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Hello Tim, Colin and others,
I agree with Tim: "People in Iraq are in a much
better position to comment on the reality of sanctions than the most
well-meaning people here". That leads us to the next point in the discussion.
When we visited Iraq in july, the representative of UNICEF spoke frankly against
sanctions, but said that it was up to anti-sanctions campaigners to put pressure
on their governments. "UNICEF is not a political organisation" he said. One of
the women in the group said that this meeting had convinced her more than any
other meeting with an Iraqi official. Another Belgian-Iraqi woman who was with
our delegation said that this was a racist remark. And frankly, I agreed with
her. Why should we believe more the facts and figures of UNICEF than Iraqi
figures? The presence of UNICEF in Iraq is totally unnecessary, if the sanctions
were lifted. First UNICEF uses funds that could be better used in other
third-world countries that are poorer and have no resources of their own. That
makes two genocides. Second: UNICEF is in Iraq to relief the worst
suffering, and is so also responsable for the prolongation of the sanctions that
are caused by the mother-organisation, the UN. Because UNICEF is serving as
an alibi to answer to criticism to sanctions. I can give a few examples of that:
UNICEF helps to repair the sewage and sanitation systems in a number of
projects. The government of IRAQ and the Iraqi people are perfectly capable
of doing that on their own, but don't receive the necessary
spare-parts because of the embargo and can't buy the spare-parts because there
is no foreign currency. Another example is for instance the breast-feeding
campaign that UNICEF wants to start in Iraq in an attempt to diminish the
child-mortality. The UNICEF representative told us that the Iraqi government
didn't want to cooperate on this fully. I asked Nasra Al-Sadoon, chief-editor of
"Iraq daily" why, and she said that before 1990, there never has been a problem
with breast-feeding in Iraq. The only problem, she said, is the embargo:
poverty, malnutrition and stress with young mothers. She found this
UNICEF-campaign a very cynical one. And I agreed. UNICEF wants to make the
western public opinion believe that Iraq is not educating their
mothers enough to breast-feed their babies, worse even: the Iraqi government
don't want to cooperate with this program. When I heard the explanation of the
Iraqi's, I understood. At the end UNICEF must drown in its own contradictions.
Can I believe someone who tells us (privately) that his hands are tied, and
doesn't want to speak out openly against the embargo?
No, I have more respect for Denis Halliday en Hans
von Sponeck, who saw these contradictions and resigned. And that's why I find
Iraqi figures plausible: because I've seen the efforts that the Iraqi
government makes to prevent a whole nation from starvation, a
rationing system that works perfectly, and the efforts to try to rebuild the
country without help from outside. Iraq doesn't need charity. It needs a lifting
of the embargo to rebuild its economy.
Greetings.
Dirk Adriaensens.
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