PAN ARAB UNION FOR PEACE
NEWSLETTER
NASSER Issue January 15, 1918 -- January 15, 1999
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DEDICATED TO the legacy of GAMAL ABDEL NASSER
and to his firstborn HUDA NASSER,
Professor of Political Science,
CAIRO UNIVERSITY
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ANOTHER HUDA NASSER (HUDA II)
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"IRAQ SHALL BE FREE. . .
IRAQ SHALL NOT BE BOUND. . .
IRAQ SHALL BE COMPENSATED. . .
The material you are about to read was posted on IraqNet
by Huda Nasser, a 16-year-old Iraqi child who is living in the West.
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As Salam Alaikum, wa Rahmat Allah
I am a 16 year old girl who despite living in America,
yearns for her mother country with all of her heart.
I am a very open person, and I realize that more than
5000 Iraqi children die needlessly every month as a direct result
of the heinous, imposed sanctions. I have informed as many people
as possible about this and a plethora of other facts and still,
one "friend" had the nerve to accuse me of conjuring false figures,
and venemously retorted that the Iraqi people are in fact not suffering.
I have only one means by which to retaliate, and that is
through journalism. I hope, Inn Sha Allah, to write an article
for the school newspaper that will kindle some compassion
in the inner sanctums of my peers, and just as importantly,
my teachers.
I am requesting pictures of the poor, suffering Iraqi children
to accompany my article, because, after all, seeing is believing!
Please respond to this request with either photos, or
information on where to gather such photos.
My American peers must be informed and realize how many
precious lives are being wasted. I am hoping to cultivate
awareness, and I truly thank anyone who is good enough
to send me some information.
Thank you so much,
Your Muslim Sister- Huda
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One month later Huda II posted her high school newspaper essay:
SILENT GENOCIDE
Her head was bowed in the universal posture of despair and defeat.
In the dimly-lit hospital room, the black veil of mourning which
framed her face seemed only to illuminate the wet glistening
of hot tears that had acclimatized to the slope of her strong
Arabic nose and the contours of her gaunt visage.
The worn fabric accentuated her sorrow, her pain and perfectly
captured the moment when she realized that she had just lost
the internal battle of Iraq -- and surrendered her youngest child
to the heinous war of sanctions.
Sanctions are the unilateral imposition of halting a country's
access to foreign exchange, i.e. dollars. Without foreign exchange,
any economy is liable to falter. Hard currency is needed to purchase
vital goods that the country is unable to produce internally.
The eight-year-old sanctions on Iraq, a country where its citizens
do not control government policy, has caused irreparable damage.
The lack of food, medicine and deteriorating sanitary conditions
in Iraq have contributed to more devastation and needless suffering
of the civilian populace than the 100-day Gulf War.
The punitive, militarily-enforced blockade (both air and maritime),
from a legal perspective, amounts to an atrocious act of war.
This statement is supported by resolution 670 (1990). The blockade
on the innocent people of Iraq is also an act of international terrorism
according to the U.S. legal code Title 18 2331. Moreover, the
blockade against Iraq violates numerous fundamental human rights,
including their entitlement to human dignity, rights to health,
education, food and an adequate standard of living -- these basic
necessities have casually been denied them.
Starvation of civilians as a harrowing act of warfare is strictly
prohibited by international law; thereby making the sanctions against
Iraq a violation of the Geneva Convention;
UN Charter;
Charter of Economic Rights
and Duties of States;
Universal Declaration of Human Rights;
International Covenant of Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights;
and the Constitution of the World Health Organization.
The latter has conceded that:
Since the onset of sanctions, there
has been a six-fold increase in the
mortality rate for children under five
and the majority of the country's popu-
lation has been on a semi-starvation diet.
Iraq's economy is obviously in an extremely sad state, having the strongest
adverse impact on children, women and the frail elderly. According to the
Fifty-second session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights,
The current monthly figure of deaths
of small children surpasses 5,000
with another 5,000 for persons over
the age of 14.
For children under the age of 5, a visible excess of some 40,000
deaths yearly, as compared with 1989 is mainly due to preventable
infections such as diarrhea, pneumonia, whooping cough, typhoid
and widespread malnutrition. Diseases of starvation, including
cases of marasasmus and kwashiorkor have raised the hospital
admittance rate by 50 times. Malnourished children are even more
susceptible and vulnerable since much of the water they drink is
infected with cholera, typhoid and E.Coli bacteria.
Iraq's health system, formerly the most proficient in the region,
has been severely maimed. Iraqi hospitals now rely on the
benevolence of the World Food Program and UNICEF for their
establishment of Nutritional Rehabilitation Centers throughout
the country. Despite their considerate collaborative effort,
there are still severe shortages in basic hospital supplies,
including syringes, IV sets, blood bags, anesthesia, oxygen
and fresh linens. Many children are living on the very margin
of survival and those who can't afford to bring sheets with them
can typically be found lying on dirty, bloodstained sheets. An
excess of 50, 000 deaths yearly, as compared with 1989 for people
over the age of 5 is associated with cancer, diabetes, hypertension
and heart, liver and kidney diseases are also apparent. Leukemia
rates have risen 56% in Southern Iraq, where depleted uranium from
the radioactive residue on bullets has been found. Unfortunately,
there is a disproportionate amount of cytotoxic and most other
drugs, thereby hindering the treatment of the guileless Iraqi
victims.
Equally disheartening is the current economic situation in Iraq's
government-controlled areas, which is crumbling at an amazingly
rapid pace due to the soaring hyper-inflation rate and prodigious
depreciation of the local currency. Simultaneously, household
incomes have disintegrated to an all time low. The sanctions
imposed upon the families of the dying children have forced them
to peddle personal and household items simply to buy food and
other basic commodities. Most government employees receive net
monthly salaries of 5,000 Iraqi Dinars, the equivalent of less
than 3 US dollars. The civilian infrastructure has shattered.
Health care is on the point of collapse. The "Oil For Food" deal
allocates less than 25 cents a day per person and provides at best,
less than 1/4 of the minimum caloric intake. After 8 tedious years
of sanctions, the fabric of society has been torn to shreds.
Long gone is the "Land Between Two Rivers," replaced instead with
a plagued Tigris and Euphrates. The sanctions have not achieved the
desired change of power, albeit they have caused colossal economic
and, most importantly, human casualties.
The children wither away
like unnoticed fields of flowers.
Mothers weep, fathers dig and
sanctions remain.
Although long overdue, the time to reassess the viability
of sanctions is now!
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". . . AND A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM"
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secret revelation: UNSCOM is yiddish for "pondscum"
and Butler "croaked"!
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R I G H T C A N A N D W I L L T R I U M P H O V E R M I G H T
ALLAHU AKBAR -- HALLELUJAH
Jean M. Temple,MBA (Ms.)
JMT/"MARVELOUS MOM"/(codename:GraceUnlimited)
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