Contents

1. Introduction : Breaking The Sanctions
2. Dave Rolstone Writes...
3. Joanne Baker Writes...
4. Conclusion

1) INTRODUCTION : BREAKING THE SANCTIONS Return to top

This delegation comprised two people from the UK - Joanne Baker and Dave Rolstone - and four from the USA - Raed Battah, Stacia Crescenzi, Ramsey Kysia and Tom Sager. The UK delegates once again broke the sanctions, by taking medical supplies - including needles, syringes and surgical gloves - and medical books and journals to Iraq without applying for an export licence. This is a criminal offence in British law. On the very first British delegation in February 1998, medicines were impounded by Customs and the delegates arrested on their return for breaking the sanctions, although not prosecuted. Since then, the British government seems to have made a decision not to recognise our actions, and no subsequent delegation has been stopped or had medicines or medical supplies impounded. This is despite the openness with which we operate; each delegation hands in a letter at Downing Street before leaving to notify the Prime Minister of the intention to break sanctions, and another one on return to state that the sanctions have been broken.

2) DAVE ROLSTONE WRITES... Return to top

Joanne and I flew out to Amman in Jordan on July 27th and spent five days taking in the rich and very diverse Arab culture. Part of this learning process was talking with Iraqi refugees. From them, we learned of the devastating conditions in Iraq and the effect on their families, of the widespread malnutrition necessitating the selling of possessions to survive and the encroaching destitution as their jobs disappeared, all reinforced in their minds by the lack of any hope that sanctions might be lifted in the foreseeable future.

Finally, in desperation, the refugees had fled to Amman, leaving behind their life, their culture and for some their families, only to find themselves in a state of limbo, with no security, no financial support and no health care. Their future is very uncertain, and the opportunity to earn money and move on very limited. Their dreams for the future are what enable them to carry on against the hardships imposed on them by Britain and the USA.

Hans Von Sponeck

On August 2nd we drove across the Badiet-esh-Sham desert to Baghdad. The next day, we had arranged to meet Hans von Sponeck, the Humanitarian Co-ordinator for Iraq who took over after the previous incumbent, Dennis Halliday, resigned in protest at the effect sanctions were having on the ordinary people of Iraq.

Mr von Sponeck began the meeting by saying, "Our concerns are very similar to yours. You are bolder than we are, because we are terrible bureaucrats, but essentially our message is the same, the Secretary General's message is the same - the report he submitted to the Security Council shows that things are not in order. The findings make it very clear that things, for example caloric intake, have not shown any significant overall improvement, and no one who knows anything about the situation here will assume this to be any different."

The recent Unicef survey on child mortality reports that if the substantial reduction in child mortality throughout Iraq during the 1980s had continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer deaths of children in Iraq during the period 1991-98. An earlier report found that over a fifth of children under five are chronically malnourished. Malnutrition early in life damages the child's physical and cognitive capabilities and thus reduces its chances of a normal life in the future.

Mr von Sponeck emphasised that nine years of sanctions have had a devastating effect on the people of Iraq, with a whole generation growing up in an environment of comprehensive deprivation. A baby whose hunger remains frequently unsatisfied does not develop trust in the world. Most Iraqi parents worry constantly about how to care for their family's needs and these worries are transmitted to their children who grow up with a deep sense of insecurity. Children as young as four may be involved in earning money to contribute to the family's income, many of them working on the streets. Some children have taken to crime in order to survive.

This was illustrated when Stacia and I visited New Baghdad, a market area in one of the poorer districts. We were there to buy black ribbon to tie on the fence outside the UN. One of the stall holders was trying to tell us something, and eventually sent for someone who spoke English to explain to us that the children who were following us at a distance were thieves and would steal our bags if given a chance. The market traders did not know who we were or why we were there but were very upset at the dishonesty of the children and went out of their way to see that we were not robbed.

Amiriya Shelter

I can still remember the media reporting of the atrocity of the bombing of the Amiriya bomb shelter during the Gulf War. The first four weeks of the war saw the use of an array of the most devastating weaponry, with civilians often being on the receiving end. The Allied bombardment effectively terminated everything vital to human survival in Iraq - electricity, water, sewage systems, agriculture, industry and health care. Food warehouses, poultry farms, hospitals and markets were bombed. Power stations were repeatedly attacked until electricity supplies were at only 4% of their usual output. Coalition forces violated the laws of war in that they failed to distinguish between military and civilian targets in their indiscriminate bombing, intended to 'soften up' the Iraqis before commencing with the ground campaign.

The Amiriya shelter was bombed on the night of 13th February 1991. Eye witnesses in this Baghdad suburb reported seeing low level reconnaissance aircraft flying over the area on three consecutive days before the bombing. It should have been obvious that the shelter was being used by civilians. The first guided bomb was designed to enter the shelter through a ventilation shaft and blow a hole in the ferroconcrete roof. This it did, causing all the doors of the building to close and trapping all the people inside. The second bomb passed through the opening made by the first, producing a massive incendiary inferno. Altogether 403 people were killed, including 52 children and 261 women. There were only 14 survivors.

