DPRK Condemns US War against Iraq and Preparation for Pre-Emptive Attack on Korean Peninsula

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DPRK Condemns US War against Iraq and Preparation for Pre-Emptive Attack on Korean Peninsula

DPRK Calls for End to US Abuse of UN Name

Spokesman for DPRK Foreign Ministry on DPRK-US Talks

“Concerns and Consequences”

A Heritage under Siege

New Study Estimates Two Million More Gallons of Agent Orange Sprayed in Vietnam

When the United States started its military attack on Iraq at dawn on March 20 without any UN resolutions, defying the unanimous protest of the international community, the DPRK severely denounced the US military attack against Iraq, saying that it is “a grave encroachment upon the sovereignty of Iraq”.

            A spokesman of the DPRK Foreign Ministry said on March 21 that the government of the DPRK is opposed to a war, adding that war against the independence of a sovereign state and human rights can never be justified.

            “This high-handed action of the US against Iraq and the war preparations by the US and its allies in the Korean Peninsula compel the DPRK to do all it can to defend itself and make it clear know what it should do more for it,” the spokesman said.

            Rodong Sinmun, organ of the Workers’ Party of Korea, said on March 28 that It is becoming certain that in case the US invasion of Iraq is “successful”, the US will wage a new war on the Korean Peninsula shifting the stage of its “anti-terrorist war” to the Korean Peninsula.

            “There is no doubt that the US will make the Korean Peninsula the third stage of its ‘anti-terrorism war’,” the newspaper added.

            The DPRK has accused the US of preparing for a pre-emptive attack on its nuclear facilities.

            The Korean Central News Agency said that large-scale joint US-South Korea military exercises had brought the Korean Peninsula to the brink of nuclear war. The KCNA said that the war games were “timed to coincide with the US attack on Iraq”. “This means that the US is going to mount a pre-emptive attack on nuclear facilities in the DPRK and take it as an opportunity of escalating the war,” the KCNA said.

            Pyongyang also attacked the US policy, saying that the final goal of the Iraq war is to “overthrow the present Iraqi regime”. The US has adopted as its national policy such “arrogant” and “outrageous” behaviour to kill the leader of a foreign country, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said on March 29 and condemned its policy as “typical state terrorism”. “It is the right of its people to elect their leader,” he said.

            “No one has granted the US the right to change the regimes of other countries,” the spokesman said and added that there is no sovereign state in the world which would allow such “state terrorism” of the US.

A DPRK delegate in a speech on April 17, at a meeting of the special commission on the UN Charter and the increasing of its role, accused the United States of still wearing the mask of the UN on the Korean Peninsula. According to the Korean Central News Agency, he held that it is high time for the special commission to seek a way to put an end to the ceaseless abuse of the UN name by the US and its resultant legal contradiction. The present international situation where the international order is disturbed and the trust in the UN is damaged by the US’s arrogant attitude and high-handed practices and its policy of force calls for asserting the spirit of the UN Charter and increasing its role as regards the relations between states and the preservation of international peace and security, he said, urging the special commission to pay primary attention to putting a brake on the arbitrary practices and high-handed policy of the country styling itself the "only superpower" in the present international relations and restoring the role of the UN.

            The US violation of the UN Charter and legal duties is being perpetrated on the Korean Peninsula, too, he said. More than 40,000 US troops are present in south Korea under the helmets of the "UN force", and the present US administration recoils from implementing its legal commitment to honour the DPRK-US Agreed Framework, rendering the situation on the Korean Peninsula extremely tense.

            The US administration, in particular, is handling the nuclear issue, a product of the US hostile policy toward the DPRK, in contravention of the relevant resolution of the UN General Assembly and the principles of the UN Charter which ban the use of force and call for settling all disputes in a peaceful way, he said, adding that the United States is violating and misusing the articles of the Korean Armistice Agreement as it pleases as evidenced by the amassing of armed forces around the Korean Peninsula and the staging of all forms of military exercises in a bid to mount a pre-emptive military attack on the DPRK under the pretext of the nuclear issue.

