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CounterPunch
January
25, 2003
Spain and War
All
You Wanted to Know About Iraq, But Your Government Did Not Tell
You *
by AGUSTIN VELLOSO
SANTISTEBAN
If a declared war against Iraq eventually starts,
do not think Spain's Prime Minister, Mr. Aznar, will say much
about it. He did not say a single word about what the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reported in 1999: "United
States and British aircraft have continued to bomb targets in
the north and south of the country nearly every day since the
four-day 'Desert Fox' operation in December 1998" (ICRC:
Iraq: 1989-1999, a decade of sanctions). However, many people
want answers to the following questions:
Why was the embargo imposed on Iraq?
According to the ICRC report mentioned above, before 1990 "
Iraq boasted one of the most modern infrastructures and highest
standards of living in the Middle East. The world's second largest
oil producer, it had in rcent decades used oil revenues for ambitious
projects and development programmes, as well as to build one
of the most powerful armed forces in the Arab world. It had established
a modern, complex health care system, with giant hospitals built
on Western models and using the latest equipment. It had constructed
sophisticated water-treatment and pumping facilities. It had
an extensive school and university system." (www.helpicrc.org/)
All was paid with oil. Those who say today that Saddam Hussein
is cheating about his weapons of mass destruction know what they
are talking about, they are the very same people who traded those
for oil. Back in the eighties it did not matter if he used those
weapons against Iranian people, since its president, Khomeini,
and his chiite revolution, was the archi-enemy of that age. Those
were the days: both peoples bleeding to exhaustion and arms sales
going sky high.
The United States, known not only
in the Middle East- for supporting and arming dictatorships and
pseudo-democratic regimes that do not respect human rights and
international law, are not willing to support a regime known
by both its economic and military progress and its anti-imperialism
and anti-zionism Constitution and international stand. It also
happens that this country does not trade bilateral aid and World
Bank loans for puppet leaders and full compliancy with what the
boss says. We have not yet heard Mr. Aznar ask for, or support,
sanctions against Turkey and Israel.
Why the war in 2003? The embargo was
aimed at forcing Iraqis to overthrow Saddam, a cheaper and politically
more correct coup d'état than a foreign armed intervention
in an already heated area and in the 21st century. Iraq is under
the most comprehensive and longest embargo ever imposed against
a country. This was of course condemned since the very beginning
by Iraq's government in several ways, included a document aptly
entitled: "Bush kills Iraqi children" (Ministry of
Culture and Information, Baghdad, 1991). In it, the government
warned about the price the people was paying and was going to
pay if the embargo remained for long. This has simply been although
very slowly- recognised by the international community in hundreds
of reports about the calamities the Iraqi people is undergoing:
World Health Organisation, UNICEF, UNESCO, United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), and a long list which also includes churches,
political and solidarity groups and many ngos.
Incredible as it may seems, the Security
Council (SC) itself has also recognised it, although this does
not mean it admits its own guilt, and much less that it asks
for sanctions against itself and the main instigator. In the
report commissioned by the SC on January 30th, 1999 to a panel
of specialists (U.N. S/1999/100), one can read: "the country
has experienced a shift from relative affluence to massive poverty.
In marked contrast to the prevailing situation prior to the events
of 1990-91, the infant mortality rates in iraq today are among
the highest in the world, low infant birth weight affetcs at
least 23% of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every four
child under five years of age, only 41% of the population have
regular access to clean water, 83% of all schools need substantial
repairs. The ICRC states that the iraqi health-care system is
today in a decrepit state". (www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/info/panelrep.html).
In spite of this deplorable state of
affairs, the Iraqi people did not overthrow the regime. This
is simply what the Spaniards would have made if, tempted to send
General Franco to the dole in order to put an end to the dictatorship,
they had accepted that United States divided Spain in three parts,
bombed factories and stores, forbade the import of medicines,
spare parts for the industry, essential products, and all these
resulted in the death of a million and a half persons, half a
million of them children. Imagine if on top of this there was
the threat to send them back to the stone age.
So, once it is clear for everyone that
Saddam Hussein has already resisted two United States presidents,
and that the embargo has a lot of flaws and above all that the
Iraqis are less fond of Bush Jr. than they are of Hussein Sr.,
sensible enough by the way, there is no other solution than dispose
of the later. In United States and Great Britain merciless logic,
it does not matter at all that this final war inevitably means
that thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, will be killed,
the same way the embargo "against" Saddam Hussein has
resulted in the death of five per cent of the Iraqi population,
the destruction of an entire country, and in a totally gloomy
future for the survivors.
