The Committee for National Solidarity
Tolstojeva 34, Belgrade, YU
U.S. DELEGATION FINDS HIGH-RADIOACTIVITY IN
IRAQI DESERT
RAMSEY CLARK AND SANCTIONS CHALLENGE HEAD BACK TO
EUROPE,
U.S. AFTER SOLIDARITY TRIP TO IRAQ/PALESTINIANS CHARGE
ISRAELI
MILITARY USES DEPLETED URANIUM
FROM THE SANCTIONS CHALLENGE of the
INTERNATIONAL ACTION
CENTER
(Reports from Baghdad, Iraq and Amman,
Jordan)
A investigating team from a U.S. solidarity delegation
to
Iraq on Jan. 18 found "extremely high levels of
radioactivity" in
soil samples in the Iraqi desert south of
Basra. In that region during the
1991 war against Iraq U.S.
forces fired hundreds of thousands of shells
reinforced with
depleted uranium.
Former U.S. Attorney General
Ramsey Clark and New Mexican
activist and researcher Damacio Lopez had
separated from the
main body of Clark's International Action Center's
50-person
"Iraq Sanctions Challenge" to collect the soil samples.
On Jan. 19, Clark was scheduled to report his team's
findings of
high radiation levels at a news conference at
the Italian Parliament in
Rome. He planned to condemn the
Pentagon's use of DU weapons in Iraq and
Yugoslavia and
demand that scientists from these countries be included
in
the investigation of the dangers to humans of DU.
A storm of
protest in Europe has brought to international
attention the threat to
soldiers and civilians from
pollution by radioactive and toxic DU shells in
Kosovo and
Bosnia. There have already been massive protests in
Greece,
with hundreds of Greek soldiers demanding they leave
Kosovo.
Other protests are planned in Italy and Portugal and
meetings
have been held in Belgium, France and Spain.
>From Amman, Jordan,
IAC co-director Sara Flounders said that
"while DU poisoning of European
and U.S. soldiers are
criminal, the poisoning and pollution of the civilian
areas
of Kosovo, Bosnia and to an even greater degree Iraq are
war
crimes. We hold the Pentagon responsible for the damage done
to the
population and the environment of the Balkans and of
the area including
parts of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
"A report from Geneva," said
Flounders, "indicates that
besides depleted uranium, some of the U.S.
shells contained
measurable amounts of plutonium and Uranium-236, even
more
dangerous pollutants than depleted uranium. This only adds
to U.S.
culpability in this matter.
"Today's Jordan Times reports on its front
page," continued
Flounders, "that Palestinian organizations have charged
the
Israelis with using DU against the Intifada. Through the
Pentagon,
which supplies most Israeli weapons, the Israeli
military is supplied with
DU. We in the IAC had raised last
November the possibility that Israeli
forces were also using
this illegal weapon."
In the days before the
Rome news conference, both the Iraqi
and Yugoslav governments had condemned
the use of DU on
their territories. Belgrade said it would demand that
the
International War Crimes Court at The Hague include DU use
as a war
crime to be investigated. [for reports from Iraq
and Yugoslavia see the DU
page on the IAC web site at
www.iacenter.org]
Background to
Sanctions Challenge
The U.S. group had arrived in Baghdad by air the
night of
Jan. 13, acting in defiance of the U.S./UN imposed
no-fly
zones. At a press conference at the airport Ramsey
Clark
declared, "The US must end the genocidal sanctions against
Iraq.
The whole world demands that the sanctions be lifted
completely and
immediately."
Fifty anti-sanctions activists led by joined a
demonstration
in downtown Baghdad at 2 a.m. on Jan. 17 to mark the
10th
anniversary of the U.S.-led war of aggression against Iraq.
It
was at 2 a.m. ten years ago that U.S. and British forces
unleashed rockets
and bombs on sleeping Baghdad.
The delegation spent the next three
days visiting sites that
demonstrate the consequences of the 10 years of
sanctions or
those hit by frequent bombing the past ten years.
Sites included a bomb shelter, elementary schools, a
university,
water and sewage treatment plants, and
hospitals. The delegation also met
with the Iraqi minister
of health, visited a pharmaceutical plant, a school
for the
blind, the Iraqi Women's Federation and a food
distribution
center.
They found that sanctions are still making life
extremely
difficult for the Iraqi population and causing
needless
deaths. Yet the mood of the Jan. 17 demonstrators
was
optimistic and combative. In the months leading up to
the
anniversary, more and more countries had begun individually
breaking
the ban on flights and other sanctions against
Iraq. More than 100 flights
have entered Iraq in the last
five months.
The delegation delivered
over $1.5 million in medical and
school supplies, and plans to deliver more
supplies to
Palestinian hospitals on the West Bank.
In a meeting
with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Ramsey
Clark denounced U.S. policy
toward Iraq. "This is genocide,"
he said. "The progress that Iraq has made
must not be lost
at 12 noon on Jan. 20 when George Bush is
inaugurated.
Inspection teams and Oil-for-food program were both
frauds
from the beginning. There is no justification for the
sanctions.
They are a war by other means."
The IAC delegation brings together
people from fifteen US
states and seven countries, including Canada,
Japan,
Lebanon, Greece, Britain, Iceland and Palestine. It
includes
students, teachers, long time activists, social
workers,
lawyers, and others committed to peace.
The delegates met
with the Iraqi host organization, The
Organization of Friendship and
Solidarity with Iraq. The
head of OFSI, Dr. Hashimi said: "You will see a
nation of
siege. The siege is from outsiders who say they do it
in
accordance with law and legality and UN resolutions"
"It is a
siege to achieve unjustified objectives. We hold on
in spite of the
suffering and the pain and we will continue
to hold on for as long as
necessary. We know that if we give
up we will lose
Iraq."
International Action Center
39 West 14th Street, Room
206
New York, NY 10011
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
web: http://www.iacenter.org
CHECK OUT
SITE
http://www.mumia2000.org
phone: 212
633-6646
fax: 212 633-2889
*To make a tax-deductible
donation,
go to
http://www.peoplesrightsfund.org
Mrs Jela Jovanovic, art historian
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