, (212) 633-6646
International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room 206
New York, NY 10011
email: iacenter@iacenter.org
http://www.iacenter.org
phone: 212 633-6646
fax: 212 633-2889
