Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 22:23:57 -0800 To: •••@••.••• From: Leslie Schentag <•••@••.•••> (by way of Rycroft and Pringle <•••@••.•••>) Subject: Peace/Justice Canada/Int'l-- NN: Ramsey Clark letter to Security Council From: National Peoples Campaign - DC <•••@••.•••> Subject: [NPC/IAC List] Ramsey Clark letter to Security Council Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 19:26:08 -0500 Message-ID: <•••@••.•••> Ramsey Clark letter to Security Council The following letter was sent from Ramsey Clark to the five new members of the United Nations Security Council--The Netherlands (the chair of the Sanctions Committee), Argentina, Canada, Malaysia, and Namibia. Along with the five permanent members who have the veto--U.S., UK, China, France, and Russia--there are ten non-permanent members who sit on the council for two years. International Action Center 1247 'E' Street SE, Washington, DC 20003 Phone: 202-544-5752 Fax: 202-544-9359 email: •••@••.••• 39 West 14th St., #206 New York, NY 10011 212-633-6646 fax: 212-633-2889 http://www.iacenter.org e-mail: •••@••.••• January 5, 1999 Dear Ambassador, You and your government take seats on the Security Council at a critical time. The next two years 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 Security Council sanctions. The independence and sovereignty of every nation and the integrity and viability of the United Nations depends on Security Council action now to end these sanctions, acknowledge their harm and prohibit future imposition of sanctions designed to kill, injure and degrade an entire population. Your action in this moment of moral crisis will be judged in history. These facts are undeniable: 1. Since August 6, 1990, the forty-fifth anniversary of the incineration of Hiroshima by an atomic blast, 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. 2. The Security Council sanctions against Iraq are a genocidal act. The sanctions were imposed with the "intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such." They have caused "serious bodily and mental harm" and inflicted "conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction" of the people of Iraq. (Article II, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 78 U.N.T.S. 277.) 3. No fear or hatred of Saddam Hussein, and no threat to peace or life that the present government of Iraq might pose can justify the imposition or continuation of these sanctions. No failure to comply with a Security Council resolution can justify the imposition of genocidal sanctions against the people within a nation or criminal military assaults against a defenseless population. The Security Council must find morally acceptable means for the prevention of war and international violence. It must meet the highest standards for international conduct, not the most deadly and violent. Other nations have defied Security Council resolutions for decades, developing and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction including nuclear bombs all the while, without any Security Council penalty. 4. The Security Council has been coerced, deceived, misled and manipulated for eight years by the United States to cause it to maintain economic sanctions against Iraq as a justification for the United States military domination in the region through the presence of the largest naval armada since World War II in order to control the natural resources located there and the economies of the nations worldwide who are dependent on them. The poor and powerless of the world and the future viability of the United Nations depend on you to act now to end the sanctions against Iraq. Dante found the hottest places in the Inferno were reserved for those who in time of moral crisis did nothing. History will long celebrate courageous action by you to end these sanctions in this moment of maximum peril. I am enclosing a copy of Challenge To Genocide, the latest in a series of six books by the International Action Center documenting the criminal military assaults on Iraq by the United States with the approval or acquiescence of the U.N. and the genocidal eight years of sanctions. Enclosed is an article by Stephen Kinzer in Sunday's New York Times attesting again to the fact that informed people everywhere know the U.N. sanctions are a crime against humanity. With deep love for your people, hope for their government and a passionate desire to see the United Nations fulfill its mandate, end the scourge of war, prohibit economic sanctions which impoverish a people and establish peace for all. Sincerely, Ramsey Clark ----------------------------------- The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -Anatole France International Action Center/National Peoples Campaign - DC 1247 'E' Street, SE Washington, DC 20003 Phone: 202-588-1205, Beeper/Cell Phone: 301-526-3318 email: •••@••.••• Web: http://www.iacenter.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------ a political discussion forum - •••@••.••• To subscribe, send any message to •••@••.••• A public service of Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance (mailto:•••@••.••• http://cyberjournal.org) ---------------------------------------------------------- Non-commercial reposting is hereby approved, but please include the sig up through this paragraph and retain any internal credits and copyright notices. .--------------------------------------------------------- To see the index of the cj archives, send any message to: •••@••.••• To subscribe to our activists list, send any message to: •••@••.••• Help create the Movement for a Democratic Rensaissance ---------------------------------------------- crafted in Ireland by rkm ----------------------------------- A community will evolve only when the people control their means of communication. -- Frantz Fanon
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