RE: Reject inhuman sanctions on principle

[M <xxx@DELETETHISxxx>]

You will often here people opposed to the lifting of sanctions remark that
although they "feel sympathy for the suffering of the Iraqi people the
sanctions are a means to an end", or in other words "the end justifys
the means". What they are saying fundamentaly is that starvation and
denial of medicine are a justifiable means to an end. The end being either
the removal of  Hussein or at least to make him let in UN inspectors.
Many people will then argue against this by saying "Yes but sanctions
aren't working and therefore we must lift them". That sanctions
arent working is patently true but this should not be the point.
It is, and should be a point of principle for all citizens/countries that
you cannot use starvation and denial of medicines as a coercive force.
Whether the sanctions are in place for ten days or ten years the principle
remains the same. Cubas UN ambassador Ricardo Alarcon put the point
powerfully and elequently to the Sercurity council "Cuba regards it
as completely inadmissible the very idea of claiming that hunger can be
used to deprive a peoples of what is an absolutely fundamental human right
of every single human being in every part of the world and in any circumstance-that
is, the right to to receive adequate food and appropriate medical care.
We do not beleive that anyone has the political, juridicial, or moral authority
to apply inhuman measures such as those whose sole and exclusive victims
would be innocent civilians" Consistent with that position , the Cuban
Government refused to cancel its food export agreements with Iraq or to
withdraw its volunteer medical brigade from Iraqi hospitals. ( I believe
many of this brigade are still in Iraq). So to reiterrate my point the
effectiveness of sanctions should not be the issue, it is the principle
that must be upheld, in order that any future impositions of inhuman sanctions
by the US or other nations are met with immediate condemnation rather than
a 'wait and see' attitude that many, even those now opposed to sanctions,
express.

M