Iraqi Sanctions in the IHT

["Ornella Sangiovanni" <ornella.sangiovanni@DELETETHIStiscalinet.it>]

Dear all,
for your information.

 

Today's International Herald Tribune has a WHOLE ad page on Iraqi Sanctions.
The ad, in the form of a "Letter from a Frenchman to his American Friends" (dated July 17, 2001), is signed by Gilles Munier, secretary general of "Amitiés franco-irakiennes", a France-based association of friendship and solidarity with Iraq.

 

The text has an overall tone of (strong) support to the current Iraqi leadership and includes questionable statements such as "Saddam Hussein is not the devil! He is a revolutionary!".
Yet it also remarks that "It is totally unproductive to speak of "democracy" or "human rights" in connection with Iraq when international opinion holds the U.S. responsible for the death of over one million Iraqi children." and that "...the vast majority of the world opinion (...) demands the ending of the inhuman sanctions imposed on the people of Iraq."

 

It then calls on President George W. Bush to make a spectacular gesture (like those of former President Nixon towards China and URSS' Khruschev towards the U.S.)to unblock the present impasse, by sending "an American envoy to Baghdad, with a clear mandate to open the path for peace talks".

 

It also calls on the "American friends" "to telephone or write to [their] political leaders to inform them that maintaining the sanctions against Iraq constitutes a criminal act and does not serve your country nor - believe me - the general image of the American people in the world."

 

Final remark (mine):I can't help wondering HOW MUCH this ad has costed (though this is the ONLY way to have something against sanctions published in the IHT!).

 

Ornella Sangiovanni
Co-ordinator
Italian Campaign "Break the Sanctions!"/Bridge to Baghdad

 

PS. Gilles Munier's e-mail is: gilmun@club-internet.fr