PRESS RELEASE Voices in the Wilderness UK
4 June 2004
0845 458 2564 or 07952 354 722

US Treasury Department Prosecutes Americans For Taking Medicines to Iraq

Friday 4 June, Washington: Members of the US branch of Voices in the Wilderness (VITW) will be appearing in a court in Washington DC later today regarding civil fines imposed by the Treasury Department for “bringing medicines to Iraq.” The US Treasury Department is attempting to collect $20,000 from VITW for breaking the sanctions against Iraq during the ‘90s by taking medicines there without an export licence from the US Government.

Comprehensive economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq in August 1990 and were not lifted until May 2003 because of the US/UK veto. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi under-fives died as a result, in what Save the Children Fund UK described as ‘a silent war against Iraq’s children.’ Today Iraqi children continue to die in occupied Iraq because of the lack of clean drinking water.

VITW has sent over seventy delegations to Iraq since 1996 in deliberate violation of UN economic sanctions and US law and its members have also lived alongside ordinary Iraqis before, during and after the US invasion.

“There is another America, which is not reflected by the images of torture and destruction that have come to symbolize the US presence in Iraq, which was shown in some small way by our efforts and those of others working against economic sanctions,” says Kathy Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness and a former Nobel Peace prize nominee. “But this administration is teaching a lesson hard to miss; help someone and you will be prosecuted, punish them and its business as usual.”

For documents regarding the case, please see http://vitw.org/summons

For more info. contact Gabriel on 07952 354 722