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Workers' Daily Internet Edition : Article Index :
National Demonstration against the War
Worldwide Protests Condemn US-Led
Aggression
We Will Not Forget or Forgive
Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission Condemns Attack
on Iraq
Joint Statement of the "15" on Iraq
500,000 Displaced in Northern
Iraq
Casualties of War – First Truth, Then
Conscience
Two articles by John Pilger, March 13,
2003:
This Is The Cost Of Blair's "Moral" War
Disobey!
After Iraq, Korea?
Enlarged Meeting of Presidency of CILRECO Held in
Paris
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Mobilising close to a half to three-quarters of a million with three days notice shows the strength of the opposition to the Anglo-American bombardment and invasion of Iraq. The anti-war movement has picked up the gauntlet thrown down by Tony Blair. The vote received by the government in the House of Commons gives no mandate for going to war. The Commons vote was not conducted according to the consciences of the MPs, neither has the electorate given the government a mandate for illegal aggression. The chauvinism of Tony Blair which declares such a charade to be the height of democracy will only backfire on him and on the whole system of representative democracy in which the authority of the people is not embodied. That British troops should be withdrawn from Iraq, and Blair be charged with crimes against humanity and against peace was the sentiment of Saturday’s anti-war march.
Retracing the route of February 15, hundreds of thousands of marchers again converged on Piccadilly Circus from Victoria Embankment and Holborn engulfing the route to Hyde Park. The diversity of the movement – united in action – is now accepted, refuting the notion of a country divided. It is the warmongers, with the monopoly-controlled media with their news blackout of what does not suit their case, who are isolated. Workers, youth, schoolchildren, pensioners, families, organisations representing national monitories, religious groups, political groups of all types, Stop the War Groups from cities and towns, CND and peace groups, Muslims, Buddhist monks, priests and vicars, political and cultural personalities, French, Kurdish, Argentinean, Welsh, Mexican, Irish tricolours, United Nations and Rainbow Peace flags of the millions opposed to the illegal aggression. Opposition was again captured in street theatre; caricatures of Bush and Blair in slogans, placards, banners and slogans depicted the widespread rejection of the war. Again drumming, horn-blowing, whistles, chants, music and street theatre entertained marchers, and thousands of mass-produced and hand-made placards, banners and signs reflected determined opposition to Bush and Blair’s war.
At Hyde Park different collectives and groups assembled to hear Bruce Kent, Jeremy Corbyn, Tariq Ali, Mark Serwotka, representatives of the Muslim Association of Britain, the Palestinian and Kurdish community and others. As the rally concluded mini-meetings reflecting on the day, discussing the aggression and planning future actions made Hyde Park almost an open air People’s Assembly. With actions at Fairford Air Base, Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, Manchester, Bristol, Sheffield, Stoke-on-Trent, Newcastle, Middlesborough, Aberystwyth in Wales, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Inverness in Scotland and Belfast in the north of Ireland, maintaining unity, keeping sight of the goal of an anti-war government and for the right to be the decision-makers is the aim of a movement that will not be easily defeated.
BELOW ARE SOME OF THE BANNERS/PLACARDS ON THE MARCH
Even before the US declaration of war against Iraq on the evening of March 19, the world anti-war movement went into action, holding demonstrations and rallies at US embassies and consulates and other symbolic locations. No sooner the bombing began, people started converging at anti-war actions. A wave of demonstrations started in Asia and Australia and rolled swiftly across Europe and the Middle East toward the United States.
On March 21, hundreds of thousand of people around the world took to the streets in the second day of protests against the US-led invasion of Iraq. Actions continued in Australia, Japan, Malaysia and in European capitals. Demonstrations were also held in Pakistan, India, Thailand, China and other countries across Asia. They echoed an outpouring of anti-war sentiment in the United States, where more than 1,500 people were arrested on March 20 in San Francisco, Chicago and Washington, DC. On March 21, in spite of arrests and police attacks, militant protests continued across the country.
Protests against the US war on Iraq spread in Latin America on Friday. Burning US flags and brandishing images of President Bush with an Adolf Hitler-style moustache, Dracula-teeth or the body of a snake, thousands marched on US embassies to protest against the aggression of US imperialism.
In Britain, as well as the actions already reported in WDIE, on Thursday classes and lectures were closed and staff walked out of offices and workshops to attend simultaneous open-air mass meetings at the Willesden, Wembley and Kilburn sites of the College of North West London the day the Anglo-American aggression against Iraq began. Lecturers' union NATFHE and support staff union, UNISON, who called the action, addressed more than 3000 people with up to 1000 attending the Willesden meeting. National Union of Students representatives also spoke to meetings opened by NATFHE branch chair Fawzi Ibrahim declaring opposition to an unnecessary war pledging: We will not forget, neither will we forgive [see statement reprinted below]. Most in attendance joined protest actions at Westminster.
Ireland
In the north of Ireland, the Stop the War Coalition (NI) labelled Friday 'Day X' and organised several peace vigils. The group said the vigils were part of international action taking place across Ireland and throughout Europe.
Several hundred people took part in the protest at Belfast City Hall were they were addressed by representatives of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).
Assistant General Secretary Peter Bunting said the allied forces were "now engaged in an unnecessary and devastating war that is endangering millions of people. It is utterly wrong and we must oppose it - we can do no other. We oppose this war while supporting the troops and hold our political leaders - in particular Tony Blair - accountable for recklessly putting so many lives at risk." He said people could "simply and powerfully show their opposition by taking part in these silent protests in Belfast and town centres across Northern Ireland".
The ICTU said the protests were being co-ordinated by local trades councils, with the support of other organisations.
There were two separate demonstrations in Belfast with more than 1,000 students and schoolchildren mounting a sit-down protest, blocking the road outside Queen's University. About 200 young people staged a lunchtime anti-war protest outside the City Hall in Belfast, bringing traffic to a halt. Many lay down on the roadway. At a rally in Guildhall Square in Londonderry, the protestors, who included students, shop and office workers and local councillors, heard calls for the attacks to stop. In County Tyrone, about 200 pupils from schools in the Omagh area held a protest in the town centre.
Anti-war protesters gathered in the centre of Dublin at lunchtime on Friday. A rally was held in O'Connell Street and was also organised by the Congress of Trade Unions. Large crowds of protesters converged on the British and American embassies in Dublin on Thursday night.
India
Rallies and processions continued to be held across the country with people denouncing the US-led attack against Iraq and vowing to boycott US products and expressing solidarity with the Iraqi people. In Jaipur, nearly 3,000 persons waving anti-US placards and banners participated in an anti-war protest organised by the Rajasthan Muslim Forum, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and over 10 other organisations. In Kolkata, lambasting the "unprovoked attack" on Iraq by the joint forces of the USA and Britain Left Front Chairman Biman Basu announced that an anti-war convention would be held in the city on March 25 to protest against the killing of innocent civilians. The Bharatiya Rationalist Association in Kochi applauded the stand of the Vatican and Pope John Paul II against the US military operation. In Tirupati, more than 150 anti-war protestors from all political parties, barring the ruling TDP, took out a procession carrying placards condemning the US-led war on Iraq. Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party chief Prof Bhim Singh urged the youth to boycott US soft drinks to register their protest on record against the aggression on Iraq. In Bihar too, anti-war demonstrations denouncing the US-strike continued in Patna. In Ongole in Andhra Pradesh, too, the outlawed CPI (ML-People’s War) called for a two-day protest beginning today against the US war against Iraq.
Activists of local units of the All-India People’s Resistance Forum, the Kirti Mazdoor Union, the Punjab Radical Students Union and the Dhodhi Union today burnt the effigy of US President George Bush in protest against military action against Iraq. The activists also held a protest march throughout the town. They also held a rally in the complex of the main bus stand here and adopted a resolution urging the US to immediately stop military action against Iraq. All speakers condemned the US action. The rally also demanded that international community should punish George W Bush for attacking Iraq.
