Reprinted from The Common Good, no 7, Lent 1998

www.catholicworker.org.nz

 

Editorial – Hands Off Iraq

 

New Zealand should not become engaged in any proposed US war on Iraq. For a wide range of moral reasons, we have no right to be there. The 20 SAS soldiers, 70 air force personnel, and two Orion aircraft should be recalled.

As Professor Mohammed Jabwe, an Iraqi immigrant to New Zealand in 1995, says, ‘The Iraqi people have done nothing to New Zealand. Sanctions have not affected Saddam Hussein. They have affected our families. People have been dying of hunger, and no medical supplies. The people now believe that all the US wants to do is destroy the Iraqi culture. Iraq is one of the ancient civilisations of the world.’

The Catholic Worker position is clear. We are unequivocally opposed to any US war against Iraq, and we believe the sanctions imposed since 1991 should be lifted. They have hurt only the weak and vulnerable.

We are appalled at the hypocrisy of the United Sates who have caused mayhem, oppression, destruction and death in so many third world countries over the past few decades. They have kept so many dictators and authoritarian governments in power in order to protect their interests. But they can't cope with Saddam Hussein, who thumbs his nose at them. Saddam is an oppressive, evil dictator. But he is only one of dozens in the world, many created by US foreign policy. The West's problem with him is that he has oil. And as George Bush said all those years ago, 'we are not going to allow him to interfere with our way of life!'

The Shipley government and defence minister Max Bradford, seem determined to take New Zealand back into the arms of the United States.

It is a position fraught with danger. The United States is the most war-focused nation on earth. Its monetary system is largely dependent on an armament economy, with 52 percent of its taxes being directly linked to war.

In addition, our involvement would be illegal, under Clause 5(ii)(b) of the Nuclear Free Act, 1987, which prohibits any New Zealander from aiding or abetting any person who manufactured, acquired, possessed, or had in their control a nuclear explosive device.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation reported in December of 1995 that more than one million Iraqis have died – 567,000 of them children – as a direct consequence of economic sanctions. UNICEF reports that 4,500 children under the age of five are dying each month from hunger and disease. An April 1997 nutritional survey, carried out by UNICEF with the participation of the World Food Program (WFP) and Iraq’s Minister of Health, indicates that in Central/Southern Iraq, 27.5% of Iraq’s three million children are now at risk of acute malnutrition.

To date, more children have died in Iraq than the combined toll of two atomic bombs on Japan and the ethnic cleansing of former Yugoslavia.

The UN’s Department of Humanitarian Affairs reports that Iraq’s public health services are nearing a total breakdown from a lack of basic medicines, life-saving drugs and essential medical supplies. The lack of clean water – 50% of all rural people have no access to potable water – and a collapse of waste water treatment facilities in most urban areas are contributing to the rapidly deteriorating state of public health.

Airborne and waterborne diseases are on the rise, while deaths related to diarrhoea diseases have tripled in an increasingly unhealthy environment. The World Health Organisation (WHO) reports a six-fold increase in the mortality rate for children under five, an explosive rise in the incidence of endemic infections, such as cholera and typhoid, and a markedly elevated incidence of measles, poliomyelitis, and tetanus. The WHO further states that the majority of Iraqis have subsisted on a semi-starvation diet for the past several years.

The use of depleted uranium during the Gulf War – which may be a contributing factor of Gulf War syndrome – may also be linked to increases in childhood cancers, including leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, lymphomas, congenital diseases and deformities in foetuses, along with limb reductional abnormalities and increases in genetic abnormalities throughout Iraq.

We support the position of the 54 American bishops who recently signed an open letter to President Clinton. In part it said:

'This bombing campaign (1991 Gulf War) together with the total embargo in place since August 1990 was, and is, an attack against the civilian population of Iraq. Such counter population warfare has been unequivocally condemned by the main authoritative teaching body of the Catholic Church, the Second Vatican Council. ...In fact, the sanctions are not only in violation of the teaching of the Catholic Church, but they deprive innocent people of food and medicine, basic elements of normal life. In conscience we urge you to call for the immediate lifting of the sanctions by the UN Security Council to end all US support for these sanctions and to refrain from any military action in the current dispute.'

New Zealand took a brave stand against its heavy handed ally over its nuclear free legislation. Ever since, we have bent over backwards trying to appease the war lords in the Pentagon and their political masters in Washington. We need to take back our sovereignty, keep our independence, and keep our hands off Iraq.