Join the CICD facebook group for regular updates
Listen to Alternative News Online
'Water and Nuclear Power'
'War Creates Refugees'
'No Money For People's Security'
'We need a Government that tells us the truth!'
'No Money For People's Security'
'Hiroshima Never Again - 09/08/2003'
'Peace Is Union Business - May Day 2006'
'Militarism V Welfare - May Day 2002.pdf'
Peace File 20th of March, 1998. 'Lift the Sanctions'.
Peace File 9th of September, 2002. 'No War On Iraq'.
Peace File 11th of April, 2003. 'Support Our Troops - Bring Them Home'.
Extract from 2005 Newsletter 'Cultural Disaster'
Peace File
Peace File is produced by Campaign for International Co-operation and Disarmament, GPO Box 113A, Melbourne 301. Tel 9663 3677, fax 9663 2289.
LIFT THE SANCTIONS
For most Australians the Gulf War has faded to the pages of history books. The military action ceased in 1991 and other events became front-page news. For the Iraqi people, however, the war never ended. The sanctions and international isolation guarantee that there is no escape from starvation and death by preventable diseases.
A nutritional survey, conducted by UNICEF with the World food Program
(WFP) in April 1997 shows that in Central and Southern Iraq 27.5% of Iraq's three million children are now at risk of acute malnutrition. Mothers are too malnourished to breastfeed and unable to afford milk powder.
There has been a collapse of waste water treatment systems in most urban
areas. Importation of spare parts and chlorine is not allowed. UN Department of
Humanitarian Affairs reports that 50% of rural population lacks
access to clean water.
WHO reports a sixfold increase in the mortality rate for children under
five, CARE Australia reported that 1,000 children a week are dying.
According to UNIFEC over one million children have died as a
consequence of the sanctions.
There has been an huge in incidence of cholera, typhoid, measles, poliomyelitis and tetanus. Vaccines and antibiotics are not available, neither are anaesthetics for operations. Applications to import ambulances have been refused.
'Oil for Food' program has proved a failure. Of the income, 30% goes to war reparation, 5-10% for UN operations, 5-10% for maintenance of the pipelines and 15% has been designated for the Kurdish population in the northern Iraq. The remainder averages 25 cents per person per day for food and medicine in the central and southern Iraq.
Mr Rick McDowell, after a visit to Iraq writes in the United States 'Catholic Worker' (Jan/Feb, 1998): 'The United Nations, chartered to protect civilian populations from the ravages of war, is instead engaged in a war of collective punishment, a war of mass destruction directed at the civilian population of Iraq. The UN, at the insistence of the US and contrary to international conventions and treaties, has created in Iraq a zone of misery and death – with no end in sight...How can the deeds of one leader, or even an entire government, be used to justify this unprecedented, international sanctioned violation of human rights? The scourge of sanctions on the people of Iraq must come to an immediate and unqualified end.
Back To Top
Peace File
Peace File is published by Campaign for International Co-operation and Disarmament, P.O. Box 50, Carlton South Vic 3053, tel. 9663 3677, email cicd@alphalink.com.au
NO WAR ON IRAQ
In 1998 the US Republican-controlled Congress passed the 'Iraqi Liberation Act' that virtually demanded the removal of Saddam Hussein. Now that the demands of this act are in the process of being carried out, the reasons given for military action are: (a) that Iraq has, or is, acquiring nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and (b) that Saddam Hussein is a menace to his neighbours and the world and must be removed.
No proof has been produced to back up these allegations.
* No evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
* No evidence of links to terrorism
Ramsay Clark, former US Attorney General says that an attack on Iraq to overthrow its government would be a flagrant violation of the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Charter and international law, and violate the constitution and law of the United States and expose President Bush to impeachment.
Scott Ritter, US republican who was for years in Iraq with the UNSCOM inspection team, making detailed investigations and where necessary destroying sites, says Iraq does not have weapons of mass destruction and capability exists. There is no justification in fact, national security, international law or basic morality to justify war with Iraq.
Rolf Ekeus, former Swedish ambassador, head of UN weapons inspection in Iraq from 1991 to 1997, has accused the US and other Security Council members of manipulating the UN inspection teams for their own political ends.
Hans Von Sponeck, former UN Humanitarian Commissioner for Iraq, told US peace activists on July 27th 2002 of a visit he made with German television teams two weeks previously to a site in Iraq where, it was claimed, weapons of mass destruction were being manufactured. The site had been totally destroyed and there was no possibility of such manufacture.
