[Does anyone know anything about either of these groups? I'm thinking of sending them some money.]
2 U.S. groups flout U.N. sanctions, take medicine to Iraq
Copyright © 1999 Nando Media
Copyright © 1999 Associated Press
By WAIEL FALEH
BAGHDAD, Iraq (April 5, 1999 5:11 p.m. EDT http://www.nandotimes.com)
- Two American groups seeking attention to the plight of Iraqis living
under U.N. sanctions donated $50,000 worth of medicines and books to
Iraq on Monday.
The items were donated to hospitals and Baghdad University's medical
school by the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness and the
Seattle-based Physicians for Social Responsibility.
Doctor Sue Wareham said the physicians' group donated $28,000 worth of
antibiotics to Iraqi hospitals. The group comprises 25 doctors,
medical students, nurses and activists from various countries.
"The de facto withholding of medicines and food from a population for
political reasons is contrary to all medical and humanitarian ethics
and is a totally unacceptable violation of human rights," said
Wareham, an Australian.
The American members of the groups are violating U.S. Treasury
regulations by traveling to Iraq.
The U.N. Children's Fund estimates that 500,000 children have died of
malnutrition and a shortage of medicine since sanctions were imposed
after Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Meanwhile, Iraq said Monday that U.S. and British missiles struck a
communications system that controls an oil pipeline. The allied
planes, which patrol "no-fly" zones over Iraq, have been blasting air
defense sites and communications centers in the past four months.
The attack Sunday destroyed the system that controls oil flow from the
Bazergan oil fields 230 miles southeast of Baghdad to the exporting
terminal at al-Bakr port, the official Iraqi News Agency said.
A ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the flow
of oil was not affected because the pipeline was not hit, and because
communications were shifted to another facility.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf protested the attack
in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, INA reported.
On Sunday, U.S. officials said allied fighters attacked a
surface-to-air missile battery and two unspecified communications
sites south of Baghdad in response to Iraqi violations of the southern
"no fly" zone.
"No fly" zones in northern and southern Iraq were declared to protect
Kurdish and Shiite dissidents from attacks by Iraqi armed forces.
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