Mr. Speaker, I rise today to condemn the savage, inhumane and ruthless actions of dictator Saddam Hussein in the southern Iraq marshes perpetrated on the one million marsh Arabs who live there.
As Canadians we advocate and uphold human rights and must protest both a human and an environmental catastrophe which has been well documented and recently aired on CBC.
Water is being diverted from the historic wetland where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet. The delicate ecostructure is being destroyed to provide a huge military base. The native marsh Arabs, Shia Muslims, are being harassed, arbitrarily arrested and detained, tortured, killed and systematically starved to death. Women, children and the elderly are particularly vulnerable.
We as Canadians of conscience must uphold the human rights of the Shia Muslims and express our outrage and indignation to the Iraqi government and to the United Nations, immediately addressing this matter of genocide and ecological disaster.