A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea on April 18 gave the following answer to a question put by KCNA as regards the DPRK-US talks on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula slated to take place in Beijing:

            The DPRK-US talks for the settlement of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula are slated to open in Beijing shortly. At the talks the Chinese side will play a relevant role as the host state and the essential issues related to the settlement of the nuclear issue will be discussed between the DPRK and the US.

            There is a wide range of international opinion on the Beijing talks as they are to open at a time when the Iraqi war was fought.

            The Iraqi war teaches a lesson that in order to prevent a war and defend the security of a country and the sovereignty of a nation it is necessary to have a powerful physical deterrent force only.

            As we have already declared, we are successfully reprocessing more than 8,000 spent fuel rods at the final phase as we sent interim information to the US and other countries concerned early in march after resuming our nuclear activities from December last year.

            We have already clarified our stand that if the US has a willingness to make a bold switchover in its Korea policy, we will not stick to any particular dialogue format, and we would like to confirm the US intention in the forthcoming talks.

from Conflict in Iraq: Bulletin No.14, April 23, 2003 www.iraqconflict.org

Post-Conflict Reconstruction

Aid

UN aid agencies have stated [http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6814&Cr=iraq&Cr1=relief] that the situation in Iraq is improving but still precarious. The World Food Programme (WFP) announced the opening of a new food corridor into Iraq, its fourth, with the departure of 20 trucks from Damascus, Syria, for Mosul with 1,000 tons of wheat flour, enough for more than 110,000 people for a month.

            According to [http://www.dfid.gov.uk] the UK Department for International Development there are an average of 20 humanitarian missions each day, mostly entering Southern Iraq and 40% of which are by UN agencies.   However, latest reports from ICRC [http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList4/839F8AC4BFA9A2BDC1256D100048B819] staff in Baghdad, Basra and Arbil conclude that gradual improvements in some areas belie enormous needs in others and that security is still a major problem, preventing much-needed hospital staff from getting to work.   There have also been reports [http://www.helenair.com/articles/2003/04/22/breaking/latest0017.txt] that war damage to the water system and lack of power to run purification plants have led to outbreaks of cholera and typhoid. 

US contractor violates human rights

DynCorp, the US company awarded [http://www.csc.com/newsandevents/news/2072.shtml] a multimillion contract to police Iraq, has been exposed as violating human rights and civil liberties whilst performing a similar role in Bosnia. The corporation, which has donated some $100,000 to the US Republican party, was forced to pay [http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,935689,00.html] £110,000 to a UN police officer it unfairly sacked for whistle blowing on colleagues involved in an illegal sex ring.

UN Security Council meets

The UN Security Council (UNSC) held two informal sessions on 22 April to discuss Iraq’s WMD programme and the Oil-for-Food programme.  Hans Blix addressed the UNSC [http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6811&cr=Iraq&Cr1=inspect] for the first time since 19 March, and took the opportunity to emphasise the need for inspections to take place under a UN mandate and be conducted by UN inspectors.  Amid growing concern that inspections had been taken over by the US, Blix argued that the return of UN inspectors would guarantee the credibility and independence of such inspections.  He asserted that UNMOVIC could resume limited operations within two weeks of the return of staff.

            In a surprising turnaround, France – which had demonstrated its reluctance to support US calls for the lifting of the sanctions [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-655811,00.html] against Iraq – decided that it would support their removal.   The French Ambassador to the UN, Jean-Marc de la Sabiere, also recommended the gradual phasing out of the Oil-for-Food programme. France (and Russia) still maintains that the final lifting of sanctions as called for by the US, still requires UN verification and a new Iraqi administration to be in place first to administer their removal and the resultant changes to the Oil-for-food programme. (Times and Guardian, 23/04/03)

More funds available from Oil-for-Food programme

It was announced that the programme had identified a further $60 million worth of supplies [http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=6813&cr=Iraq&Cr1=oil] that could be shipped to Iraq within the 45-day time frame under which it was extended by the UNSC.  Executive Director of the UN Office of Iraq programme, Benon Sevan is now seeking a three-week extension of the Oil-for-Food programme to deliver further supplies.

