-Caveat Lector- > > >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >To: undisclosed-recipients:; >Subject: Letter from Ramsey Clark to the UN >Date: Fri, 27 Aug 1999 22:24:48 -0500 (CDT) > >On August 27, 1999, the following letter was sent from former >U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark to the ambassador and >foreign minister of each member of the UN Security Council, and >to the UN General Assembly > >International Action Center >39 West 14 Street, #206 New York, NY 10011 >(212) 633-6646 fax: (212) 633-2889 >http://www.iacenter.org >email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >August 27, 1999 > >Dear Ambassador, > >The United Nations, as it now functions, cannot continue to exist as an >institution of honor and hope if it fails to act immediately to lift all >economic sanctions from Iraq and prohibit the United States from >nearly daily murderous aerial assaults on its defenseless people. > >The Security Council through nine years of economic sanctions forced >on it by the United States, has caused the greatest human disaster in >this last decade of a century of self inflicted human disasters. More >than 1,500,000 people have been killed; overwhelmingly infants, >children, elderly persons, pregnant and nursing women, the chronically >ill and emergency medical cases. The whole population of Iraq has >been afflicted. > >Every UN agency dealing with health, food, and children has >confirmed the effect of the sanctions on the people of Iraq and >reported to the UN and the world regularly on this human catastrophe >since 1990. As of August 1991 UNICEF reported at least 47,500 >deaths of children under age 5 as a result of the sanctions. Hundreds >of governmental and private organizations and many more individuals >from all over the world have documented the horror caused by these >sanctions. > >Only a person bereft of any concern for truth, without compassion and >possessing a character incapable of shame would claim that Saddam >Hussein, or any other agent, is responsible for what the Security >Council sanctions have wrought. > >Even if some intervening causes have contributed to this human >tragedy in Iraq, the UN would be criminally responsible for failing to >rush needed food and medicine to a dying people its acts placed in >harms way. > >Anyone who would justify sanctions killing hundreds of people daily >over a period of nine years based on a fear that Iraq might develop >weapons of mass destruction someday is dangerously murderous and >puts the whole world at risk by its cowardice. The U.S. has initiated >three-fourths of all economic sanctions and blockades since World >War II. It can claim any country is developing and planning to use >weapons of mass destruction. > >Iraq was proven utterly defenseless in 1991 at its time of maximum >military power during the heaviest 42 day aerial bombardment in >history – the equivalent of 7½ Hiroshimas, on its own soil. It has been >completely defenseless to U.S. air assaults ever since. It never used >weapons of mass destruction while it was being destroyed. Any such >uses it might have made in the past were few, minor compared to >casualties in the war they were engaged in and insignificant compared >to the mass destruction of civilian life by other countries, most notably >the U.S. The U.S. assumes the power to destroy selected sites, or >whole populations by lawlessly arguing it must kill today to avoid >some highly improbable injury at some undetermined distant time in >the future. The United States itself possesses most, and by far the >most powerful, weapons of mass destruction on earth with >incomparably superior numbers and delivery systems while continuing >to spend more on military might than the rest of the Security Council >combined. The U.S. used depleted uranium -- 900 tons remains in >Iraq’s environment -- fuel air explosives, cluster bombs and other >prohibited weapons against Iraq and alone in the world has used >atomic bombs against defenseless cities. It argues for the reign of >brute force and preventive destruction of whole populations. > >The enforcement of the Security Council sanctions against Iraq is >genocide: > >Genocidemeans any of the following acts committed with > intent to destroy in whole or in art, a national, ethnical, > racial or religious group, as such. > >(b) Causing serious bodily, or mental harm to members of the group; > >(c) Deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to > bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; > >Art.II, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of > Genocide. > >Now, in the last year of the millennium, the United Nations has >permitted the United States to wage war at its will abandoning its >mandate to end the scourge of war and failing to do its duty to prevent >war with barely a whimper. > >The UN let the U.S. led NATO into committing criminal aerial and >missile assaults on a defenseless Yugoslavia in violation of the UN >Charter, the North Atlantic Treaty and international humanitarian law. >U.S. pilots and aircraft committed 90% of all the aerial assaults on >Yugoslavia. The consequences are thousands of deaths throughout >Serbia including Kosovo, and in Montenegro. There were repeated >direct attacks on facilities essential to life throughout the region, on >civilians, civilian facilities and targets containing dangerous forces and >substances, all in violation of the Geneva Conventions. NATO >leaders have conceded the obvious -- these assaults did not protect a >single life in Kosovo. Permitting NATO to let this assault be >conducted in its name risks destroying the peace keeping role and >capacity of the United Nations and arraigning the former colonial and >the neo-colonial powers of West Europe and North America against >the rest of the world with no country able to defend itself. > >The precedent in Yugoslavia of direct foreign intervention in an internal >conflict subjects every nation with internal disputes to intervention >from abroad. The U.S. has internal conflicts with its Indigenous >peoples, who have been nearly liquidated as separate cultures; with >Black, Latino, Arab, and Asian people; many alleged terrorist groups; >and others. Owing to its vast military, police and prison power, the >U.S. does not presently risk attacks by foreign governments, but its >foreign policy creates intense hatred which naturally tends to cause >random violence against it. > >The failure of the United Nations to prevent NATO aggression and >itself act to achieve peace in the region undermines the very purpose >for which the UN was created. > >Finally, the UN has failed to even admonish the U.S. for its nearly >daily aerial attacks on Iraq beginning last December and continuing >until now. These attacks have killed hundreds of people. The >excuses given for the attacks, as with other issues addressed in this >and earlier letters, are both false and pathetic. The U.S. intrudes in >the air space of Iraq many times every day to harass, entice a reaction >and afflict attrition on Iraq, its defenses and the lives and nerves of its >people. It claims its aircraft, which are illegally in Iraqi airspace, >have >been assaulted whenever it chooses. Whether true or not, it then >assaults Iraq with multiple sorties killing someone with nearly every >strike. As with its thousands of attacks on Yugoslavia, the U.S. has >not suffered a single casualty. > >The UN is inviting a world ordered by the diplomacy of cruise missiles >and economic strangulation, governance by deadly high tech military >assaults which are indefensible, and foreign imposed hunger and >pestilence. The Superpower scofflaw responsible for both crimes is >the same deadbeat that refuses to pay its UN dues, directs the >creation of ad hoc UN criminal tribunals not authorized by UN >Charter to pursue its chosen enemies and refuses to participate in an >International Criminal Tribunal created by treaty approved by 120 >nations for fear that it might be held accountable under the rule of law. > >The sanctions that are killing the people of Iraq and U.S. aerial >assaults must be prohibited immediately and emergency relief and >amends provided to those who have survived. > >Sincerely, >Ramsey Clark >International Action Center >39 West 14th Street, Room 296 >New York, NY 10011 >email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >http://www.iacenter.org >phone: 212 633-6646 >fax: 212 633-2889 > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. 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