Press statement: Steve (03) 9427 9837 or Sharon 956 9647 Australian peace activists condemn sanctions on Iraq "We condemn both the inhumane sanctions on Iraq and the US military for its proposed new massive sustained bombing campaign of Iraq which is likely to kill more than 10,000 people," stated Sharon Wathen spokeperson for the peace, community, and ethnic groups planning to assemble Sunday on the lawns of the State Library at 1pm, celebrating the 8th anniversary of the 1991 allied bombing of Iraq. The Australian peace protest is part of a planned worldwide campaign initiated by former US attorney general Ramsey Clark and against plans for a new bombing campaign that would last several weeks made public in recent days by various wire services. "More recently in the December 17-20 4 day bombing the US Pentagon estimates that up to 2,000 Iraqi soldiers died and is silent about civilians casualties," Sharon Wathen said. According to a survey by UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, and the World Food Program (WFP) , the US/British bombing in December destroyed or damaged 12 hospitals, a granary, a huge rice storage center in Baghdad, the principal oil-refining factory used for Iraq's domestic consumption, and other vital elements of Iraq's economic infrastructure necessary to sustain civilian life Since August 6, 1990, the forty-fifth anniversary of the incineration of Hiroshima by an atomic blast, US/UN Security Council sanctions have killed more than a million and a half people in Iraq, mostly infants, children, elderly and chronically ill and left millions more stunted, with crippled bodies, shortened lives, and minds scarred by the realization that rich nations forced this devastating impoverishment and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment on their entire people. DU bamed for Gulf War syndrome "The common explanation for Gulf war syndrome is environmental pollution caused when chemical and biological centres were blown up but radiation from depleted uranium rounds remains the most plausible explanation," said Sharon Wathen. Depleted uranium is used to weight shells rendering them highly effective in piercing tank armour. It is flammable and releases radioactive substances In Iraq, the health authorities say that at least three times more children are being born with congenital deformities than before the Gulf war. Now, in both Britain and the United States, veterans of that same war are coming forward with reports of sick and dying children. "The brutal irony is that the most likely origin of this gene- twisting force is not Iraqi, but Western. During the 100-hour ground war of February 1991, coalition planes fired at least one million rounds of ammunition coated in a radioactive material known as depleted uranium, or DU," Wortham said. Australian image hurt "This shows a clear and intentional targeting of the civilian infrastructure of Iraq. And it was supported by the Federal government!! A new US bombing campaign will backfire on Australian trade right around the world," another activist, David Muller said. Iraq recently threatened to cancel Australian wheat because the government support of US bombing. "The bombing of Iraq's cities and infrastructure had nothing to do with driving Iraq from Kuwait. It was intended to cripple a developing Non-aligned nation that was a politically independent military power in the region; that was rich in oil and committed to its own economic development. "But the rulers of Kuwait were far from blameless", Keith Langford said. "The Kuwaiti Government was slant drilling from al-Rumaylah oil fields in Southern Iraq, he said. Since day one of the crisis eight years ago, the strategy of the United States was to weaken Iraq. It would like to create a puppet regime in Baghdad. Now 8 years later President Clinton has signed into law, the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which authorised $97 million for the military overthrow of the current Iraqi government. It is the obligation of all people of conscience, of all anti-racist and peace organisations to stop the genocide of the Iraqi people. 1999 will determine whether tens of thousands of people in Iraq live, or die, and millions sustain painful, crippling permanent injuries from further malnutrition and sickness which could have been avoided altogether, or quickly cured if medicines and clean water had not been denied by the US dominated Security Council. ******************************************************************** Dante found the hottest places in the Inferno were reserved for those who in time of moral crisis did nothing. ******************************************************************** Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html The Year 2000 Bug - An Urgent Sustainability Issue http://www.peg.apc.org/~psutton/grin-y2k.htm