Indonesia
Thousands of people in Indonesia staged a peace rally in front of the US Embassy in Jakarta on Thursday morning. Various organisations were present, including the Catholic Youth Movement, the youth wing of the group Muhammadiyah and students and supporters of the Indonesian Justice Party (PK). Protesters outside the US embassy shouted "America: Terrorist, Terrorist" and "Who is the Great Satan? Bush". There were also protests in the cities of Bandung, Yogyakarta and Makassar. Dozens of youth rallied in front of a McDonald's outlet in central Jakarta on Wednesday and stopped customers entering the restaurant in protest of US plans to attack Iraq. A similar action was held in Palu when hundreds of students barricaded a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet.
Japan
In Tokyo, people immediately gathered at the US Embassy following the US attack where demonstrators staged a fast. At the US Consulate in Osaka, some 100 people gathered and raised their fists chanting, "Bush, stop war!" and "We won't tolerate Japan taking part in war!" The following day, some 11,000 people marched for peace.
Korea
In the days before the US military strike against Iraq, big rallies and demonstrations were held in main cities in south Korea, including Seoul, Pusan and Taejon. An anti-war candlelight rally was held in Jongmyo Park, Seoul with at least 5,000 participating under the co-sponsorship of the Joint Action for Peace against War and the All-People Measure Committee for Sin Hyo Sun and Sim Mi Son, schoolgirls killed by US GIs. Shouting "No Unjust War" and "No Government Support to War," they were joined by members of foreign anti-war organisations. Speakers also condemned the United States for threatening a nuclear war against Korea, calling on the people to ensure peace on the peninsula, avert a nuclear war and work hard to reunify the country through national co-operation.
Pakistan
In Pakistan, hundreds of people took to the streets of Karachi, Multan, Lahore, Peshawar and Rawalpindi. The organisation Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA - United Action Forum) has called for general strike on Friday against the US attack on Iraq, the Iranian Republic News Agency (IRNA) reports. The decision was taken at a meeting of the MMA central leaders in Islamabad on Thursday. The MMA will also hold anti-war rallies in major cities, Maulana Shah Ahmed Noorani, the MMA chief told reporters after the meeting. "The attack is barbaric and inhuman," Noorani said. He appealed to the Pakistani people to shut their businesses in support of the Iraqi people. "The meeting observed that Washington and its allies have imposed war on Iraqis without the backing of the Security Council," Noorani said. The meeting also called for an immediate summit of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC). It was also announced that a mass rally will be held in Lahore on March 23. "We have appealed to the people to observe a strike and attend the protest rallies on Friday," Liaquat Baluch, a senior MMA leader told Reuters. "The US attack on Iraq is illegal and unjustified."
Philippines
Hundreds of activists surrounded the US Embassy in Manila, clanging pots and shouting anti-war slogans through bullhorns. Participants demanded that US troops immediately withdraw from Iraq and that the Arroyo administration withdraw its support for the United States. On Tuesday some 20 anti-war protesters marched to the embassy to add their voice to ongoing world protests against the US-led military action. Police used water cannons against the incoming marchers, injuring some of them, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported. As leaders of the workers group Kilusang Mayo Uno indicated to authorities that the protesting contingent would step back, policemen on fire engines parked near the embassy started hosing the participants. The incident happened a few hours before a larger contingent of nuns, priests, professionals, students, women and farmers was scheduled to arrive for a prayer rally in front of the embassy. Rally organizers said the action was against the "war pandemic" of US President George W Bush, urging people to prepare for bigger demonstrations against the US strikes on Iraq.
Vietnam
Just after the US-led war on Iraq broke out, the Vietnamese people expressed their strong opposition to the war in meetings and rallies. In the past few days, millions of people across Vietnam have been participating in a series of rallies against the war. The demonstrations have involved people from all walks of life including different religions and patriotic personalities, intellectuals, students and workers. They appealed to the peoples of the world to make unified efforts to avert the war, it said.
Australia
Barely three hours after the first US missile attack against Baghdad, 40,000 people brought Australia's second largest city Melbourne to a standstill. Students across the country also walked out of schools and universities, condemning the decision of the Howard government to join the US war. "We will not sit in class and pretend everything is normal while our government helps carry out this massacre in our name," Sydney University student Simon Butler said. Activists also converged on the US Embassy in Canberra. On Tuesday, two anti-war protesters climbed up Sydney's landmark Opera House to paint a large red "No War" slogan. In Darwin, an emergency anti-war protest was held Tuesday night. According to a recent poll, 71 per cent of Australians are against the US-led war.
In Melbourne, about 5,000 people marched to the sound of mock air raid sirens. The demonstration came as government officials confirmed for the first time that units of the Australia’s military were engaged in operations in Iraq.
Austria
Huge protests took place.
France
More than 10,000 people, mostly students, surged through Paris shouting anti-war slogans.
Around 1,000 staged an impromptu anti-war sit-down on Place de la Concorde.
Germany
50,000 school students, many with faces painted with "No War" or peace signs, marched from Berlin's central Alexanderplatz past the US Embassy and through the Brandenburg Gate. More than 30,000 schoolchildren protested in the cities of Stuttgart, Cologne, Munich and Hanover.
Police broke up a sit-down protest outside the US military's European Command in Stuttgart on Friday. In Berlin, schoolchildren placed candles on a street leading to the US Embassy which was barricaded by heavy concrete barriers and fences. Anti-war activists set up a 10-foot steel peace symbol and an 800-pound bell near the embassy. They said they would ring the bell every half-hour until the war is over. More than 10,000 rallied.
Greece
In Athens, more than 100,000 people, many of them secondary school and university students, marched to the US Embassy as mass demonstrations were held throughout the country. Teachers unions around Greece gave students the day off to take part in the demonstrations. More than 11,000 people took part in a march to the US Consulate in the northern port city of Thessaloniki, while about 10,000 rallied outside the British Consulate in the western port of Patras.
Close to 200,000 protested in Athens the following day in a turnout exceeding the expectations of the Greek trade unions which organised the demonstration.
Holland
In The Hague, Dutch police arrested five people who entered a secured area surrounding the US embassy and poured fake blood on white clothes they wore. They were later released.
Italy
In Rome, an anti-war demonstration was held at the US Embassy on Thursday, while elsewhere in Italy tens of thousands of students, workers and people from all walks of life rallied against the US-led attack on Iraq. A two-hour, nationwide general strike was called for by the three biggest unions to begin in the late afternoon. More than 45,000 people demonstrated at the US Consulate in Milan. Railway tracks were reported blocked for a while in Florence, Padua, Milan, Bologna and Genoa. In the northern industrial city of Turin, more than 20,000 demonstrators marched through main streets to the train station, where activists blocked tracks.
In Rome, a peace rally organised by farmers on Friday drew 300,000 participants, waving rainbow-coloured flags and paralysing traffic. Anti-war protests also filled the streets of Milan, Venice, Florence and Naples. "I would like to cut out Bush's tongue -- it's a war for the rich and those who pay in the end are the poor people," one woman told Reuters Television.
Spain
Mass actions were held in cities across the country.
Bahrain
Hundreds of protesters in Bahrain, the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet, also took to the streets to show their fury. "We reject the war against Iraq. Arab rulers should unify their ranks against it, and should not allow US bases in Gulf Arab states," said worker Adel Isa.
Egypt
A demonstration was held in Cairo's Tahrir Square where police beat back people trying to reach the nearby US Embassy.
At least 5,000 angry protesters clashed with police using water cannon outside the historic al-Azhar mosque.
Jordan
Thousands of protesters fought baton-wielding riot police after the authorities sealed off parts of the capital, Amman, to foil protests against the invasion. Scores of young people were injured and several arrested as police used tear gas to disperse worshippers in the city's Wihdat area, a predominately Palestinian refugee neighbourhood. King Abdullah later urged Jordan’s citizens to moderate expressions of sympathy for Iraqis.
Kuwait
Worshippers said Iraqis had suffered enough.
