by Jillian Skeet
Close your eyes and imagine.
Parents have been withholding food, water and medical care to punish their
children for misbehaving. The children are on the brink of starvation.
The house itself is in total disrepair. Taps do not work and the children,
dying
of thirst, are forced to drink water from a dirty toilet bowl.
By the time authorities are alerted, one child is dead and the remaining
two
are near death from starvation and disease. The public is horrified and
outraged.
How could this happen in our midst? There are calls for investigations,
inquests and inquiries. Neighbours, teachers, doctors are questioned. Anyone
even remotely aware of the situation is held accountable.
The parents are arrested, probably sent for psychiatric assessment, and
charged with an array of offences including murder. Donations and adoption
offers pour in from the public heartsick at the maltreatment of the children.
Keep your eyes closed.
Now, imagine that instead of one dead, you have half a million under the
age
of five. Instead of two suffering from severe malnutrition and disease,
you have
millions.
Instead of drinking water from the toilet bowl, the water comes from a
river
contaminated with raw sewage.
Imagine that instead of two parents perpetrating this horror on their children,
it
is being done by the nations of the world, in the name of the United Nations.
Open your eyes. You are in Iraq.
As the latest international crisis over Iraq’s refusal to allow U.S. weapons
inspectors in the country degenerates into sabre rattling and threats of
further
sanctions, there is a tragic untold story that explains the flag-burning
images
flooding our television screens.
It has been the United States that has spear-headed the campaign to
continue sanctions against Iraq despite warnings from United Nations
agencies such as UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and
the World Health Organization (WHO), of the genocidal conditions within
the
country. According to information from the FAO, since sanctions were
imposed in 1990, more than one million Iraqis have died — half of them
children under the age of five. They are victims of sanctions that have
deprived
the Iraqi people of food, medicine and the spare parts necessary to repair
their
water and sewage systems.
With pumps and sewage treatment plants largely inoperable for lack of spare
parts, raw untreated sewage flows freely into neighbourhoods and rivers
like
the Tigris — a major water supply for the country. Under sanctions, chlorine
is
banned as a substance with potential military applications. One factory
in Iraq
produces an inferior grade chlorine in drastically insufficient supply.
Consequently, most water is, at best, partially treated.
UNICEF estimates that children are currently dying in Iraq at the rate
of 4,500
to 4,800 per month. Many die of outright starvation, from diarrhea and
diseases traced to contaminated water and food, or from communicable
diseases once eradicated in Iraq.
When children become ill, they are taken to hospitals where antibiotics
and
painkillers are non-existent or in short supply. Even adequate lighting
and
running water are sometimes lacking, not to mention basic medical
equipment.
The children do not stay long — parents quickly see that the hospitals
have
nothing to offer, nothing to alleviate their children’s agony, and the
children are
taken home to die. They die as they have lived so briefly — tortured. Their
deaths could not be more cruel.
All of this is happening with the full knowledge of world leaders. It is
genocide
against a people enacted in the name of the United Nations and in full
violation of international law as embodied in the Geneva Conventions. The
founders of the U.N. who, in the preamble to the UN Charter, pledged to
save
succeeding generations from the scourge of war, must be quite literally
rolling
in their graves.
Sanctions, as they have been imposed on Iraq, are war in its most pervasive
form. Where traditional war targetted the military establishment, a war
of
comprehensive sanctions like we’ve seen in Iraq, hits first and foremost
the
civilian population and, at that, the most vulnerable: the infants and
children.
Although sanctions are a provision of the U.N. Charter, and may retain
some
utility in specific instances, that clearly is not the case in Iraq. Saddam
Hussein is a dictator. He has demonstrated that he is steadfast in his
course
despite tremendous death and suffering in his nation. Starving the population
and depriving them of the most basic human needs will not transform Iraq
into
a democratic country that can vote Hussein out of office.
In fact, the opposite is likely to occur. As the people of Iraq see that
the world
has issued them a death sentence, Saddam is likely to appear the lesser
of
two evils. He has set up an extensive food rationing system that provides
a
semi-starvation diet throughout the country. Without it, millions more
would be
dead. And, prior to the Gulf War, despite Saddam’s atrocities, Iraq was
a
relatively rich and modern nation where starvation was unknown. It had
one of
the most advanced health care systems in the region.
It is time that we, as a society and members of the global village, asked
ourselves some penetrating questions. Why can states kill with impunity
while individuals are tried and imprisoned for similar acts? Why would
we
respond with outrage if parents starved a child to death for misbehaving,
yet
simply accept the deaths of half a million children who are similarly punished
by the nations of the world — their sole crime being born in a country
led by
Saddam Hussein?
The current situation in Iraq may well go down in history as one of the
worst
atrocities of this century because it has been willingly and knowingly
perpetrated by the nations of the world. It is a double tragedy because
the
genocide in Iraq has been orchestrated through the instrument that once
represented our highest international moral standard: the United Nations.
We should all be deeply alarmed that our world is ruled by leaders so
heartless that they can look at the facts attesting to the genocide, and
vote
over and over again in the U.N. to continue the sanctions.
In a 60 Minutes interview, the former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Madeleine
Albright, was asked point blank whether or not sanctions were worth the
death of half a million children under the age of five. She responded that
it was
a very difficult question but, yes, it (was) worth it.
The U.N. Charter begins with, We, the people of the United Nations. We
are
the people of the U.N., and it is incumbent upon us to act to stop the
sanctions and save the people of Iraq — one of our nations united. In so
doing, we will reclaim the United Nations institution and the moral foundation
it was built upon.
We can do no less. We must do no less.