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%%%%%%%%%%%%% IRAQ: RESOURCE LIST %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 1. The CASI (Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq) discussion list. To get onto this very informative mailing list send an e-mail to Sebastian Wills at Cambridge asking to be placed on the list. e-mail address: saw27@cam.ac.uk. 2. Salam Review (www.salam.org). Useful source of alternative information about the middle east. The links section is particularly useful. The Iraq section includes the 1995 FAO report "Evaluation of Food and Nutrition Situation in Iraq" and Edward Said's aricle "Apocaylpse Now". 3. Iraq Action Coalition (leb.net/iac) Another very useful site - lots of links (the CASI homepage, and the International Action Center are both listed and worth visiting). 4. Pacifica Radio's "Watch on Iraq" can be accessed at www.pacifica.org/programs/iraq/index.html 5. The Noam Chomsky Archive (http://www.worldmedia.com/archive/archive.htm) contains some very good essays about the 1991 gulf "war" and much else besides. 6. Summary of Facts (Iraq Action Coalition homepage) http://leb.net/iac/updated.html Worth singling out from the IAC homepage as a useful summary of statements from the WHO, FAO, UNICEF etc.. Also contains brief summary of "oil-for-food" and a list of charters, constitutions and declarations which the embargo violates. Good for leafleting/postering/writing to the papers. 7. "The Scourging of Iraq" by Geoff Simons. Only published in hardcover at the moment (so very expensive). A detailed account of the embargo and its effects up till 1996 when it was last updated. Includes account of the role of the UN. Supposedly due out in paperback in the not too distant future. Four chapters: The Legacy of War, The Chronology of Sanctions, Targeting the Powerless and The Face of Genocide. Numerous appendices including UN Resolutions 687, 706, 712 and 986. 8. New Internationalist, No. 236, October 1992 "The Gulf in Flames: The Real Cost of Desert Storm". Available from the NI office in Rectory Road, Oxford. Also Felicity Arbuthnot's article in the Jan/Feb issue this year. 9. Peace News: issues 2420, 2422, 2423 and Iraq Crisis supplement.The phone number fo PN is 0171-278 3344. 10. ReliefWeb (www.reliefweb.int) Contains press releases and reports from UN bodies, the US state department, news agencies etc.. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% LETTERS TO THE INDEPENDENT %%%%%%%%%%%%% Send your e-mails to letter@independent.co.uk. Yesterday and today (4th and 5th March) the Independent has carried articles by Robert Fisk concerning the plight of "the cancer-stricken children of southern Iraq". Fisk's articles have been very good and the possible DU (depleted uranium) ordnance link has been. It's worth noting (since the "leading article" on page 18 refers to "Robert Fisk's discovery") that all this has been known for a long time (see eg. Geoff Simon's book "The Scourging of Iraq", Ramsey Clark's International Action Center has a book on the subject of DU ordnance). On today's comment page a "leading article" says: "As for the current medical condition of the people in Basra hospitals, they are - evidently - the victims of the application to Iraq of economic sanctions, depriving the country of the wherewithal to import drugs and equipment. It would be hard to resist any bid to lighten the burden sanctions impose on Iraqis if - it is a big, big "if" - Saddam were to comply with the conditions for weapons inspections agreed with Kofi Annan last week." Turning back to page Robert Fisk's article on page 14, we find a small box accompanying the article. The box contains the following text: " Basra Appeal: Readers who wish to help the cancer-stricken children of southern Iraq can send cheques made out to The Independent Basra Fund to PO Box No. 6870, London E14 5BT" Of course it's not just the children of Southern Iraq who're suffering - as those who've heard Mil's talk about his recent trip to Baghdad can testify. Also it's not just cancer that's the problem though this is the angle that the Independent has decided to pick up and run with. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control." To make the cessation of such a gross human rights violation conditional upon the actions of Saddam Hussein - a man over whom the "leading article" (which I should stress isn't by Robert Fisk) acknowledges the people of Iraq have little or no control - seems to me to be obscene. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Gabriel Carlyle Magdalen College Oxford OX1 4AU. tel. 01865-276012. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html