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NEWS & LETTERS,
January-February 2002
Inside Iraq--delegation denouces sanctions
Basra, Iraq—Greetings from
the 41st Voices in the Wilderness delegation. Last year, Basra saw much needed
rain it had lacked the previous two seasons, and it looks like this year the
skies are following suit. Of course, for neighborhoods like Jamariya—a
neighborhood which the U.S. bombed in January 1999—where the streets are
flanked with open sewer trenches, rain floods the raw sewage out into the
streets, right next to those five kids playing marbles. Dec. 10 was United Nations
Human Rights Day—the 53rd anniversary of the UN's Declaration of Human
Rights—and the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Prize. Here we stand in a
land where the population is deprived of their human rights as a matter of
policy. Eleven years of a punitive embargo, of air raid sirens and fatal
diarrhea, of "collateral damage," and the body count exceeds that of
one Trade Towers tragedy every month. The bombardment of Desert Storm
severely crippled Iraq's civilian infrastructure, most notably the power sector,
and it would take very little to do the same again. The U.S. has repeatedly
displayed its ability and willingness to destroy an entire nation from the air.
If our new Bush is to finish the job his father began, is there a reason to
think the strategy would be any different this decade? A fire at the al-Hathra power
plant in southern Iraq in the summer of 2000 nearly caused its collapse. As
operating systems are sub-par, the sudden collapse of one station would force
other power station to take up the slack. Are other stations capable of such, or
would the entire system shut down? The answer, as described to me by Marcel
Alberts of the UNDP, could be catastrophic: a chain reaction could occur, and
Iraq is lacking the control systems and telecommunications necessary to deal
with such a collapse. A complete breakdown could ensue. Under current constraints of
the "Oil for Food" program, Iraq submits contracts for spare
parts—which are routinely put on hold by the Security Council sanctions
committee—and since there is no cash component in this program the necessary
funds for restoration and repair of the power sector are unavailable. To call to attention the
fragility of life under sanctions, we held a candlelight vigil at a power
station near Baghdad; there we began by lighting a lantern with Iraqi oil,
urging individuals and nations to unilaterally break the sanctions. So, how is
electricity a "human right"? As we stated on UN Human Rights Day at
the Dura power plant, which was bombed in 1991: "The survival of a modern, developed society—such as Iraq—depends on electricity...The right to safe water, health care, education, sanitation and sewage treatment depends on an available supply of electricity...Our presence at the Dura power plant highlights the fragility and vulnerability of civil society under 11 years of the most comprehensive economic sanctions in modern history. Renewed air strikes will be devastating to the civilian infrastructure and catastrophic to the Iraqi people." —Ceylon |
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