moved:
That, in the opinion of this House, the Canadian government should lead efforts at the United Nations to lift the economic sanctions imposed upon Iraq since 1991, which have served only to inflict severe suffering on civilians, especially the most vulnerable members of the Iraqi population, namely the elderly, the sick and children.
Madam Speaker, it is with a sense of profound sadness and anger that I rise in my place in the House today to once again plead with our government, the Government of Canada, to finally show leadership and to call on the United Nations and on every other international forum for an end to the genocidal sanctions that have been imposed upon the people of Iraq for the last decade.
I cannot believe I am still standing in place today pleading with our government to act, over a year after a strong, powerful and eloquent report of a unanimous foreign affairs committee called on the Liberal government to do precisely what I am seeking today, to lift the economic sanctions that have had such a catastrophic impact on innocent human lives, innocent people in Iraq. The sanctions certainly have not had an impact on Saddam Hussein, but over the course of the last decade, they have resulted in the death, according to UNICEF, of over half a million children under the age of five.
I travelled to Iraq back in January 2000 with a delegation from a group called Voices of Conscience, Objection de conscience. This is a group of very fine women and men, mainly from Quebec, who are artists, journalists, doctors and representatives of non-governmental organizations. We travelled overland into Baghdad and then down into the southern part of Iraq.
For me it was a return visit because I had been to Iraq nine years previously, just before war broke out. I visited in November 1990 leading a delegation that included Lloyd Axworthy, then foreign affairs critic for the Liberal Party, and a Conservative member of parliament named Bob Corbett.
The results of the imposition of that draconian sanctioned regime, as well as the massive and ongoing bombings that many Canadians do not even know are happening in Iraq today, were absolutely devastating both to the people and to the infrastructure of Iraq.
We must never forget the appalling attack that took place in 1991. I will not call it a war because, as one of the United States generals said, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. I believe there were over 100,000 Iraqi casualties of that attack.
Prior to that attack, Iraq was one of the most advanced countries in the Middle East in economic, social and cultural rights. Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia. They belong to the people of Iraq. They were nationalized in 1972. Iraq had an extensive health care system, clean and abundant drinking water, sewage treatment plants, electric power generation plants, free education at all levels and a comprehensive network of social services. The status of women in Iraq, a country in the Middle East in which too often women are still very much second class citizens, was one of the most advanced of any country in that region.
What our delegation witnessed on our return last year was the total collapse of Iraq's human and physical infrastructure, a nation that has experienced a shift from, as was described by the United Nations development program, relative affluence to massive poverty. Unemployment is epidemic. Inflation has skyrocketed. The average salary is about $5 U.S. a month. There has been a dramatic increase in begging, prostitution and crime.
The agriculture sector is in disarray, ravaged by hoof and mouth disease, screw-worm and the effects of major drought. The once thriving and vibrant cultural sector has been another victim of this inhumane sanctions regime, as our delegation heard from the artists with whom we met.
While we were in Baghdad we also met with the then United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator, Hans von Sponeck. Hans von Sponeck, who was a distinguished public servant with the United Nations for many years, resigned shortly after we left. He said that he could no longer participate in the administration of the inhumane sanctions regime. In resigning in that way, he joined the former United Nations humanitarian co-ordinator, Dennis Halliday, and the former head of the United Nations World Food Program, Jutta Burghardt. He pointed out in many speeches afterwards that, in his words, Iraq was truly a third world country once again. He said, and I quote:
I have never been in a country where I have seen so many adults crying.
In a recent speech, he quoted from a December 2000 UNICEF report that ranked the increase in Iraq's child mortality rates the highest among 188 countries in the world since 1991; a 160% surge as a result of a lack of medicine, malnutrition and waterborne diseases, such as dysentery.
Hans von Sponeck strongly opposes the sanctions and has called for the lifting of the sanctions. He said that he wants it clearly underlined that does not mean he supports Saddam Hussein, which is certainly also the case for myself and members of the New Democratic Party.
While Saddam Hussein has an appalling track record of repression, including the gassing of Kurds in northern Iraq at Halabja, and should be held accountable before the international community for his crimes, we also need to understand that the impact of these genocidal sanctions means that those are who are directly responsible for imposing them are, in my view, also guilty of crimes against humanity.
Let us look at the former United States secretary of state, Madeleine Albright. When she was asked in an interview whether the deaths of thousands and thousands of innocent Iraqi children were worth the price that was being paid to enforce these sanctions, she looked right into the camera and she said “yes, that is a price worth paying”. That was a price worth paying, the death of those children.
As my colleague for Vancouver East said, that is shameful and that is genocidal. As Hans von Sponeck said “whether you die by bullets or by hunger and disease, you are still dead”. Iraq in the last 10 years has suffered beyond any imaginable allowable limits.