Lebanon
The aggression against Iraq sparked a string of impromptu demonstrations throughout the Lebanese capital. At least five different demonstrations marked the day, most heading to UN House and to the British Embassy, where demonstrators clashed with Internal security Forces. Demonstrators leaving the ranks of students of the American University of Beirut (AUB) and pushing their way through the Internal Security Forces barricade at the British Embassy in Zoqaq al-Blat were met with water hoses. At least 700 AUB students left the campus in Hamra and marched to the UN House first and then to the British Embassy where they were joined by about 50 students from the Lebanese American University. At the Beirut Arab University in Tariq al-Jadideh, about five hundred students left the campus on foot after they had struggled with the ISF who were attempting to confine them. They marched toward the Kuwaiti and the British embassies. In the afternoon, a large protest organised by Palestinian parties marched from Barbir to the UN House and later to the British Embassy. Earlier in the day, in front of UN House, Palestinian Committees organised a demonstration which had originally been scheduled in memory of Rachel Corrie, the American peace activist crushed to death in the Gaza Strip Sunday.
Police used tear gas and water cannon to hold back hundreds of stone-throwing youths who tried to march toward the US mission.
Palestine
In the Gaza Strip, about 1,000 Palestinian women children marched in the Rafah refugee camp, opposing US and Israeli aggression. Actions were also held in the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Syria
Demonstrations were held.
Yemen
Some 100,000 people demonstrated in the Yemen's capital Sanaa. At least three demonstrators and a policeman were killed and another 18 people injured during the rally. Riot police fired at demonstrators when they started throwing stones on two avenues west of the US Embassy, news reports said.
In Sanaa, an 11-year-old boy and another protester were shot dead in a clash between police and anti-war demonstrators, an Interior Ministry official said. Security sources had earlier said one of those slain was a policeman. Nine marchers and 14 policemen were hurt in the clash that flared after police blocked about 3,000 protesters from marching on the US embassy in the Arab state, the official said.
Mauritania
Police fired tear gas to disperse thousands of anti-war protesters, who poured on to the streets of the capital, Nouakchott, chanting "Bush is a butcher" after Friday Muslim prayers at the city's mosques.
Argentina
Several dozen peace activists were arrested, and demonstrators are reported to have severely damaged McDonald's fast food restaurants and other US firms like Citibank and Bank Boston.
Brazil
About 500 students marched on the US embassy in Brasilia, some hurling stones. In Sao Paulo, 2,000 people rallied at the US consulate. The government called the conflict illegitimate, and lawmakers urged a boycott of US products.
Canada
In Vancouver, some 2,000 people immediately gathered at the Art Gallery and marched to the US consulate, waving placards and Palestinian flags and chanting "No more war." A number of people addressed the rally, including Jef Keighley, Canadian Auto Workers union organiser and co-chair of StopWar.ca. He condemned the war as immoral, illegal and unjust. Charles Boylan, spokesperson for the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), applauded the militant anti-war stand of the Canadian people who have marched in the hundreds of thousands against Bush's war. City Councillor Ellen Wordsworth informed that the City of Vancouver has established a Peace and Justice Committee which will be organising actions against the war. Toward the end of the speeches a large contingent of students joined the demonstration behind a massive banner which read: "Vancouver Students Against the War in Iraq!"
by Fawzi Ibrahim Statement.
This is an unusual meeting; it takes place in unusual times.
Today the world is more a dangerous place than it was yesterday.
Today there are more orphans, more widows, more widowers, more mothers without their daughter, more fathers without their sons
And tomorrow, depleted uranium will take its toll of the living and those who are yet to be born.
We have a war that no one wanted, an unnecessary war.
The whole world has been united, like never before, against this war of aggression on Iraq.
Different countries, different nationalities, different races and religions, all united to say "not in our name".
The aim of the war is purported to be the removal of a murderous tyrant. Yet the cure may prove to be more dangerous, with profound repercussions that are more long lasting and terrifying, more overwhelming than the original decease. This war has not got the support of the British people or that of the United Nations.
Today, the thoughts of everyone are with those whose lives, limbs and livelihood are at risk and with their families and friends. That does not mean we are content.
We are told that by going to war without a second UN resolution, our Prime Minister has taken the gamble of his life.
It may be the gamble of his life, but it not his life that he is gambling with.
He is gambling with the lives of thousands if Iraqis, and thousands of British troops.
We will not forget, neither will we forgive.
The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has condemned the attack on Iraq as an abuse of human rights.
The Human Rights Commission on Friday advised Secretary of State Paul Murphy that in the Commission's view the launching of a military attack by the United Kingdom against Iraq, without the support of the UN's Security Council, is a violation of international law and a very serious breach of the human rights of people in Iraq who as a result will be killed or injured. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, established in 1999, has an obligation under the Northern Ireland Act 1998 to advise the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, when the Commission thinks it appropriate to do so, of legislative and other measures which ought to be taken to protect human rights
The Commission stressed that it is a matter of record that the regime of President Saddam Hussein has been responsible for gross violations of human rights. But the best way for the international community to deal with this was through the recognised procedures put in place after the Second World War. It was far from clear that securing human rights was the sole, or even the primary, goal of the proposed military attack, but in any event international law did not recognise that objective as in itself a justification for war. The UN Charter specifies exactly when it is legitimate for one country to use force against another and the UK Government has not demonstrated that any of the specified grounds currently exist. The UN's inspectors ought to have been allowed to continue their inspections so that the Security Council could have come to an agreed conclusion in due course as to whether the use of force was required to implement the will of the United Nations.
Professor Brice Dickson, the Commission's Chief Commissioner, said: "The Commission has not to date issued statements about the human rights policy of the Government as it affects people in other countries, but in view of the gravity of the situation Commissioners believe they would be failing in their responsibilities if they did not issue this advice now. We are the only statutory body set up specifically to provide human rights advice to the UK Government and we have a legal and moral duty to speak out. The most fundamental human rights are at stake.
"One does not deal with human rights abuse by in turn committing further such abuse. In all situations, whether national or international, it is absolutely vital that the rule of law prevail over the rule of armed force. If governments are going to dispense with the rules when those rules do not suit their political agenda, we might as well return to anarchy."
Statement of the 15 members of the EU at the Spring European Council 2003: 20/3/2003
With the beginning of the military conflict, we are faced with a new situation. Our hope is that the conflict will end with the minimum loss of human life and suffering. Our common challenges are:
As regards Iraq:
- The EU is committed to the territorial integrity, the sovereignty, the
political stability and the full and effective disarmament of Iraq in all its
territory, as well as to the respect for the rights of the Iraqi people,
including all persons belonging to minorities.
- We believe that the UN must continue to play a central role during and after
the current crisis. The UN system has a unique capacity and practical
experience in coordinating assistance in post-conflict States. The Security
Council should give the United Nations a strong mandate for this mission.
- We urgently need to address the major humanitarian needs that will arise from
the conflict. The EU is committed to be actively involved in this field, in
accordance with established principles. We support the UN Secretary
General’s proposal that the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people can
continue to be met through the "Oil for Food" programme.
- We want to effectively contribute to the conditions allowing all Iraqis to
live in freedom, dignity and prosperity under a representative government that
will be at peace with its neighbours and an active member of the international
community. The Council invites the Commission and the High Representative to
explore the means by which the EU might help the Iraqi people to achieve these
objectives.
On the regional front:
- We express solidarity with and stand ready to assist those countries that are
faced with problems and risks as a result of the conflict, including possible
refugee flows. The EU will actively engage in supporting regional
stability.
- We call on all countries of the region to refrain from actions that could
lead to further instability.
- The countries of the region have also a particular responsibility to prevent
acts terrorism.
- We will continue to work actively towards the reinvigoration of the Middle
East Peace Process through the immediate publication and implementation of the
roadmap as endorsed by the Quartet.
- We will deepen our dialogue and cooperation in all fields with the Arab and
the Islamic worlds. We hope that it will soon be possible to use the
considerable opportunities offered by the Barcelona Process to good account.
In the international field:
- We reiterate our commitment to the fundamental role of the United Nations in
the international system and to the primary responsibility of the Security
Council for the maintenance of international peace and stability.