International Legal Aspects

The hunt for Iraq’s weapons

US and British forces in Iraq continue to be frustrated in their search for conclusive evidence that Iraq has weapons it was banned from possessing after the 1991 Gulf War. US officials hope scientists and other Iraqis will feel free to provide information now that the regime is gone. US officials [http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-Scientists.html?pagewanted=print&position=] are questioning several top Iraqi officials who were involved in former weapons programmes and the Pentagon has offered rewards of up to $200,000 for information on weapons of mass destruction. A US-led Iraq Survey Group, a largely civilian team of around 1,000 scientists, technicians, intelligence analysts and other experts is also waiting to be deployed in Iraq (Wall Street Journal, 17 April).

Britain’s premier scientific institution calls for removal of depleted uranium

On 16 April, the UK’s Royal Society [http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/du/] said that hundreds of tonnes of depleted uranium used in British and US weapons in Iraq should be removed to protect the civilian population, contradicting Pentagon claims that it was not necessary.

US wrangling over Iraqi Truth and Reconciliation Commission

Plans to set up a South African-style Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Iraq could be wrecked by disagreement between the Pentagon and the US State Department over how to try war criminals and members of Saddam Hussein’s regime suspected of human rights atrocities, reported The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,940050,00.html] (20 April).  The Transitional Justice Project in Iraq, sponsored by the State Department, was set up by a group of exiled Iraqi lawyers, and Indict, a British-based human rights group, seven years ago. The project is keen to establish a tribunal in Iraq and staff it with Iraqi lawyers and officials. The Pentagon is known to prefer a military tribunal model, with senior figures from Saddam’s regime being flown out of the country for questioning.

US army fail to protect looted museum

Leaked documents cited by The Observer [http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,940081,00.html] (20 April) suggest that the US Army ignored warnings from its own civilian advisers that could have stopped the looting of priceless artefacts from Iraq’s national museum in Baghdad. The Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), set up to supervise the reconstruction of post-war Iraq, identified in March the museum as a ‘prime target for looters’ and the second top priority for securing by coalition troops after the national bank. More than 270,000 artefacts are reported to have been taken during the looting of the museum. “It’s a tragedy and a disaster for our image and for rebuilding Iraq”, said one ORHA official.

Nevine El-Aref traces the steps taken, and not taken, to preserve Iraq’s heritage
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM, 10 -16 April 2003, Issue No. 633

The United States, Great Britain and Iraq are signatories of The Hague Convention of 1954 for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed conflict. This stipulates that mankind should prevent, make impossible, and sanction any state or group of states from destroying, damaging, and desecrating the monuments of culture in the territory of another state. They should also ensure that national agencies should, as far as possible, exercise continued protection and maintenance of such property.

            Despite this, and the promise of the US military to be "as gentle as possible" concerning the some 4,000 specific sites of historical interest in Iraq, during the first week of the Third Gulf War American and British forces bombarded Iraq and news came of the complete destruction by missiles of the National Museum of Takrit on the outskirt of Baghdad.

            The aggressors justify their attack by claiming the Iraqis are using archaeological sites for their own military advantage. The Boston Globe reported that the Iraqi minister of antiquities was "helping them to do it". And, in a White House letter on the Internet, circulated on 2 January, Peter Grieve wrote: "War is serious business, more serious than Mesopotamian archaeology, I'm afraid. If some sites are given a protected status, guess where the Iraqis will set up bases? The radar installation near the palace of Sennacherib was probably put there on purpose."

