A United Nations human rights investigator yesterday accused
the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq of depriving civilians of food
and water in breach of humanitarian law.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/review/article_full_story.asp?service_ID=9862
Review: Articles
The U.S. starves Iraqi civilians
10/16/2005 11:00:00 PM GMT
"This is a flagrant violation of international law," Ziegler
said
"We'll bring food and medicine to the Iraqi people" were
President George W. Bush's words in March 6, 2003, almost two
weeks before the war began on March 20.
A United Nations human rights investigator yesterday accused
the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq of depriving civilians of food
and water in breach of humanitarian law.
"This is a flagrant violation of international law," he said.
According to Jean Ziegler, a former Swiss sociology professor
now a UN special rapporteur on the right to food, the U.S. and
British forces cut food and water supplies to force people
leave rebel- strongholds that they plan to attack.
The UN human rights investigator described the occupation
tactics as breach of international law, saying that the Geneva
Conventions bans military forces from using "starvation of
civilians as a method of warfare".
Cutting off food supply lines and destroying food stocks is
also banned.
Speaking to reporters in Geneva, Mr. Ziegler, who opposed the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, said: "A drama is taking place in
total silence in Iraq, where the coalition's occupying forces
are using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war
against the civilian population".
Mr. Ziegler asserted that he will call on the UN General
Assembly to condemn this practice when he presents his yearly
report later this month. Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, a
spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad, argued that some
supplies had been delayed "due to combat operations", but
denied Mr Ziegler's accusations.
According to a recent report by WFP, the UN World Food
Programme, the majority of the Iraqi population lack the
required daily amount of food needed to survive.
"There are significant country-wide shortfalls in rice, sugar
and milk and infant formula," the WFP Emergency report stated;
"Some governorates continue to report serious shortfalls of
nearly every commodity".
Today, more than two years after the U.S. invaded Iraq, "More
than half of Iraq's population live below the poverty line.
The country's median income was equivalent to about $255
(366,000 dinars) in 2003, it fell to about $144 (207,000
dinars) in 2004", according to the recent UN ILCS study.
Before the U.S.-led invasion to oust the Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein, 60 percent of the Iraqis were dependent on the
government for food aid.
In a report represented last March to the UN Human Rights
Commission, Ziegler warned that "the situation of the right to
food in Iraq is of serious concern".
"The U.S. war on Iraq and its aftermath have almost doubled
malnutrition rates among Iraqi children".
Most of the food, if delivered, to Iraqis is contaminated or
'over the expiration date', according to eyewitnesses.
The U.S. and its war allies are using Iraq as a dumping ground
for contaminated products from America, some of the Arab
states that are lead by U.S. puppets, Turkey, Poland and
Australia.
Again, the U.S. goal in Iraq is to terrorize the nation, not
fight "terrorism". It seeks imposing an American model of
"democracy", preparing for a new Western imperialism.
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