- We are determined to strengthen the capacity of the European Union in the
context of the CFSP and the ESDP.
- We remain convinced that we need to strengthen the transatlantic partnership,
which remains a fundamental strategic priority for the European Union; to this
effect, a sustained dialogue on the new regional and global challenges is
necessary.
- We will continue to contribute to the further strengthening of the
international coalition against terrorism.
- We will also intensify work for a comprehensive, coherent and effective
multilateral policy of the international community to prevent the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction.
The above objectives are interrelated and complementary. They should be pursued in parallel, through coordinated action of all main international players. In this spirit, the restoration of the unity of the international community is an absolute imperative.
Up to half a million Iraqis fled cities in the northern Kurdish areas ahead of the US-led invasion, moving their families to outlying villages, aid agencies said on Saturday.
The city of Dohuk near Turkey is "almost depopulated", and people have also poured out of the key oil hub of Kirkuk, the UN Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq said in a statement.
The UN estimated there were 350,000 to 450,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the north, and movements continued.
About 90 percent are staying with relatives and do not require urgent assistance, it said. "Local authorities and UN national staff are attempting to meet the immediate needs and there are serious concerns for the health situation of those who are not appropriately sheltered."
The International Committee of the Red Cross estimates roughly 500,000 people have left homes in the three northern protectorates over the past 10 days, a spokesman said. "They took cars with their families and belongings, leaving for villages where they have relatives or friends. A lot of them decided early on to leave," he said.
"The largest population movements are in the Dohuk area where an estimated 85 percent of the city (population 120,000) has moved to villages east of the city," the UN said. "Reportedly, asylum seekers do not want to cross the Turkish border," it added.
by Norman Solomon, Jordan Times, 3/22/03
The national media echo chamber is not receptive to conscience. On television, the voices are usually loud and facile. People often seem to be shouting. In contrast, the human conscience is close to a whisper. Easily unheard.
Now, the biggest media outlets are in a frenzy. The networks are at war. Every cable news channel has enlisted. At the bottom of FM radio dials, NPR has been morphing into National Pentagon Radio.
With American tax dollars financing the war on Iraq, the urgent need for us to get in touch with our consciences has never been more acute. The rationales for this war have been thoroughly shredded. (To see how the sordid deceptions and outright lies from the Bush team have been demolished by my colleagues at the Institute for Public Accuracy, take a look at the www.accuracy.org website.) The propaganda edifice of the war rests on a foundation no more substantial than voluminous hot air.
"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices," Voltaire wrote in 1767. The quotation is sometimes rendered with different wording: "As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities."
Either way, a quarter of a millennium later, Voltaire's statement is all too relevant to this moment. The Bush administration is proud to turn urban areas of Iraq into hell – defying most of the UN Security Council resolutions and violating the UN Charter – all with the righteous claim that the United States is enforcing UN Security Council resolutions.
As the apt cliché says, truth is the first casualty of war. But another early casualty is conscience.
Rarely explored in news media, the capacity for conscience is what makes us human. Out of all the differences between people and other animals, Darwin wrote, "the moral sense of conscience is by far the most important".
Voltaire contended that "the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience" and added: "With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear of death."
Franz Kafka was alluding to a similar truth when he wrote: "You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so and it is in accordance with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering that you could have avoided."
Conscience is smaller than a single pixel, and much less visible. You can't see it on a TV screen. Or hear it. Or smell it. Or taste it. You can only feel it. That's not a marketable sensation. The huge news outlets have swung behind slaughter in Iraq, and the dissent propelled by conscience is not deemed to be very newsworthy. The mass media are filled with bright lights and sizzle, with high production values and degraded human values, boosting the war effort while the US government implements a massive crime against humanity.
In May 1952, the playwright Lillian Hellman wrote in a letter to the House Un-American Activities Committee: "I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions."
In 2003, this year's media fashions are increasingly adorning the conformist models of pseudo-patriotism. For many Americans, the gap between what they believe and what's on their TV sets is the distance between their truer selves and their fearful passivity.
In the domestic media siege being maintained by top-notch spinners and shrewd political advisers at the White House, conscience is in the crosshairs. They aim to intimidate, stampede and suppress the many millions of Americans who recognise the deranged and murderous character of the war makers in Washington.
Half a century ago, Albert Einstein urged: "Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it." Today, one way or another, the mass media are going along with the Bush administration's demands that we not challenge the US military actions now taking uncounted lives in Iraq.
Conscience is not on the military's radar screen, and it's not on our TV screen. But media messages do not define the limits and possibilities of conscience. We do.
* The writer is co-author of the new book "Target Iraq: what the news media didn't tell you". He contributed this article to The Jordan Times.
Two articles by John Pilger, March 13, 2003:
THE Blair Government has known, almost from the day it came to office in 1997, that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were almost certainly destroyed following the Gulf War.
Of all the pro-war propaganda of Blair and Bush, and their current threats giving Saddam Hussein yet another deadline to disarm, what may be their biggest lie is exposed by this revelation.
Two weeks ago, a transcript of a United Nations debriefing of Iraqi general Hussein Kamel was obtained by the American magazine, Newsweek, and by Cambridge University analyst, Glen Rangwala (who last month revealed that Blair's "intelligence dossier" on Iraq was lifted, word for word, from an American student's thesis).
General Kamel was the West's "star witness" in its case against Saddam Hussein. He was no ordinary defector. A son-in-law of the Iraqi dictator, he had immense power in Iraq; and when he defected, he took with him crates of secret documents on Iraq's weapons programme.
KILLED IN HER BED: Little girl, aged eight, lies dead in the rubble of her home after a US missile destroyed their home in a residential area of Basra killing six. Her ten year old sister also perished
These secrets have been repeatedly cited by George W Bush and his officials as "evidence" that Iraq still has large quantities of deadly weapons of mass destruction, and that only war can disarm it. Bush, his officials and leading American commentators, have frequently lauded General Kamel as the most reliable source of information on Iraq's weapons. The Blair government has echoed this.
In 1995, General Kamel was debriefed by senior officials of the United Nations inspections team, then known as UNSCOM, and by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The complete transcript, now disclosed for the first time, contradicts almost everything Bush and Blair have said about the threat of Iraqi weapons.
For example, General Kamel says categorically: "I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear - were destroyed." All that remains, he says, are the blueprints, computer disks and microfiches.
Newsweek says that the CIA and Britain's MI6 were told this; and Blair and Bush must have been told the truth. In other words, it is likely that Iraq has been substantially disarmed for at least eight years.
With General Kamel now out of the way (he was killed when he returned to Iraq in 1996), his "evidence" was selectively made public by Washington and London. In his dramatic presentation to the UN Security Council on February 5, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said that the truth about Iraq's nerve gas weapons "only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein's late son in law".
What Powell neglected to mention was that his star witness had told them all the weapons had been destroyed.
KILLED IN HER BED: Little girl, aged ten, lies dead in the rubble of her home after a US missile destroyed their home in a residential area of Basra killing six. Her eight year old sister also perished
GENERAL Kamel's sensational admission has been corroborated by the former chief UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter who says that when he left Iraq in 1998, disarmament was "90 to 95 per cent".
A United Nations verifying panel set up by the Security Council, confirmed that "the bulk of Iraq's proscribed weapons programmes has been eliminated". This has seldom been reported.
Of course, none of these facts will deter the American and British security agencies from inventing and planting "evidence" of "Saddam's secret weapons" once Anglo-American forces take over Baghdad.
When America and Britain crush Iraq, a new phase of their black propaganda will emerge - for which the British public ought to be prepared. This new range of deceptions will be designed to justify attacking a sovereign state and killing innocent people: a crime under international law, with or without a second UN resolution.
Black propaganda of this kind has a long history. My own experience of it was the American invasion of Vietnam. In 1964, the US State Department published a White Paper with pages of "conclusive proof" of North Vietnam's preparations to invade the south. This "proof" stemmed from the "discovery" of a stockpile of weapons found floating in a junk off the coast of South Vietnam. The White Paper, which provided a quasi-legal justification for the American invasion, was known as a "master illusion". The whole episode was fake, a set-up.
