Some Pictures From The Geneva Fast for Economic Justice in Iraq

AST FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE FOR IRAQ
DEMANDS AN END TO WAR REPARATIONS IMPOSED AGAINST IRAQ

PARTICIPANTS INCLUDE:

KATHY KELLY
nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize and co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, a campaign to end economic and military warfare against Iraq. Ms. Kelly organized and traveled with numerous U.S. delegations which brought medicine to Iraqis, in a campaign of civil disobedience to challenge U.S. sanctions laws.

CAOIMHE BUTTERLY
Irish activist who lived in Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion and during the occupation of Iraq. Ms. Butterly currently organizes in solidarity with Iraqi unionists who are struggling to prevent the privatization of the oil industry.

In addition to Ms. Kelly and Ms. Butterly, the following are fasting in Geneva: Lisa Faulkner, Rita Jankowska-Bradley, Cynthia Banas, Cathy Breen, Farah Mokhtareizadeh and Jeff Leys.

Geneva, Switzerland - On June 28 the United Nations Compensation Commission (U.N.C.C.) will begin its final session to consider war reparations claims filed against Iraq due to Saddam Hussein’s invasion and occupation of Iraq in 1990-91. The Fast for Economic Justice for Iraq enters its thirteenth day during which activists have gone without food in order to protest the injustice of the war reparations process and to call for the cancellation of any further war reparations payments.

The U.N.C.C. will consider 65 billion dollars (54 billion Euro) in war reparations claims filed against Iraq. Only 1 billion dollars (0.83 billion Euro) stem from individual losses. The remainder are claims filed by multinational corporations, state owned enterprises or governments. The U.N.C.C. will determine what amount of these claims to impose at the conclusion of its meeting on June 30th.

The U.N.C.C. has already imposed 52 billion dollars (43 billion Euro) in claims against Iraq, of which Iraq has paid 19 billion dollars (15.8 billion Euro). Nearly all individual claims have been paid in full by Iraq. The overwhelming majority of the outstanding unpaid imposed charges would be due to Kuwait and its state owned enterprises.

“We traveled to Geneva to fast, to go without food for 16 days, in the hopes that our small sacrifice would in some manner awaken the conscience of the international community to the economic warfare being waged against the Iraqi people,” says Caoimhe Butterly of Ireland. “Our sacrifice is indeed minimal compared to the suffering of the Iraqi people. Child malnutrition has nearly doubled since the occupation of Iraq began. Hospitals remain in disrepair and shortages of medicine are rampant. Electricity is sporadic at best. Security is virtually non-existent.

“And yet at this moment of crisis in the lives of Iraqis,” Ms. Butterly continues, “the United Nations stands poised to impose up to another 65 billion dollars in war reparations claims against Iraq. The Iraqi people had no choice when Saddam Hussein’s regime invaded Kuwait. He was wrong to do so. It is equally wrong to continue to punish the Iraqi people for the crimes of Saddam Hussein.”

The Fast for Economic Justice for Iraq was initiated by Jubilee Iraq and Voices in the Wilderness. The primary fast is in Geneva, Switzerland with others fasting in Amman and New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Sacramento, Montana and Camden. Fast participants include representatives from Jubilee Iraq, Voices in the Wilderness, Jubilee USA Network, Progressive Democrats of America, and Coalition for Democracy in Haiti.

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GENEVA–As I made my journey from Camden, New Jersey to Geneva I became overwhelmed with curiosity imagining what a country that stayed ambitiously neutral during World War II, and had produced such recognized documents as the Geneva Conventions would be like. Would Geneva be a haven of progressive politics and social radicalism? Or would the shroud of Calvinism and the “protestant work ethic” thwart my romantic sway? Upon arriving I found Geneva to be a beautiful city, confident, elegant and spotless! However, the immense “success” of the banking industry fills the poetic potency of the city with the sterile air of classicism. The revolutionary social writings of one of Switzerland’s most well known philosophers, Jean Jacques Rousseau, appear to have been written upon the banks of the Lake Geneva, and washed away by the ever strengthening tides of globalization. His legacy preoccupies my mind as I amble through avenues full of familiar names: McDonalds, Starbucks, H&M …

Still, I have not come to Geneva as a tourist. I have come, together with a small group of eight Americans, one Irish and one Iranian to fast and vigil at the entrance to the United Nations Geneva compound. We have gathered to challenge the legitimacy of the United Nations Compensation Committee meetings around economic restructuring and debt compensation in Iraq. As G-8 Conference members prepare to meet in Scotland over debt relief in Africa, the West’s most recent imperialist conquest, Iraq, faces its executioner once again on the ever perilous road towards self determination. In April 1991 the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 687, which established the legal foundation to impose war reparation claims against Iraq. In that same year the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) was born and given the thorny task of overseeing debt repayments Iraq accumulated under the lavish military spending sprees of Saddam’s Baath Party during its invasion of Kuwait. An extensive list of individuals, multinational corporations, and governments has demanded repayment to the tune of $385 billion.

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