Former UN Oil-For-Food Coordinator for Iraq: End the Sanctions

Former UN Oil-For-Food Coordinator for Iraq: End the Sanctions

Hans von Sponeck was the coordinator of the United Nations' oil-for-food program for seventeen months, until he resigned in protest in February of 2000. He wasn't the first in his post to resign; in 1998 his predecessor Dennis Halliday also left the job disgusted after only thirteen months. Von Sponeck spoke on July 25th in the UW-Madison Memorial Union about the terrible human cost of the sanctions, and the dangers posed by the Bush Administration as it prepares another aerial bombardment of Iraq.

Listen to his talk: MP3 audio / Real audio
Watch the talk (Quicktime video).
Listen to anti-sanctions activist Kathy Kelly introduce Von Sponeck.
Listen to FSRN reporter Jeremy Scahill introduce Kelly and Von Sponeck.

Speakers to Condemn Sanctions Against Iraq

"As a UN official, I should not be expected to be silent to that which I recognize as a true human tragedy that needs to be ended. How long should the civilian population, which is totally innocent on all this, be exposed to such punishment for something they have never done? The very title that I hold as a Humanitarian Co-ordinator suggests I can not be silent over that which we see here. [...] My support, my commitment is for the Iraqi people as a group of deprived people whose tragedy should end."

- Hans von Sponeck, former Humanitaian Aid Co-ordinator for Iraq, 13th February 2000.

Von Sponeck, who will speak at the Memorial Union's Trip Commons tonight at 7pm, where he will be joined by Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness, a group committed to opposing the sanctions on Iraq through direct action. The group risks million dollar fines and twelve year prison sentances for shipping medical, educational, and other humanitarian supplies to the country because, "The continuing economic sanctions constitute an unjustified aggression against the civilian population of Iraq - a violation of international law and a crime against the human family."

Also on hand will be Free Speech Radio News reporter Jeremy Scahill, who recently returned from Iraq, where he reported on the humanitarian crisis. Listen to his special, "Collatoral Voices: A Report from the Frontlines of Iraq" - MP3 audio / Real audio.

Click here for event details.
Read an interview with Hans von Sponeck.
Listen to Hans von Sponeck on Democracy Now! in May of 2000.

Scahill Scores Siege Against Iraq

Imagine a place where cancer is so prevalent it is believed to be a contagious fever. Where birth defects caused by radiation cause young women to fear becoming pregnant. And where parents are afraid to let children play outside because they may be killed in a bombing raid.

Unfortunately, this place is all too real: Basra, southern Iraq's largest city, the sitew of some of the heaviest fighting of the Gulf War, and a continued target of U.S. aerial bombing. Journalist Jeremy Scahill told a crowd of 90 at Gateway Technical College on July 16 about the horrors caused by 12 years of unrelenting siege against the nation of Iraq.

Read the entire article, and an announcement about the former Assistant Secretary of the UN Hans von Sponeck speaking in Milwaukee about Iraq and his experiences in the Food for Oil program.
View photos from Basra.