Water And Sewage

On 4th August we met with Mr Faris al-Asam, the Director General of the Baghdad Sewage Board. He told us that since the imposition of sanctions, the volume of water available for each person in Iraq has plummeted, whilst levels of contamination have risen markedly. A further problem is losses due to leakage; before 1990 it was 15%, now it is 44%. Many plants have ceased to function, and putting additional quantities of sewage through the still functioning plants reduces their efficiency and increases contamination levels of the final effluent. 150 to 180m litres of untreated sewage is discharged into the Tigris each year from Baghdad alone. Pollution levels increased during the recent drought as water levels dropped, and the river is now in a critical condition between Baghdad and Basra.

Mr al-Asam explained the reasons for the deterioration of the water network. Chlorine is the main disinfectant used in the purification of water, but is regarded by the UN Sanctions Committee as a dual-use material. The committee has used excessive holds on the importation of chlorine and obstructed its legitimate use in water treatment to a very large extent, as well as putting holds on pipes, spare parts and pumps needed to refurbish the network. The sewage system was badly damaged during the Gulf War and now parts of Baghdad are inundated with raw sewage from collapsed pipes flooding houses and roads, contaminating ground water, from where it enters the water system, causing further increases in water-borne diseases.

During our visit, we saw Ali, a boy of 15, standing up to his knees in raw sewage, raking the scum from the top of it. He started work at 4am each day, and worked through the heat of the day, with a pair of wellingtons his only protection from the effluent.

3) JOANNE BAKER WRITES... Return to top

While Dave and Stacia stayed in Baghdad to start their fast outside the UN, the rest of the group travelled south to Basra. This once beautiful city used to be described as the 'Venice of the Middle East', with photographs in guidebooks showing sparkling canals of clear water. Now the water level is right down and is obviously more sewage than water. Rats scuttle everywhere, and we saw young boys plunging barefoot into the effluent in the canals.

Bombings In Basra

In Basra we visited the Al Jumhuriya district which had been bombed by the US (supposedly in 'self-defence' by aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone) on 25 January 1999, killing 17 people, wounding 100 and damaging 45 houses. The Iraqi government had repaired the buildings and put in a simple sewage system. Crowds of children surrounded us and one little boy showed us the shrapnel scars on his leg. Graffiti on a water tank said, 'Down America', but as usual we were greeted with warmth and generosity. In Basra, you hear the air raid sirens going every day. This is a form of terrorism, whether or not you get hit.

Basra Paediatric Hospital

At the hospital we visited malnutrition and leukaemia wards. We were told there had been a seven-fold increase in leukaemia in some areas around Basra. This is put down to the use of depleted uranium (DU) during the Gulf War, as is what we were told was a huge increase in the numbers of babies born with congenital malformations. There is still a problem with availability of drugs and children are unable to have the full course of chemotherapy. There is a shortage of intravenous fluid and fluid sets and no centrifuge machine, so the hospital depends on the military hospital for its blood supply, but still loses many patients to bleeding and infection. Lack of potassium - considered to be a 'dual-use' item by the Sanctions Committee - means that it is very difficult to treat heart conditions and dehydration.

Amara Hospital

On our way back from Basra we stopped to visit the hospital at Amara. Here we saw a couple of malnutrition wards, where the babies were nothing more than skin and bone and clearly had little chance of living. They were all suffering diarrhoea and dehydration. Although the hospital building was relatively modern it appeared to be devoid of equipment. The rooms were dirty, there was a general air of neglect, and the director was obviously at his wits' end, telling us that the air conditioning, heating, sanitation and power generation were all completely defective.

Fasting Outside The UN

Last year, Milan Rai and Andrea Needham, together with Umberto from the Italian NGO, Bridges to Baghdad, fasted outside the UN in Baghdad from the 6th to the 9th August to call for the immediate lifting of sanctions. In London, others fasted outside Downing Street. The fast was repeated this year, with Stacia and Dave suffering the mind-numbing 48C (120F) heat, fumes and noise of the huge highway on which the UN stands, whilst others endured torrential downpours outside Downing Street. The Baghdad fasters were visited by many media representatives as well as a lone UN worker, whilst those outside Downing Street had a modest media response but ample opportunity (when it wasn't raining) to discuss the issue with passersby.

On August 10th delegates in Baghdad met with representatives of Unesco and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). When asked if the oil-for-food deal could work, Peter Kouwenberg, the UNDP's resident representative, replied, "No way. We have never believed that the whole deal could work. We could see the barriers - both political and administrative - which were thrown up. We were quite surprised they were pushing it through. It had a built-in failure, you could see that from the beginning."

4) CONCLUSION Return to top

We had many opportunities during our visit to meet with ordinary Iraqis and to talk with them about the impact of sanctions on their lives. The families in the hospitals, the people of the bombed town of Al-Jumhuriya, the family we met in an internally displaced persons camp in Basra, suffering sickness from lack of clean water and sanitation. The woman who approached us in the street, begging for medicine for her skin disease. The young, middle class woman in Baghdad, struggling to finish her MA (on the garden image in Tennyson's poetry) with no access to the books and papers she needed (we were able to take her some relevant literature). In their different ways, all these people are affected by our sanctions. Some have to sit and watch their children die from malnutrition and treatable disease; others - the minority - have enough to eat but are suffering social and educational deprivation. We are responsible for this deprivation. In our interview with Hans von Sponeck, he put this very clearly. He said sanctions were breaking up Iraqi society. "If this is what we are doing with sanctions, I think we are committing a real crime. I cannot accept this, ethically, morally - it's impossible. These are innocent people."