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this is a poem from Joanne Baker of Voices in the Wilderness, Bristol - she says she wrote it on a train, travelling to do a talk, uncertain as to what to say - for all who have travelled in Iraq, she has said it all. Saddam Hussein Hospital, Baghdad. (No gas chamber here) I want to weep. I want to grieve with her, whose child cries out in pain feebly no strength for tears. I want to rage. I want to be the voice of she, who wails 'My child is dead. My child is dead!' No gas chamber here. No quick exit for small lives. as blood drips from nose and throat. and tumours press against the stomach wall. Relentless hours of suffering and pain. Flies gather and the plastic sheeting sweats. No gas chamber here. No hooded executioner to stalk these wards. Only weary doctors, saying, 'Like you, we cry. What else is there to do?' No open decree from the corridors of global power which says: 'Every six minutes one Iraqi child must die!' Yet die they must and do. For what? For oil? For us? What price? A child's life. The shroud is silence. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website: http://www.casi.org.uk