What does Spain have to do with it? This
is what Mr. Tarek Aziz, Iraq's vice-prime minister, is also wondering.
Last January, the second, he said to a Spanish delegation that
was in Iraq to show solidarity to the Iraqi people: "Spain
is our friend. If Spain sticks with the UN, we will understand;
but if Spain sides with the United States, then it will not be
our friend any longer". Fair enough. He added: "That
move not only would be a moral and legal wrong, but it also would
be bad for Spain. Does Spain think it will get oil contracts
after the war? Will the United States share its riches with Spain?
However, Aznar's words were not so restrained,
not even so politically clever, not so morally balanced: "If
war breaks out, Spain knows its place. Spain will side with its
friend, the United States". Does he know by chance that
in any case Spain will have to side with the international law?
Mr. Aznar does not realise he is not free to choose such dangereuses
liaisons as far as he is the president of a member State of the
United Nations. The United Nations have not authorised the daily
bombings against targets in Iraq. They have not authorised either
the partition of Iraq, another member State, sovereign and independent
nation. Is Spain going to side with a State that has already
been condemned by the International Court of Justice, which stated
that the United States have seriously breached the international
law in its dirty war against Nicaragua, another member State
of the United Nations? Has Mr. Aznar forgotten this delinquent
past of his friend, and does not even want to see a foreseable
future of recidivism? United Nations resolutions have clearly
stated Iraq's territorial integrity and sovereignity.
It will not be easy for him to convince
us that it is better to side with Mr. Bush than with the international
law, and it will be even more difficult if he simply parrots,
as his Foreign Minister does, probably preparing in advance Spanish
public opinion, Bush' and Blair's nonsenses about weapons of
mass destruction, Saddam's dirty tricks, serious concerns about
the world peace and the rest of old stories. However, it could
be the other way round, it could be not such a difficult task:
the opposition supposedly on the left- is either silent
or one of us, that is to say, them. The majority of the people
is either ignorant or does not care enough for foreign problems.
To sum up: bad luck for Spain's international place, hundreds
of years of Spanish-Arab friendship to the dustbin, the Spanish
mediation card with countries south of the Mediterranean lost
for good, and to hell with the Spaniards' desires to live in
peace with peoples who did not make them any harm.
What happens then with international
law, human rights and world peace? We have already been informed
a hundred times by the State media that Saddam is number one
amongst evils, that Bush is number one amongst saviors, and that
Aznar is number one amongst clever political leaders for taking
us with Bush against Saddam and towards a better, happier new
world, almost for free. Does it mean Mr. Aznar have not a single
word of concern for the Iraqi children who are being killed every
day because of new kinds of cancer caused by depleted uranium
sprayed daily by the United States and Great Britain bombings
against tragets in Iraq? Are those children as evil as Saddam
and consequently they deserve to be killed by the thousands because
of an embargo that does not allow the import of chemoterapy drugs
and equipment? Does Mr. Aznar ignore by chance that the use of
depleted uranium ammunition is forbidden by the international
law?
Mr. Aznar: sometimes you have mentioned
Security Council resolutions. Then, are you aware that the United
Nations Charter requires that the Security Council must act in
accordance with the Charter and the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights principles? Nobody, not even the Security Council,
let alone your friend, can act against those principles. Neither
the Charter nor the Declaration authorises the killing of a million
and a half human beings, the subjugation of an entire population
by famine and diseases, the preventive wars and the destruction
of a whole country.
Why, Mr. Aznar, whenever you talk about
Iraq you relentlessly mention its president, but you do not say
a word about article two of the 1949 Convention on Genocide,
applicable to Iraq, since its population is being subjected to
a thirteen year long destruction?
You may choose not to answer these questions,
or do it the American way. Let us be clear: whatever you do with
your friend concerning both the embargo and the war against Iraq,
you will not do it in our name. Not in the name of the Spanish
people who have not been properly informed about the genocidal
embargo, and who does not want to take part in a war a crime
against humanity- presented as inevitable and necessary.
(*) This paper mainly deals with the
Spanish government position on the war against Iraq, simply change
the country and the president's name to apply it to your setting.
Agustín Velloso Santisteban teaches at Madrid's UNED in the Education Department.
He can be reached at: avelloso@edu.uned.es
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