We often hear talk of Iraq as a rogue state. The United States is seeking to justify its new star wars scheme, the national missile defence program, partly by suggesting that somehow Iraq, North Korea, Iran and others are rogue states.
I want to suggest that the true rogue state on the planet today in fact is the United States itself, which has shown such contempt for international law and for the standards of basic humanity in enforcing these profoundly immoral and illegal sanctions.
The United States, after all, is a country that has demonstrated contempt for international law in many different ways. It has shown contempt for the environment by turning its back on the Kyoto accord. It has shown contempt for the rights of children by being one of the only countries in the world, along with Somalia, that has refused to sign the international convention on the rights of the child. It has shown contempt for international law by supporting the absolutely violent and appalling policies of the Israeli government in its attacks on the Palestinians and its illegal policy of occupation in settlements. Terrible violence is being directed against Palestinians. It is the United States that has consistently been propping it up. We can also look at the United States in the context of its support for the illegal sanctions against Cuba. Once again, which state is the real rogue state in the world today? We know which one it is.
The current situation in Iraq is absolutely tragic. The greatest burden of these sanctions is borne by the most vulnerable people in Iraqi society: the children, the women, the disabled and the elderly.
As I have mentioned, UNICEF has confirmed that infant mortality rates have skyrocketed since the imposition of these sanctions. Over half a million children have died as a result of the imposition of these sanctions and 4,500 children continue to die each month.
I met with doctors in Baghdad and Basra who, with tears in their eyes, spoke of their sense of helplessness and powerlessness in being unable to save the lives of more than 2% of the children in their care in the oncology wards. They knew that many of those who survived would just return to hellish conditions of malnutrition and open sewage. There was one nurse for 100 children in a ward that we visited.
There has been an explosive rise in the incidence of endemic infections, such as cholera, typhoid and malaria, and major increases in measles, polio and tetanus. Iraq has also seen a huge brain drain as a result of the sanctions. The middle class has largely been destroyed and young people see no hope for their future. We were told of Saturday auctions where proud Iraqi families are forced to sell off their family heirlooms and furniture simply to survive.
I visited a pediatric clinic in Basra in the south. The death toll there was particularly high and it was linked to the use by the allies of depleted uranium in bombing in the spring of 1991. As I have mentioned, the bombings continue even today in that region. It is illegal. The no fly zones have no legal basis whatsoever, yet the United States and the U.K. continue to bomb and innocent civilians continue to die as a result of that bombing. Recently they bombed just outside Baghdad. I was ashamed as a Canadian that our government was one of the only governments that was actually prepared to stand up and defend the United States and the United Kingdom in that illegal bombing. The bombing goes on and the impact of depleted uranium in terms of the congenital deformities, particularly in the south, has been terrible.
We also witnessed the results of what one Baghdad professor referred to as the intellectual genocide of Iraq. Virtually no funding is left for education as a result of the oil proceeds and so the system has collapsed. They have no access to scientific and medical journals and no opportunities to attend professional conferences. Parents give their children chalk to take to schools. Our delegation brought in pencils and medical supplies as an act of silent defiance.
What about the oil for food program? Well, it has not worked. In fact the so-called 661 committee, which enforces the program, has been harshly criticized by many commentators, including the secretary general of the United Nations who said just last November that he had serious concerns over the excessive number of holds that have been placed on applications and on sectors, such as electricity, water, sanitation and agriculture, that impact adversely on the poor state of nutrition in Iraq.
I would like to say a word about nutrition. Dr. Sheila Zurbrigg has documented eloquently the state of famine that has gripped Iraq today. She pointed out that in recent statistics the trends in mortality are getting even worse and that the conditions are getting worse. She also said that child malnutrition rates in the centre south part of the country do not appear to have improved and nutrition problems remain serious and widespread. Acute malnutrition is a huge problem and it is above 10%. Many children are small for their age and visibly wasting away. One in seven Iraqi children will die before the age of five. It is absolutely unbelievable. The agricultural sector, as the FAO has pointed out, is in crisis as well.
I have mentioned Dr. Sheila Zurbrigg. I will also pay tribute to the many Canadians, individuals and organizations that have worked so tirelessly and with such commitment and dedication against these inhumane and genocidal sanctions. These include the Canadian Network to End Sanctions on Iraq, the Nova Scotia Campaign to End Iraq Sanctions, End the Arms Race, Physicians for Global Survival Canada, Objection de conscience or Voices of Conscience, Project Ploughshares, Kawartha Ploughshares and many such groups across the country.
In closing, I once again remind the House of the unanimous recommendation of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade that the government immediately work for the lifting of economic sanctions. It is essential that the sanctions be lifted, that they be lifted now and that Canada show the leadership that makes it possible.