Speech Notes - Dr Marten Hutt, ISMAG

• To raise funds for medical and humanitarian relief for Iraq.
• To raise public awareness of the devastating health effects of the sanctions on the people of Iraq.
• To lobby the NZ Government to change its support for the sanctions.

Our view of the sanctions regime against Iraq can be summarised thus:

• The international community is right to be concerned about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. However, one needs to consider, that in terms of demonstrable effect, the sanctions regime itself has proved the most effective weapon of mass destruction.
• Added to this, the UN is bitterly divided on this issue. There is not a single, unitary "UN view" to which New Zealand must somehow remain true. The recent resignations of senior UN officials Scott Ritter (UN arms inspector) and Denis Halliday (co-ordinator of the oil-for-food programme) have demonstrated severe disquiet within the UN bureaucracy as to the sanctions regime. New Zealand needs good information (not anecdotes or rhetoric ) to determine its own position.
• In our opinion, sanctions are a blunt policy tool. The twentieth century is littered with examples of sanctions policies which have hurt ordinary people and left dictators in charge of the black markets. Sanctions create extreme resentment within the populations at whom they are targeted; an "Embargo Generation".
• We quote the words of the previous Secretary-General of the UN, Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, who described sanctions as a blunt instrument in June 1995: "They raise the ethical question of whether suffering inflicted on vulnerable groups in the target country is a legitimate means of exerting pressure on political leaders whose behaviour is unlikely to be affected by the plight of their subjects". This is precisely the situation in Iraq.
• Similarly, the recently resigned UN co-ordinator of the UN oil- for-food programme has made damning comments. Denis Halliday (1 October 1998) said that he was resigning to expose the "damage and futility of sanctions...a totally bankrupt concept...it damages the innocent people of the country [and] probably strengthens the leadership...pushing people to take extreme positions".
• ISMAG believes these statements of bitter UN divisions speak for themselves. Eight years of sanctions have strengthened, not weakened, Saddam's rule. Eight years of sanctions have weakened, not strengthened, the people of Iraq. This is the total opposite of the policy objectives.
• The health effects of the sanctions are demonstrable and disastrous. International agencies such as UNICEF, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and medical journals such the British Medical Journal attest to recent massive rises in rates of water-borne infectious diseases, such as cholera and typhoid, as well as in malnutrition. Former New Zealand Director-General of Health, Professor George Salmond, has described this situation as a "public health disaster". Children have been hit the hardest. WHO reported that mortality rates of children less than five years of age have increased six times since 1990. This year, the Lancet reported that leukaemia rates have increased four times, and UNICEF nutrition surveys show consistent malnutrition rates for under 1s and 5s of about 30%.
• We agree with the need for a genuine arms embargo, but feel the policy costs of economic sanctions (particularly as far-ranging as those administered by the UN) have exhausted their benefits. It is not efficient or just for the UN to administer the economy of a country of 22 million people who did not vote for their miscreant leader and regime.

ISMAG endorses the following views of former UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Denis Halliday: "Drop all non-military sanctions. By allowing people to focus on something other than sheer survival, it will enable the professional middle classes to contemplate political change. Stop delaying or denying Iraq access to books, medical journals, pencils, and papers, as the UN Sanctions Committee, dominated by the US and the UK, has repeatedly done. Flood Iraq with all the opportunities to enjoy Western culture. Then perhaps participatory democracy will have a chance to emerge."

"Retain all controls over arms sales and transfers to Iraq. Expand arms control and disarmament to the entire Middle East. This will not be an easy task. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council are responsible for 85% of the world's arms sales. But it is a necessary one if these countries to trade and cooperate."

"Acknowledge UNSCOM's successes. It destroyed vast amounts of biological and chemical weapons materials. But after 8 years and thousands of inspections, we must accept that we are not going to find everything. And disarmament is too important a process for it to become politicized and open-ended. We know how easy it is to make these appalling devices."

"Engage in intelligent diplomacy. Drop support for self-appointed opposition leaders in exile whose chief constituents are a handful of Western politicians. The Iraqi people have to determine their own fate. They are smart, tough, and resilient. Why deny them rights we would never deny ourselves?"

ISMAG Press Release 7 April 1999

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