Master illusion was the CIA's term for master lie. In 1982, I interviewed Ralph McGehee, a senior CIA officer who documented the planting of the fake evidence. He told me: "The CIA loaded up a junk, a North Vietnamese junk, with communist weapons ... They floated this junk off the coast of Central Vietnam. Then they shot it up and made it look like a fire fight had taken place. They then brought in the American press and the international press and said, 'Here's the evidence that the North Vietnamese are invading South Vietnam.' Based on this 'evidence', the US Marines went in, and the American air force began regular bombing of North Vietnam."
As a result of this fakery, which included the elaborate fiction that an American destroyer had been attacked by a North Vietnamese gunboat, the United States dispatched its greatest ever land army to Vietnam, and dropped the greatest tonnage of bombs in the history of warfare, and forced millions of people to abandon their homes, and used chemical weapons that profoundly damaged the environment and human genes, leaving a once beautiful land petrified.
AT least two million people were killed, and many more were maimed and otherwise ruined. Now replace "Vietnam" with "Iraq" in this story of lies; and you have the essentials of the same justification for another great criminal act.
Watch how the propaganda unfolds once the bombing is over and the Americans are running Baghdad and their spin machine. There will be the "discovery of Saddam's secret arsenal," probably in the basement of one his palaces. This will be accompanied by the "discovery" of gruesome evidence of Saddam's oppression. This will not come as news to the many dedicated anti-war campaigners, who for years tried to stop the American and British governments from supplying Saddam with the tools of his oppression.
They include many Iraqis exiled in Britain, such as Khalid Sahi, who was tortured by the regime and opposes an attack "will bring nothing but more bloodshed, more misery"; and the anti-war Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn, who has protested about the Iraqi dictator for more than twenty years and demanded that the British government prosecute British companies that sustained the Iraqi torturers.
Two years ago, Peter Hain, then a Foreign Office minister, blocked a parliamentary request to publish the full list of British companies that had illegally traded with Saddam Hussein.
The reason why became clear last week when the Guardian newspaper disclosed that the Blair government had secretly paid out more than ?33 million in taxpayers' money to British companies claiming non-payment on the weapons they sold Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. The total loss to the taxpayer on sales to Iraq now exceeds ?1billion. Add this to the ?3.5billion that Gordon Brown has "put aside" for an attack on Iraq. Add this to the ?1billion that the bombing of Iraq has already cost - the rarely reported bombing by British and American aircraft in the so-called "no fly zones", which now cover most of Iraqi airspace and were set up, according to Blair, to "protect Iraq's minorities". Who believes this now?
This week, the Ministry of Defence said: "We never target civilians [in the no-fly zones]... there's no evidence of civilian casualties."
The lie of this statement would be breathtaking were it not routine.
In northern Kurdish Iraq, I interviewed members of one family who had lost their grandfather, their father and four brothers and sisters when a "coalition" aircraft (British or American) dive-bombed them and the sheep they were tending. It was open desert, a moonscape with not a sign of other life, let alone a military installation. Amid the carcasses of blasted sheep were pieces of clothing and a single shoe.
The attack was investigated and verified by the chief United Nations representative in Iraq at the time, Hans Von Sponeck, who drove there especially from Baghdad. His findings are listed among dozens of similar attacks - on shepherds, farmers, fishermen - in a document prepared by the United Nations Security Section.
At a windswept cemetery near the town of Mosul, I caught sight of the shepherd's widow as she grieved for her husband and four children. "I want to see the pilot who did this," she shouted.
LAST week, "coalition" aircraft killed another six people in the southern city of Basra. Nothing unusual there. When I was last in Basra, an American missile killed six children when it "mistakenly" hit Al Jumohria, a very poor section of Basra's residential area.
I walked down the street where the missile had struck in the early hours; it had followed the line of houses, destroying one after the other. I met the father of two sisters, aged eight and 10, who were photographed by a local weddings photographer, Nabil al-Jerani, shortly after the attack. Their bodies were unlike the other four children, who were blown to bits, their limbs and flesh in the overhead wires.
These two little girls were left intact. In Nabil's photographs, they are in their nightdresses, one with a bow in her hair, their bodies perfectly engraved in the rubble of their homes, where they had been bombed to death, murdered, in their beds.
Look closely at their images on these pages; they are the faces of a stricken nation of whom 42 per cent are children. When Blair speaks about the "moral case" for sending hundreds of missiles against this nation of so many children, as well as new types of cluster bombs and bunker bombs and microwave bombs, and shells tipped with pure uranium, a form of nuclear weapon, the images of the two sisters provide an eloquent commentary on the Prime Minister's Christian "morality".
And when pictures of exhausted Iraqis greeting their "liberation" are flashed around the world, remember the faces that will be missing in the crowds - not only those of the children bombed and disposed of as "collateral damage", but more than a million faces declared expendable by the American-driven and British-backed economic embargo.
Remember the vaccines, cancer-treatment equipment, pain-killers, plasma bags, food treatment equipment and much else denied over fourteen years: $5.4 billion worth as of last July, to be precise, blocked by the US government, backed by the Blair government.
Remember the words of President Clinton's then representative at the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, when she was asked if the price of 500,000 Iraqi children was a price worth paying for the embargo. "We think the price is worth it," she said.
AND when you next hear Bush or Blair or Straw or Hoon talk about "the tyrant who gassed his own people", remember those American officials and British ministers who competed with each other to excuse and effectively reward Saddam Hussein for gassing 5,000 Kurds in the town of Halabja.
Barely one month after the atrocity in 1988, Tony Newton, Margaret Thatcher's Trade Secretary, flew to Baghdad to offer Saddam £340million of taxpayers' money in export credits. Three months later, the smiling Newton was back, this time to celebrate with Saddam the joyous news that Iraq was now Britain's third-largest market for machine tools, from which a range of Iraqi weapons was forged - some of them used against British troops in the Gulf War.
Newton was followed by Assistant US Secretary of State John Kelly who flew to Baghdad to tell Saddam that "you are a source for moderation in the region, and the United States wants to broaden her relationship with Iraq".
When the "liberation" of Baghdad is on the front page, remember the warmongering newspapers whose editorials defended Saddam Hussein throughout the 1980s by promoting the lie that his use of chemical weapons against Iran was purely defensive.
Remember, too, Blair's long silence. There is no record of Blair saying anything worthwhile about Saddam's "excesses" (as his crimes used to be known by British ministers when he was "one of us") until after September 11, 2001 when the Americans, frustrated at having failed to catch Osama bin Laden, declared the Iraqi dictator their number one enemy.
Like a discredited East European autocrat, attended only by his court of supplicants and propagandists, Blair has few left to deceive. He even claimed the other day that "no Iraqis marched" in the great demonstration of February 15. In fact, as many as 7,000 Iraqis and Kurds marched. Iraqi families stood on the roadside holding up home-made placards: "Thank you for supporting my people."
None, it can be assumed, has any time for Saddam Hussein; but none want their country strangled, attacked, poisoned and occupied by another variety of dictator.
Civil disobedience is the sole path left for those who cannot support the Bush-Blair pact of aggression. Only then will politicians on both sides of the Atlantic be forced to recognise the folly of their ways.
How have we got to this point, where two western governments take us into an illegal and immoral war against a stricken nation with whom we have no quarrel and who offer us no threat: an act of aggression opposed by almost everybody and whose charade is transparent?
How can they attack, in our name, a country already crushed by more than 12 years of an embargo aimed mostly at the civilian population, of whom 42 per cent are children - a medieval siege that has taken the lives of at least half a million children and is described as genocidal by the former United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator for Iraq?
How can those claiming to be "liberals" disguise their embarrassment, and shame, while justifying their support for George Bush's proposed launch of 800 missiles in two days as a "liberation"? How can they ignore two United Nations studies which reveal that some 500,000 people will be at risk? Do they not hear their own echo in the words of the American general who said famously of a Vietnamese town he had just levelled: "We had to destroy it in order to save it?"
