Death by sanctions
From Andrea Needham Sir: John Laughland opens his piece on British foreign policy ('We are only obeying orders', 12 August) with a reference to the die-in for the people of Iraq, which, as he notes, took place on 7 August. Unfortunate- ly, those reading the piece might have had the erroneous impression that this was a protest against the continuing bombing of Iraq. Criminal and immoral as this bombing is, it was not the focus of the protest. Instead, the 300 people who assembled in Trafalgar Square and then proceeded to block White- hall for two hours had come to register their protest over a very different 'war with Iraq': economic sanctions. Indeed, the protest had been timed to mark the tenth anniversary of the sanctions' imposition.
Over the last ten years economic sanc- tions have taken a horrific toll on the ordi- nary people of Iraq, while leaving the lead- ership untouched. Last August Unicef esti- mated that, had the substantial reduction in child mortality in the 1980s continued through the 1990s, there would have been half a million fewer child deaths among Iraqi children under the age of five. According to Professor Richard Garfield, co-chair of the Human Rights Committee of the American Public Health Association, `most' of these excess deaths were 'primari- ly associated with sanctions'.
In the last two years, three of the most senior UN aid officials to work in Iraq have resigned in protest over what one US Congress member recently termed 'infanti- cide masquerading as policy'. According to the Economist, 'If, year in, year out, the UN were systematically killing Iraqi children by air strikes, Western governments would declare it intolerable, no matter how noble the intention. They should find their exist- ing policy just as unacceptable.'
The US and British governments have consistently refused to accept any responsi- bility for the suffering in Iraq. Fortunately a growing number of people in Britain are taking action to bring this grotesque policy to an end.
Andrea Needham Voices in the Wilderness UK, 16b Cherwell Street, Oxford
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