An invasion of Iraq would destabilise the whole Middle East region and have repercussions throughout the world.
This question must be solved by diplomatic means – it can only be solved by diplomacy and negotiations, never by resorting to war.
Back To Top
Peace
File
Peace File is published by Campaign for International Co-operation and Disarmament, PO Box 50, Carlton South Vic 3053, tel. 9663 3677, email cicd@alphalink.com.au
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS
BRING THEM HOME
The Howard Government has thrust Australia into an illegal war. This attack on Iraq is against international law and breaches the United Nations' charter. President Bush and his 'willing' partners Prime Ministers Blair and Howard chose to ignore the existing diplomatic solutions offered by the United Nations and broke the Nuremberg Crime against Peace principle with this war against a sovereign country that posed no threat to them. Individuals are also accountable as Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, pointed out 1946: 'The very essence of the Nuremberg charter is that individuals have international duties which transcend national obligations of obedience imposed by the state.' With its military superiority, the US might feel that the victory has vindicated the judgement of President Bush. But winning a war does not make it legal.
The wars against Afghanistan and Iraq have been covered by the media as if they were a form of entertainment. We are conditioned to accept the waging of continuous war, with no defined enemy, but victims conveniently chosen. Already a long list of countries have been indicated as potential new targets: Syria, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Libya, and Venezuelaetc. We have to make sure that Australia will not participate in this policy of militaristic adventurism.
Under the Geneva convention the occupying power has the responsibility to ensure the safety of the civilian population, access to necessities such as clean water, power and food and not let the social structures to be taken over by criminal activity and looting. The efforts to fulfill this obligation have been pathetic.
The United Nations cannot be an extension of the military rule of the occupying powers. Now the UN is mentioned only when US is trying to legitimise its actions or needs someone to clean up the mess. The United Nations and other aid agencies must be allowed to work without constraints and together with Iraqi representatives. Any investigations to war crimes, by either side, must happen through the facilities of the United Nations and international courts.
John Pilger writes in 'Arena' (No. 64, 2003): 'How have we got to this point, where two Western governments take us into an illegal and immoral war against a stricken nation with whom we have no quarrel and who offer us no threat: an act of aggression opposed by almost everybody and whose charade is transparent? How can they attack, in our name, a country already crushed by more than
twelve years of embargo aimed mostly at the civilian population, of whom 42 per cent are children – a
medieval siege that has taken the lives of at least half a million children and is described as genocidal by the former United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq.
Back To Top
CULTURAL DISASTER
Iraq has been referred to as the 'cradle of civilisation', because of its unique preservation of the ancient civilisations and kingdoms. Before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 archaeologists the world over made represenations to the
White house and other US authorities to respect and protect valuable World Heritage sites and artefacts.
Two years later the invasion and subsequent events have not only had terrible consequences for the
Iraqi people but have been disastrous for the archaeological sites and museums. Army camps have been built on world heritage and the ancient city of Babylon has been invaded by helicopter landing pads,
the purchase of artefacts, and the destruction of walls, other historical remains have been disturbed by the noise, vibrations and dust storms stirred up by the rotor blades. Venezualan writer and relics expert Fernando Baez has described these actions as 'The biggest cultural disaster since the descendants of Genghis Khan destroyed Baghdad in 1258'.
Besides the archaeological sites that have been destroyed, the museums have also been destroyed and looted since the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. One million books, ten million documents and hundreds of thousands of artefacts have been lost. The inventory of this destruction and Baez's
accusation that the coalition forces are violating the Hague Convention of 1954 on the protection of cultural heritage in times of war has been dismissed by Washington which also barred him from returning to Iraq to carry out further investigations.
US soldiers have bought trinkets for $100 from roadside markets, only to find that they are ancient
artefacts 5,000 years old. Some of these are returned, but there is a huge trade going still; treasures are being stolen and sold across the borders with Jordan and Kuwait where art merchants pay up to
$57,000 for a Sumerian tablet.
Violating the Hague convention on cultural property is a criminally punishable offense; the Yugoslav
army general who commanded troops during the siege of Dubrovnik in 1991 was sentenced to 8 years in prison - one of the crimes he was charged with was ruining the UN World Heritage site of Dubrovnik.
Washington though, has not signed the convention or the protocol attached to it.
Back To Top
While some slight aesthetic changes have been made, the bulk of the above appears as originally published, on the dates given.