            Three appeals were made before the commencement of the war. The first was by international scholars, the second by 18 Iraqi archaeologists, and the third by 15 of the world's leading museums and most prominent universities, including American. The first appeal was for the troops engaged in the war to spare Iraq's priceless antiquities and to remind them they were committed to respecting Iraq's cultural heritage. The second was to draw world attention to the richness of that heritage and to fears that it could be plundered as a result of the war, as occurred during the 1991 Second Gulf War. The third appeal was to urge scholars to take steps to prevent the destruction of relics from one of the cradles of civilisation. These appeals, accompanied by a detailed report on the dangers facing Iraqi heritage written by MacGuire Gibson – president of the American Association for Research in Baghdad – which raised grave fears about the impact of sustained fighting on Iraqi's patrimony, were circulated on the Internet. The signatories called also on the international community to take on a post-war role in assisting in the protection of antiquities from looting, and themselves pledged to help the Iraqi Department of Antiquities to do its job.

            On Friday 28 March a declaration signed by more than 100 distinguished American and European academics entitled "The grave danger to the priceless heritage of Iraq by military action" was published in the Science and Technology News Service. It called on all governments to respect the international protocol regarding the protection of cultural property in armed conflict. The signatories expressed their concern not only about the impact of bombs and artillery on historic buildings and archaeological sites, but also the looting that would inevitably follow any breakdown of law and order in the aftermath of war. A similar plea went out from the Blue Shield Organisation, which represents four international bodies for libraries, museums, archives and monuments.

            The Arab Archaeologists Union, headed by Ali Radwan, former dean of the faculty of archaeology at Cairo University, sent an official letter to the secretary-general of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, appealing to him and to all Arab and foreign countries to stop the Anglo-American aggression which would result in the destruction of the birthplace of ancient civilisation.

            Last Sunday, in an open letter to UNESCO's Head Koichiro Matsuura, the head of ALESCO, the Tunis-based Arab League's body for education, culture and science, Mongi Bousnina, expressed concern at "the scale of the damage done to Iraq's cultural heritage since the start of the aggression". He urged the UNESCO chief to "remind the invading powers of the utmost urgency of their duties and obligations to conform to international conventions" on the protection of cultural assets in the event of war. He also urged the UN Security Council and the Council of Europe to "act in order to end this aggression on one of the richest and most ancient parts of humanity's cultural heritage".

            The Egyptian Permanent Antiquities Committee has also condemned the destruction of the archaeological sites in Iraq.

            Jaber Khalil Ibrahim, president of the National Office of Antiquities in Iraq, declared: "We will continue to do all we can to protect the archaeological sites of our country. Before the war started we took steps to protect our museums and sites by packing the objects and placing them in safe underground storage areas, and by identifying historical buildings by placing big placards on them declaring them to be 'Museums' and 'UNESCO-protected' property."

            In an effort to protect the contents of the National Museum of Baghdad, which boasts the country's largest archaeological collection and is located a few metres from the Ministry of Culture and Information, Iraq's Ministry of Antiquities took several precautions. They enclosed the building with sand bags and buried treasures beneath ground level. However, it has not passed unobserved that the bombardment could cause craters as deep as 30 metres.

            Gibson, who has led archaeological digs in Iraq since 1964 and who heads a consortium of about 30 museums and universities in the United States, went on an inspection tour last January in order to document sites in Iraq. He recorded some 4,000, which include mediaeval mosques, madrassas, churches, and other historical buildings dating from various eras. Many of these are in central Baghdad, including the ninth-century Great Shrine of Al-Mutawakkil on the outskirts of the city. Others are in the area lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Before this tour, the Pentagon had listed a mere 150 sites of archaeological importance.

            Since the commencement of the war, and according to the Iraqi representative of UNESCO, the Takrit National Museum with its collection of Islamic objects which date back to the time of Salaheddin is not the only building destroyed. Two governmental palaces of historical value, which date from the Abbassid era, as well as the Zohour (flower) Palace and its Royal Museum, which tells the history of the monarchy in Iraq with a collection of official royal wearing apparel, queens' robes, and personal possessions and utilitarian objects, have also collapsed under the weight of the bombardment and been transformed into mounds of rubble.

            The 13th-century University of Al-Mustansriya, a 16th-century revered Shi'ite mosque called Al- Kadhimain, and the Arch of Cetesiphon in Baghdad have also been hit.