"Few of us," Arthur Miller once wrote, "can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."
These days, Miller's astuteness applies to a minority of warmongers and apologists. Since 11 September 2001, the consciousness of the majority has soared. The word "imperialism" has been rescued from agitprop and returned to common usage. America's and Britain's planned theft of the Iraqi oilfields, following historical precedent, is well understood. The false choices of the cold war are redundant, and people are once again stirring in their millions. More and more of them now glimpse American power, as Mark Twain wrote, "with its banner of the Prince of Peace in one hand and its loot-basket and its butcher-knife in the other".
What is heartening is the apparent demise of "anti-Americanism" as a respectable means of stifling recognition and analysis of American Imperialism. Intellectual loyalty oaths, similar to those rife during the Third Reich, when the abusive "anti-German" was enough to silence dissent, no longer work. In America itself, there are too many anti-Americans filling the streets now: those whom Martha Gellhorn called "that life-saving minority who judge their government in moral terms, who are the people with a wakeful conscience and can be counted upon".
Perhaps for the first time since the late 1940s, Americanism as an ideology is being identified in the same terms as any rapacious power structure; and we can thank Bush and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice for that, even though their acts of international violence have yet to exceed those of the "liberal" Bill Clinton.
"My guess," wrote Norman Mailer recently, "is that, like it or not, or want it or not, we are going to go to war because that is the only solution Bush and his people can see. The dire prospect that opens, therefore, is that America is going to become a mega-banana republic where the army will have more and more importance in our lives. And, before it is all over, democracy, noble and delicate as it is, may give way . . . Indeed, democracy is the special condition that we will be called upon to defend in the coming years. That will be enormously difficult because the combination of the corporation, the military and the complete investiture of the flag with mass spectator sports has set up a pre-fascist atmosphere in America already."
In the military plutocracy that is the American state, with its unelected president, venal Supreme Court, silent Congress, gutted Bill of Rights and compliant media, Mailer's "pre-fascist atmosphere" makes common sense. The dissident American writer William Rivers Pitt pursues this further. "Critics of the Bush administration," he wrote, "like to bandy about the word 'fascist' when speaking of George. The image that word conjures is of Nazi storm troopers marching in unison towards Hitler's Final Solution. This does not at all fit. It is better, in this matter, to view the Bush administration through the eyes of Benito Mussolini. Dubbed 'the father of fascism', Mussolini defined the word in a far more pertinent fashion. 'Fascism,' he said, 'should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.' "
Bush himself offered an understanding of this on 26 February when he addressed the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute. He paid tribute to "some of the finest minds of our nation [who] are at work on some of the greatest challenges to our nation. You do such good work that my administration has borrowed 20 such minds. I want to thank them for their service."
The "20 such minds" are crypto-fascists who fit the definition of William Pitt Rivers. The institute is America's biggest, most important and wealthiest "think-tank". A typical member is John Bolton, under-secretary for arms control, the Bush official most responsible for dismantling the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, arguably the most important arms control agreement of the late 20th century. The institute's strongest ties are with extreme Zionism and the regime of Ariel Sharon. Last month, Bolton was in Tel Aviv to hear Sharon's view on which country in the region should be next after Iraq. For the expansionists running Israel, the prize is not so much the conquest of Iraq but Iran. A significant proportion of the Israeli air force is already based in Turkey with Iran in its sights, waiting for an American attack.
Richard Perle is the institute's star. Perle is chairman of the powerful Defence Policy Board at the Pentagon, the author of the insane policies of "total war" and "creative destruction". The latter is designed to subjugate finally the Middle East, beginning with the $90bn invasion of Iraq.
Perle helped to set up another crypto-fascist group, the Project for the New American Century. Other founders include Vice-President Cheney, the defence secretary Rumsfeld and deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz. The institute's "mission report", Rebuilding America's Defences: strategy, forces and resources for a new century, is an unabashed blueprint for world conquest. Before Bush came to power, it recommended an increase in arms spending by $48bn so that America "can fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars". This has come true. It said that nuclear war-fighting should be given the priority it deserved. This has come true. It said that Iraq should be a primary target. And so it is. And it dismissed the issue of Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction" as a convenient excuse, which it is.
Written by Wolfowitz, this guide to world domination puts the onus on the Pentagon to establish a "new order" in the Middle East under unchallenged US authority. A "liberated" Iraq, the centrepiece of the new order, will be divided and ruled, probably by three American generals; and after a horrific onslaught, known as Shock and Awe.
Vladimir Slipchenko, one of the world's leading military analysts, says the testing of new weapons is a "main purpose" of the attack on Iraq. "Nobody is saying anything about it," he said last month. "In May 2001, in his first presidential address, Bush spoke about the need for preparation for future wars. He emphasised that the armed forces needed to be completely high-tech, capable of conducting hostilities by the no-contact method. After a series of live experiments - in Iraq in 1991, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan - many corporations achieved huge profits. Now the bottom line is $50-60bn a year."
He says that, apart from new types of cluster bombs and cruise missiles, the Americans will use their untested pulse bomb, known also as a microwave bomb. Each discharges two megawatts of radiation which instantly puts out of action all communications, computers, radios, even hearing aids and heart pacemakers. "Imagine, your heart explodes!" he said.
In the future, this Pax Americana will be policed with nuclear, biological and chemical weapons used "pre-emptively", even in conflicts that do not directly engage US interests. In August, the Bush administration will convene a secret meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, to discuss the construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including "mini nukes", "bunker busters" and neutron bombs. Generals, government officials and nuclear scientists will also discuss the appropriate propaganda to convince the American public that the new weapons are necessary.
Such is Mailer's pre-fascist state. If appeasement has any meaning today, it has little to do with a regional dictator and everything to do with the demonstrably dangerous men in Washington. It is vitally important that we understand their goals and the degree of their ruthlessness. One example: General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani dictator, was last year deliberately allowed by Washington to come within an ace of starting a nuclear war with India - and to continue supplying North Korea with nuclear technology - because he agreed to hand over al-Qaida operatives. The other day, John Howard, the Australian prime minister and Washington mouthpiece, praised Musharraf, the man who almost blew up west Asia, for his "personal courage and outstanding leadership".
In 1946, Justice Robert Jackson, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, said: "The very essence of the Nuremberg charter is that individuals have international duties which transcend national obligations of obedience imposed by the state."
With an attack on Iraq almost a certainty, the millions who filled London and other capitals on the weekend of 15-16 February, and the millions who cheered them on, now have these transcendent duties. The Bush gang, and Tony Blair, cannot be allowed to hold the rest of us captive to their obsessions and war plans. Speculation on Blair's political future is trivia; he and the robotic Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon must be stopped now, for the reasons long argued in these pages and on hundreds of platforms.
And, incidentally, no one should be distracted by the latest opportunistic antics of Clare Short, whose routine hints of "rebellion", followed by her predictable inaction, have helped to give Blair the time he wants to subvert the UN.
There is only one form of opposition now: it is civil disobedience leading to what the police call civil unrest. The latter is feared by undemocratic governments of all stripes.
The revolt has already begun. In January, Scottish train drivers refused to move munitions. In Italy, people have been blocking dozens of trains carrying American weapons and personnel, and dockers have refused to load arms shipments. US military bases have been blockaded in Germany, and thousands have demonstrated at Shannon which, despite Ireland's neutrality, is being used by the US military to refuel its planes en route to Iraq.
"We have become a threat, but can we deliver?" asked Jessica Azulay and Brian Dominick of the American resistance movement. "Policy-makers are debating right now whether or not they have to heed our dissent. Now we must make it clear to them that there will be political and economic consequences if they decide to ignore us."
My own view is that if the protest movement sees itself as a world power, as an expression of true internationalism, then success need not be a dream. That depends on how far people are prepared to go. The young female employee of the Gloucestershire-based top-secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), who was charged this month with leaking information about America's dirty tricks operation on members of the Security Council, shows us the courage required.
