Economic Sanctions In Iraq
As Bad As US Military Aggression
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 5 (Bernama) -- The impact of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 was no different from the United States and its allies military campaign on the country, said former United Nations (UN) Assistant Secretary-General, Hans Von Sponeck.
He said both ways Iraqis lost their lives and lived in misery, especially after the sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council to punish the Iraqi people because the United States failed to remove the late President Saddam Hussein from the helm of the country.
Von Sponeck said this in his paper titled "Economic Sanctions - A Weapon of Mass Destruction" at the three-day International Conference & Exhibition "Expose War Crimes - Criminalise War", which began today.
The War Crimes Conference, organised by the Perdana Global Peace Organisation was chaired by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the Putra World Trade Centre here.
Van Sponeck said that the punitive and destructive measures had taken a toll of 1.26 million lives in Iraq, of which 500,000 of them were children.
He illustrated his points to the audience by describing how an Iraqi man, Ahmad, lost his remaining son Farouq to bullets of the allied soldiers while they were at a market on March 2003, seven months after the US invasion of the country.
Farouq was then buried beside the grave of his brother, Farid, who died because he could not be saved from cholera which resulted during the economic sanction and which caused a severe shortage of medicine in Iraq six years back, he said.
Von Sponeck said that if one looked beyond the immediate reason of such casualties, it was the practice of double standards and lack of equal rights in the world today.
"There is no "just" in military action, there is no "just" in economic sanctions unless it is sanctioned by the UN Charter and monitored by the UN Security Council, this is very important, " he said.
He said that there was also no justification for globalisation until such time the world's resources were shared responsibly among the countries on this planet.
He said the double standard was also being practiced in international trade where the carpet weaved from south Asian regions were blocked from entering the western market but at the same time the western products were flooding their markets.
He also said that the world now was full of conspiracy which used institutionalised lies and the society in this world must be able to distinguish between fact and fiction.
"Therefore, there is a need to find a "glue of common interest" to beat this kind of unfairness and this forum, which is being participated mostly by non-governmental organisations is like "the new UN in the making," he added.
- BERNAMA http://www.bernama.com
As Bad As US Military Aggression
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 5 (Bernama) -- The impact of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990 was no different from the United States and its allies military campaign on the country, said former United Nations (UN) Assistant Secretary-General, Hans Von Sponeck.
He said both ways Iraqis lost their lives and lived in misery, especially after the sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council to punish the Iraqi people because the United States failed to remove the late President Saddam Hussein from the helm of the country.
Von Sponeck said this in his paper titled "Economic Sanctions - A Weapon of Mass Destruction" at the three-day International Conference & Exhibition "Expose War Crimes - Criminalise War", which began today.
The War Crimes Conference, organised by the Perdana Global Peace Organisation was chaired by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad at the Putra World Trade Centre here.
Van Sponeck said that the punitive and destructive measures had taken a toll of 1.26 million lives in Iraq, of which 500,000 of them were children.
He illustrated his points to the audience by describing how an Iraqi man, Ahmad, lost his remaining son Farouq to bullets of the allied soldiers while they were at a market on March 2003, seven months after the US invasion of the country.
Farouq was then buried beside the grave of his brother, Farid, who died because he could not be saved from cholera which resulted during the economic sanction and which caused a severe shortage of medicine in Iraq six years back, he said.
Von Sponeck said that if one looked beyond the immediate reason of such casualties, it was the practice of double standards and lack of equal rights in the world today.
"There is no "just" in military action, there is no "just" in economic sanctions unless it is sanctioned by the UN Charter and monitored by the UN Security Council, this is very important, " he said.
He said that there was also no justification for globalisation until such time the world's resources were shared responsibly among the countries on this planet.
He said the double standard was also being practiced in international trade where the carpet weaved from south Asian regions were blocked from entering the western market but at the same time the western products were flooding their markets.
He also said that the world now was full of conspiracy which used institutionalised lies and the society in this world must be able to distinguish between fact and fiction.
"Therefore, there is a need to find a "glue of common interest" to beat this kind of unfairness and this forum, which is being participated mostly by non-governmental organisations is like "the new UN in the making," he added.
- BERNAMA http://www.bernama.com
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