            On day 14 of the war, Information Minister Mohamed Said Al-Sahhaf, addressing the Shi'a community on Iraq's satellite TV channel, announced that the aggressors (referring to Anglo-American forces) in Najaf had bombarded an area close to the mausoleums of both Imam Ali Ibn Abi Taleb, the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Mohamed, and Imam Al-Hussein, his grandson, as well as the shrine of his brother Al-Abbassi. The bombs had shaken the ground beneath them and weakened their foundations, and threatened the holy buildings with collapse.

            It has been rumoured that the National Museum of Baghdad, which houses treasures dating from 700 BC to 1000 AD, has been heavily targeted by US bombs. However, as the telephone connection to Baghdad is down nothing mire has been heard and the current state of the museum is not clear.

            Saleh Lamei, member of ICOMOS (International Council of Monuments and Sites) said: "The risk is not only to existing monuments and museums, but to thousands of archaeological sites, many not yet excavated, which lie buried and could be devastated because the armies are fighting on Iraqi territory using bulldozers and heavy artillery. The identity of the nation depends on its cultural heritage. By destroying such evidence, thousands of years of civilisation have been lost." Lamei drew attention to another danger: following the destruction, sites would be open to the activities of looters and antiquities smugglers. "It would become a free market for illegal activities. This was what happened in Baghdad in 1991, when priceless items made their way out of the country and were put up for sale at Ebay's Auction House in the USA."

            The historian Dan Cruickshank, who specialises in architecture, claimed on a BBC double-documentary produced when the Iraqi Ministry of Information invited a British film crew to visit the country's "lost cities" that the remains of Babylon would be "in the firing line". He argued in the programme that "defence" was determined to avoid "another Dresden", the mediaeval German city destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945.

            A spokesman declined to comment on potential targets, but a well-placed source said: "During the Gulf War, we went to great lengths to avoid hitting important sites, and 'smart' bombs have reduced collateral damage." Nevertheless, the fact remains that the ancient city of Ur did sustain damage during the 1991 war, which, he declared, was a casualty of Saddam's decision to site an air base there.

            In his column in the daily Al-Ahram newspaper, Zahi Hawass, the first under-secretary of state in the Ministry of Culture and the secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), commented: "When the Taleban set about destroying the great rock-hewn statues of Buddha in Afghanistan, the world was up in arms. America led the campaign of criticism against them through UNESCO and the international media. The Taleban were accused of being morons who wilfully destroyed monuments. But now," Hawass went on, "it is the Americans who are destroying a heritage with the use of high-tech military equipment, and where are UNESCO, ICOMOS, or the international museums? Where are the experts and the defenders of culture while the Iraqi heritage is being desecrated?"

            Hawass told Al-Ahram Weekly he was worried that, as the war continued, "many of Iraq's archaeological sites will fall into oblivion, and how will American professors of archaeology explain to their students that the Americans destroyed a rich ancient civilisation in the Third Gulf War?"

            An appeal for the preservation of Iraq's heritage was made on behalf of scholars before the outbreak of war by Mounir Bushnaqi, head of the World Heritage Organisation (WHO) who said that UNESCO and WHO had provided the American army with comprehensive information regarding the actual location of Iraq's archaeological sites and museum, as well as the sites on the World Heritage List, so that they would have all the necessary information on what to avoid. Bushnaqi added that UNESCO had urged the US to take all possible steps "to protect and preserve the outstandingly rich Iraqi heritage for the benefit of future generations".

            "We have received many assurances by the US delegation that they have taken into account all the information we have provided on the museums and sites," he continued.

            "But," Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, an SCA representative in UNESCO said angrily, "while there was a call for an urgent meeting among UNESCO representatives to stop the Taleban desecration and to restore the damaged statue, such a call has not been made for Iraq. Are not its monuments as important? Why do they not call for an international appeal to save them, or call for an urgent meeting to discuss the situation?"