In the meantime, the new Mussolinis are on their balconies, with their virtuoso rants and impassioned insincerity. Reduced to wagging their fingers in a futile attempt to silence us, they see millions of us for the first time, knowing and fearing that we cannot be silenced.
WDIE is posting below a résumé of a presentation given at a conference on February 14, 2003, in the Palais du Luxembourg (the seat of the French Senate) in Paris. The summary, under the title After Iraq, Korea?, follows the text published by CILRECO, the International Liaison Committee for Reunification and Peace in Korea. The conference was also organised by CILRECO, in co-operation with the "International Committee of Lawyers for Support to the Inter-Korean Accord of June 15, 2000" and the "Organisation of Franco-Korean Friendship". It shed new light on the distorted image of the Korean issue and the DPRK which is typically presented in the "western" media based on the unilateral approach imposed by the US.
The presentation was given on behalf of the three organisations by Professor Robert Charvin, honorary dean of the Faculty of Law, Political Sciences, Economics and Management at the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis. The presentation, which clarified with strong arguments different aspects of the so-called "Korean problem", was made to a large audience composed of parliament members, key figures from political, social and academic circles, French and foreign journalists, and militants of the Korean cause.
* * *
With the planned war of the US against Iraq, after 12 years of embargo, that has taken a heavy toll with thousands of victims and an economic decline of half a century, affecting in the first place the most underprivileged sections of the Iraqi population, new hostile manoeuvres, targeting Korea and its desire to reunite, are looming on the horizon of the American policy.
The United States and other powerful countries of the world fear the birth of a new Korea, finally reunited and, consequently, an important power. Despite numerous obstacles (provocation like a recent inspection of a merchant ship in Yemeni waters, permanent hostile campaign, systematic diffusion of false information etc.), the reconciliation process between the North and the South continues, in particular thanks to the election of a new president of South Korea, Roh Moo-hyun, who defeated the pro-American candidate (economic negotiations, visits of tourists, etc.). Without the American interference, the process would have advanced much further: a thousand year old Korean nation has the will and the ability to rebuild itself in spite of the interests of those who do not wish to have any "rivals", and who would like to maintain the peninsula in its role in the service of the strategy of the big powers, even if Koreans have to suffer as a result of it!
One insists (even in the USA) on the differences between the Iraqi case and the Korean case (the proximity of China certainly has something to do with it): however, the strategy of Bush is always the same, only the tactic used changes. Resorting to armed forces, aggressions and provocation, to financial corruption, and all this with a total disregard for the international laws and the United Nations, has become the rule of the American policy, which can only tolerate docile states and servile governments.
The "model" that represents the American practice vis-à-vis Iraq is transposable to the case of Korea, even more significant.
To no avail. With the same dishonesty like in the case of arms inspections in Iraq, the US "wants at all costs" to accuse the DPRK of an illegal possession of a nuclear weapon, even though they have absolutely no proof of it.
The US, the world’s number one exporter of all sorts of weapons (even, quite recently, to Iraq), gives the worst example: the only real way to pacify the international relations is the general disarmament, requested by the UN’s Assembly and by the PDRK. In the meantime, each country has the right to arm itself, North Korea included. To consider, as the West does, certain countries armed to the teeth (superpowers) the forces of peace, and a small country like the DPRK a threat to the world is a case of a deliberate "paranoia". There is no record in history of small countries being a threat to big ones! The US has often in this manner doctored the facts by blowing out of proportion the importance of their "adversary", ever since their aggressions against Vietnam, Cuba, Grenada, and so many other legal governments of the countries, whose only fault was that they were not submissive.
The alleged struggle between Good and Evil (Korean or other) is in itself a primitive and barbarian concept that justifies crusades and pillaging.
Korea is an ancient civilisation, it does not need any lectures from anyone, and it does not try to tell the rest of the world what to do. Korea is not "strange" (as Le Monde had the nerve to write), or "mysterious", but different, expressing a complex synthesis of the Confucian heritage and the demands of modernity and development (such as the abandonment of the Soviet-style economy, officially announced by the DPRK, and the opening of special economic zones).
A couple of facts should be mentioned on this subject, in addition to particularly ferocious Japanese colonial past (from 1905 to 1945) and Confucian ideas still present but in different forms in the heart of political and social institutions both in the North and in the South, just like some other values are in the most secular western countries.
For these reasons, should one be surprised by the privileged role of the Army as a decisive interior militant force, and by food shortages, that the western media seem to rejoice over to denounce the "archaism" of the North Korean system? Do we like to believe that the plan to strangle the DPRK is an excellent schooling in democracy and a source of economic efficiency? Surrendering to the West and accepting "the American way of life", are these the only "sensible" ways for the DPRK to follow, when the rejection of the South’s population of American ascendancy and their military omnipresence on Korean soil is increasingly overt?
CILRECO has decided to show its solidarity on grounds of principle. It asks all other non-governmental organisations to show the same solidarity with the Korean people as they have done with the Iraqi or Palestinian people. Like the 130 non-aligned countries, at their meeting in Kuala Lumpur in February 2003, CILRECO denounces the policy of "two sets of rules", that some southern countries, and even more so the DPRK, have been the victims of.
The annual enlarged meeting of the Presidency of the International Liaison Committee for Reunification and Peace in Korea (CILRECO) was held in Paris on Saturday, March 8. Delegations attended from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Luxemburg, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Turkey. A delegation came from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Attending from Britain were Andy Brooks (New Communist Party) and Eric Trevett (NCP; President of Korea Friendship and Solidarity Campaign), Chris Coleman of RCPB(ML) and Ella Rule (Society for Friendship with Korea). A message of support was received from Juan Jose Leon Vega of the Communist Party of Cuba.
Opening the meeting Professor Paulette Peirson-Mathy from Belgium, Honorary President of CILRECO, spoke of the hostility towards the DPRK of the Bush administration, in the context of the world threat of general war posed by the USA and Britain. She spoke of the importance of addressing the changing international attitude towards the DPRK. She said that the renewed closer relations between north and south Korea and the Presidential victory in South Korea were a cause of joy. She paid tribute to the women of Korea on International Women’s Day.
Presenting his Introductory Report, Guy Dupré of France, Secretary General of CILRECO, said that the meeting was organised at a time when the international situation was extremely serious as a result of the American preparations for the war against Iraq, a conflict that would have terrible consequences if the forces of peace fail to prevent the American aggression. He said we know by experience, as a result of our support to the cause of the Korean people, the dramatic consequences of this imperialistic strategy of the USA, the strategy that makes them destroy any obstacle to the implementation of their "new world order" that would enable them to rule over the world by themselves, and as a result of which they multiply interventions on all continents, provoke wars with terrible consequences for the people, and put in danger the very survival of mankind. He said that last year, under the Bush administration, the hostile policy of the USA towards the DPRK was at its height, all the more so because of the fact that the DPRK’s government’s efforts on the diplomatic level were crowned with success, and the process of reconciliation-reunification, initiated by the joint North-South Accord of June 15, 2000, led to progress without precedent in the history of the divided country. Throughout this last year, he said, the Korean peninsula was in the foreground of current events and caught the attention of the world; the progressive forces were rejoicing over the important progress of the reunification movement in Korea, but they were also expressing their worries about the risk of a new conflict on the Korean peninsula. He said that the meeting would help define the guidelines and the programme of activities that CILRECO has the responsibility to propose to the international movement of solidarity in all its diversity, in order to support even more efficiently the cause of the independent and peaceful reunification of Korea.
Guy Dupré then spoke of the situation on the Korean peninsula over the past year. He stressed the reinforcement of the reunification movement of the Korean nation, the remarkable progress of the North-South reconciliation-reunification process. He said the surprise victory of Roh Moo Hyun in the South Korean presidential elections, who supports the reunification process and favours a greater independence of South Korea from the USA, confirmed this positive evolution. But he stressed also that the American hostile policy towards the DPRK had reached its height under the Bush administration and its campaign on a "nuclear threat", aimed at justifying a "preventive war". By deliberately provoking this "nuclear crisis" on the Korean peninsula, he said, the USA were hoping to create the conditions for a confrontation between the international community and the DPRK, accusing the latter of a violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is a blatant lie. He said that the succession of important events that took place last year on the Korean peninsula, and placed it in the foreground of world news confirms, more than ever, CILRECO’s analysis of the capital importance for today’s international politics of the problems of the independent reunification of Korea, which is closely related to the essential issues of the sovereignty of nations, global security and peace.
