Ramsey
Clark, former Attorney General of the United States, founder of the
International Action Centre, and Co-President of the International
Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions, has issued charges against
US, British and UN leaders supplemental to the 19 charges issued by him
early in 1991 and relating to the causes, and conduct of the war on
Iraq.
Mr. Clark charges the United States of America and others for crimes
against the people of Iraq, for causing the deaths of more than
1,500,000 people including 750,000 children under five, and injury to
the entire population of Iraq by genocidal sanctions.
Mr. Clark's supplemental complaint of November 14, 1996 charges:
The
United States of America, President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State
Warren Christopher, Secretary of Defence William Perry, US Ambassador
to the United Nations, Madeleine Albright, State Department Spokesman,
Nicholas Burns, the United Kingdom Prime Minister John Major; aided and
abetted by United Nations Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali, Rolf
Ekeus, Chairman of UN Special Commission on Iraq, and each Member
Nation of the Security Council and its UN Ambassador from 1991 to date
that failed to act affirmatively to relieve death and suffering caused
by United Nations Sanctions against the People of Iraq; and others to
be named;
With genocide, crimes against humanity, the use of a weapon of mass destruction and other crimes specified herein.
The
criminal acts charged include the deliberate and intentional
imposition, maintenance and enforcement of an economic blockade and
sanctions against the people of Iraq from August 6, 1990 to this date
with full knowledge constantly communicated that the blockade and
sanctions were depriving the people of Iraq of essentials to support
and protect human life. These essentials include medicines and medical
supplies, safe drinking water, adequate food, insecticides,
fertilisers, equipment and parts required for agriculture, food
processing, storage and distribution, hospital and medical clinic
procedures; a multitude of common items such as light bulbs and
fluorescent tubes; equipment and parts for the generation and
distribution of electricity, telephone and other communications, public
transportation and other essential human services. Also denied the
people of Iraq is knowledge of the existence of, and procedures and
equipment to provide protection from, depleted uranium and dangerous
chemical pollution released in the environment of Iraq by defendants.
The United States has further subjected Iraq to random missile assaults
which have killed civilians.
The
direct consequence of such acts and others is direct physical injury to
the majority of the population in Iraq, serious permanent injury to a
substantial minority of the population and death to more than 1,500,000
people including 750,000 children under five years of age.
The formal criminal charges are:
1.
The United States and its officials aided and abetted by others engaged
in a continuing pattern of conduct from August 6, 1990 until this date
to impose, maintain and enforce extreme economic sanctions and a strict
military blockade on the people of Iraq for the purpose of injuring the
entire population, killing its weakest members, infants, children, the
elderly and the chronically ill, by depriving them of medicines,
drinking water, food, and other essentials in order to maintain a large
US military presence in the region and dominion and control over its
people and resources including oil.
2.
The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the
United Kingdom and its Prime Minister John Major and other officials
have committed a crime against humanity as defined in the Nuremberg
Charter against the population of Iraq and engaged in a continuing and
massive attack on the entire civilian population in violation of
Articles 48, 51, 52, 54 and 55 of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva
Convention 1977.
3.
The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the
United Kingdom and its Prime Minister John Major and other officials
have committed genocide as defined in the Convention against Genocide
against the population of Iraq including genocide by starvation and
sickness through use of sanctions as a weapon of mass destruction and
violation of Article 54, Protection of Objects Indispensable to the
Civilian Population, of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Convention
1977.
4.
The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the
United Kingdom and its Prime Minister John Major and other officials
have committed and engaged in a continuing course of conduct to prevent
any interference with the long term criminal imposition of sanctions
against the people of Iraq in order to support continuing US presence
and domination of the region.
5.
The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials, the
United Kingdom and its Prime Minister John Major and other officials
with US Ambassador Madeleine Albright as a principal agent have
obstructed justice and corrupted United Nations functions, most
prominently the Security Council, by political, economic and other
coercions using systematic threats, manipulations and misinformation to
silence protest and prevent votes or other acts to end sanctions
against Iraq despite reports over a period of five years by every major
UN agency concerned including UNICEF, UN World Food Program, UN Food
and Agriculture Organisation, which describe the deaths, injuries and
suffering directly caused by the sanctions.
6.
The United States, its President Bill Clinton and other officials have
engaged in a continuing concealment and cover-up of the criminal
assaults during January through March 1991 on nuclear reactors,
chemical, fertiliser, insecticide plants, oil refineries, oil storage
tanks, ammunition depots and bunkers in violation of humanitarian law
including Article 56, Protecting Works and Installations Containing
Dangerous Forces, exposing the civilian population of Iraq, and
military personnel of Iraq, the United States and other countries to
radiation and dangerous chemical pollution which continues for the
population of Iraq causing deaths, sickness and permanent injuries
including chemical and radiation poisoning, cancer, leukaemia, tumours
and diseased body organs.
7.
The United States and its officers have concealed and failed to help
protect the population of Iraq from the cover-up of the use by US
forces of illegal weapons of a wide variety including rockets and
missiles containing depleted uranium which have saturated soil, ground
water and other elements in Iraq and are a constant presence affecting
large areas still undefined with deadly radiation causing death,
illness and injury which will continue to harm the population with
unforeseeable effects for thousands of years.
8.
The United States and its officials have endeavoured to extort money
tribute from Iraq and institutionalise forced payments of money on a
permanent basis by demanding more than one half the value of all oil
sales taken from Iraq be paid as it directs as the price for reducing
the sanctions to permit limited oil sales insufficient to feed the
people and care for the sick. This is the functional and moral
equivalent of holding a gun to the head of the children of Iraq and
demanding of Iraq, pay half your income or we will shoot your children.
9.
The United States has violated and condoned violations of human rights,
civil liberties and the US Bill of Rights in the United States, in
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere to achieve its purpose of complete
domination of the region.
10.
President Clinton, Ambassador Albright, Nicholas Burns and Rolf Ekeus
have systematically manipulated, controlled, directed, misinformed,
concealed from and restricted press and media coverage about conditions
in Iraq, compliance with UN requirements, and the suffering of the
people of Iraq to maintain overwhelming and consistent media support
for genocide. This has been done in the face of their proclaiming that
the deaths of more than half a million children is "worth it" to
control the region, that Saddam Hussein is responsible for all injury
and could prevent this genocide by not putting "his yacht on the
Euphrates this winter," or by shutting down his "palace for the winter
and using that money to buy food and medicine" and by insisting that
the sanctions will be maintained until a government acceptable to the
US is installed in Iraq.
The Honorary Presidency of the International Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions includes:
Former
Heads of State Ahmed Ben Bella, Algeria and Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua;
Former Deputy Head of State: Clodomiro Almeyda, Chile; Former Head of
Government: Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, Malta; Former Deputy Head of
Government: Sheikh Mohammad Rashid, Pakistan; Former Foreign Ministers:
Morad Ghaleb, Egypt and Fr Miguel D'Escoto, Nicaragua; and Tony Benn
MP, Britain, Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General, US, Margarita
Papandreou, Former First Lady of Greece, Romesh Chandra, President of
Honour, World Peace Council.