            Abdel-Maqsoud told the Weekly that two weeks ago, when the war started, he was in Paris attending a periodical UNESCO meeting. "Nobody bothered to mention the destruction of Iraq's heritage, or even issue any statement of condemnation," he pointed out. "If UNESCO, WHO and the international community keep silent and no action is taken the missiles could threaten other archaeological sites, in Syria, Jordan, Iran and Turkey.

            "During the third and fourth days of the war, two missiles missed their mark and one hit a public bus in Syria where 100 civilians died, and the second hit the Iraqi-Iranian border, fortunately without causing any casualties. What else could be hit with stray rockets? I blame UNESCO and WHO for their unclear policy. Both organisations apparently see, hear and speak no evil. UNESCO's head must call for a halt to the armed conflict."

            On the brighter side, Lamei said that all the signatories of the appeals were willing to help in the restoration of Iraq's destroyed monuments after the end of the war, whether by providing specialists or helping to raise funds for restoration.

            "As soon as the situation permits, we will evaluate and prepare an action plan," Bushnaqi said. "Our feelings are that this heritage belongs not only to Iraqis. It is the heritage of all humanity."

By Adam Marcus HealthScoutNews Reporter, Wednesday, April 16

The American and South Vietnamese militaries sprayed much more Agent Orange over Vietnam than earlier estimates suggested, says a new study.

            That expands by about 1.82 million gallons the amount of Agent Orange and other defoliants used to thin the jungle. Much of this increase is attributed to spraying that occurred before 1965. Until then, the defoliants used had a much higher concentration of a known cancer-causing chemical called dioxin, so the new study doubles the estimate of how much dioxin was sprayed in Vietnam.

            The researchers, who compared army mission logs and village resettlement activities, also estimate that more than 4 million Vietnamese men, women and children probably were exposed to dioxin in the spraying.

            A precise accounting of how much plant-killing chemicals were used during the war, and where, could help public health researchers better understand the impact of dioxin, says Jeanne Mager Stellman, a Columbia University chemist and leader of the study.

            "Precisely because it's 30 years later it is very, very important to tell the exposed from the unexposed," Stellman says.

            Although the spraying is long past, dioxin persists in the environment and is still entering the food supply in Vietnam, says Dr. Arnold Schecter, an environmental health expert at the University of Texas-Houston School of Public Health.

            "The people getting contaminated, whether Vietnamese or American veterans, are more likely to be those who are eating contaminated foods, which we're finding right now," Schecter says. "The spray records are very valuable as a starting point, but the bottom line is: Where does [dioxin] get into people and how high were the levels?"

            A report on the findings appears in the April 17 issue of Nature. The scientists reached the new estimate using data from specific spraying missions, information that wasn't previously analysed. The military deployed defoliants from airplanes, helicopters, boats and backpacks.

            Earlier estimates reckoned that between 1962 and 1971, US-led forces sprayed 18 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam. The Army also sprayed smaller quantities of other "Agents", including Pink, Blue and Purple, to clear the lush region, which included Laos and Cambodia.

            However, Agent Pink was 100 percent dioxin, so even a small amount could have had serious health consequences, Stellman says.

            In December 2001, President Bush signed a bill that presumed for the purposes of health benefits that every US veteran who served in Vietnam was exposed to Agent Orange. The law raised the 30-year ceiling on veterans' claims for respiratory cancers alleged linked to exposure to the herbicide, and it added Type 2 diabetes to the list of diseases associated with the chemicals. Roughly 2.7 million US soldiers served in Vietnam and Southeast Asia during the war years.

            John Sommer, executive director of the American Legion's Washington, D.C. office, calls the new work "extremely important" for Vietnam veterans. "There has never been a real study of the health effects of exposure to Agent Orange" during the war, largely because scientists haven't had a firm grip on how much of the herbicide was used. Now, he adds, such a study is possible.

           

SOURCES: Jeanne Mager Stellman, Ph.D., professor, clinical public health, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York City; Arnold Schecter, M.D., professor, environmental sciences, University of Texas-Houston School of Public Health, Dallas; John Sommer, executive director, American Legion, Washington, D.C.; April 17, 2003, Nature.