Reporting on CILRECO’s activities, Guy Dupré noted in particular the International Seminar on the Independent Reunification of Korea held on CILRECO’s 25th anniversary last March and the International Petition launched by the Presidency at that time, which was estimated to have been signed, either individually or collectively, through the intermediary of various organisations, by more than 458 million people. He also stressed the importance of regular contacts that CILRECO has today with numerous forces of the South Korean reunification movement in all its diversity.
Introducing the Programme Proposals for 2003, Guy Dupré said these were based on three main objectives: (1) consolidating and enlarging the movement of solidarity supporting the cause of the independent reunification of Korea through the dynamic application of the June 15 Accord, relying on favourable international circumstances created as a result of the unprecedented progress of the process under way and the DPRK’s firm policy of sovereignty; (2) reinforcing the activities of support to the struggle of Koreans to preserve their independence and sovereignty, their right to existence and dignity, and to put an end to US interference in their affairs; (3) disclosing and denouncing the American power policy aimed at stifling the DPRK and mobilising all progressive forces to foil their insane manoeuvres against that country, against the reunification process and against peace on the peninsula. In the immediate future, he said, the programme should focus on an information campaign to re-establish the truth about the "nuclear problem" on the Korean peninsula, and to denounce American manoeuvres for what they really are: a hoax whose objective is to create a conflict between the DPRK and the international community.
Finally, he said, he was optimistic about the cause of the Korean nation which, in this day and age, is also the cause of all the people who long for sovereignty, progress, security and peace, and in this sense we are all Koreans.
The head of the DPRK delegation began by expressing deep thanks for the solidarity work of CILRECO. This was internationalism, he said. He spoke of the successes in the diplomatic field of the DPRK and in reactivating the reunification process on numerous fronts on the basis of the June 15 Accords. He said these were supported by virtually every country bar the USA, which was against peace and reunification and had provoked an extreme situation, depicting the DPRK as part of an "axis of evil", liable to nuclear pre-emptive strike. He said that when US envoy Kelly had visited Pyongyang last October they had hoped to speak on an equal footing. But Kelly had adopted a hostile attitude, accused the DPRK of producing nuclear weapons and violating the 1994 Framework Agreement. The DPRK had replied that it reserved the right to develop whatever arms it needed to defend its sovereignty. The nuclear issue could be clarified by direct negotiations, he said, if the USA recognised the sovereignty of the DPRK. The DPRK had thus proposed a Non-Aggression Treaty with the USA. The USA, however, had broken its obligation under the 1994 Framework Agreement by stopping the supply of heavy oil. It was trying to stifle the DPRK and using the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as a tool. George W Bush had threatened nuclear aggression on the Korean peninsula in his State of the Union Message on January 10. The DPRK had therefore, as was its right, withdrawn from the NPT as a self-defensive measure. It was not trying to "blackmail" the USA. It simply wanted the USA not to interfere and to leave it in peace. The USA was openly provoking war to overthrow the system. It was threatening nuclear pre-emptive strike and attempting to stifle the DPRK by "internationalising" the issue. The DPRK would do everything to defend its system. It would adhere to the June 15 Accord as the common landmark for reunification by independent Korean efforts. The DPRK would do all it could to avert the danger of war and the threat to national security. It would continue to defend its sovereignty and honour by the "Army First" policy, without which there would have been war long ago.
Other important interventions were then given. Professor Robert Charvin of France and Amar Bentoumi, former Minister of Justice of Algeria, both stressed and denounced the regression in adherence to international law by the US and its allies. Romesh Chandra from India, Honorary President of the World Peace Council, spoke movingly of his political beginnings opposing US aggression against Korea in 1950-53, of the importance of CILRECO’s work and its inter-relationship with the DPRK’s firm stands. He said never before since Vietnam was there such a danger to world peace as now; but never before was there so large a movement worldwide for peace and justice.
Among others, Eric Trevett (NCP) said he too was optimistic, without being complacent about the dangers. He spoke of the importance of Kim Il Sung’s proposals for a Confederal Koryo of "One Country, Two Systems" as guide for the way forward. He said the USA must negotiate. He said in fighting for reunification the Korean people were fighting for us all. Chris Coleman of RCPB(ML) said that imminent aggression against sovereign Iraq by the US and Britain overshadowed the meeting and emphasised the threat, including nuclear threat, against the DPRK and others. He spoke of the massive and growing movement against such threats and of the new consciousness developing that the people had no part in these decisions being made in their name. He said that to this worldwide movement against flagrant violation of international law, against the attempt to resolve all issues by force, against the imperialist drive to impose its dictate everywhere, the firm stand of the DPRK in defence of its sovereignty and chosen system, to reunify the homeland peacefully and independently, and building the DPRK as an impregnable fortress, must be an inspiration to the oppressed people of the world. The demand of the DPRK for direct talks with the USA leading to a Non-Aggression Treaty and the DPRK’s withdrawal from the NPT as a self-defensive measure, were just. Ella Rule (SFK) spoke of solidarity work in Britain. She stressed the importance of linking the issues of Iraq and the DPRK and of working hard in the trade unions on these questions. She paid tribute to the work of CILRECO.
Detailed discussion took place on the CILRECO Programme Proposals for 2003 and also on a Call to be issued from the meeting. These will be published as documents at a later date.
In closing the meeting, Secretary General Guy Dupré said the discussions had been very fruitful. All affiliated organisations, all progressive voices, would continue their support and help the Korean peninsula achieve reunification and peace.
The Executive Council of the Fire Brigades Union have set Tuesday, April 15, as the date for the next Recall Conference. This gives a period of four weeks for fire-fighters to decide on whether to accept or reject the employers’ latest final offer.
The National Fire Service Employers had made an offer on March 18. Conditional on receipt of this offer was that the Executive Council would agree to recommend the offer to the membership. This the Executive Council agreed to do. It took this decision, according to Andy Gilchrist, General Secretary of the FBU, in the light of the following threats:
1. That the latest offer was only "available" as an offer if the Executive Council agreed to recommend acceptance. The Executive Council therefore decided to recommend this offer in order that all members could decide whether to accept or reject it.
2. In the absence of such an undertaking from the Executive Council, the latest offer would be withdrawn and the notified intention (to the House of Commons) by the Deputy Prime Minister to take back the powers of the 1947 Fire Services Act to impose a settlement to the dispute would be enacted. This settlement would have been based at best on the offer sent out to members’ home addresses on March 14, as the latest "final" offer which was recommended to Recall Conference would have been withdrawn by the Employers.
3. An alternative and real threat was that government would in the absence of a negotiated agreement, or likelihood of one, take action or powers to limit, or remove entirely, this trade union’s ability to take strike action now or at any time in the future.
This employers’ document was considered by a Recall of Annual Conference held in Brighton on March 19. The Recall Conference agreed by an overwhelming majority to recommend in the strongest terms possible that the membership of the FBU reject the employers’ latest final offer.
To facilitate the decision making process, the Executive Council have arranged the further Recall of Conference to receive the decision of the membership on this particular offer and to determine the further action necessary to progress the fire-fighters’ just claim.
Nevertheless, following the decision of the Recall Conference of March 19, the Deputy Prime Minister gave notice on March 20 that the government would put in place the necessary mechanisms to impose upon the Fire Service the latest offer on Pay from the National Fire Service Employers.
In a circular to members, Andy Gilchrist reiterates that the Recall of Conference recommended in the strongest possible terms that members should reject the latest offer from the employers. The Recall Conference of April 15 will receive the decision of members and set out any further action that is required, he writes.