Sir, - Frans Frison (March 13th) has raised some important questions, the most pertinent being the hypocrisy of the United Nations with regard to the genocide being perpetrated in Iraq (John Pilger's report, ITV, March 6th).
Dennis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary General of the UN, and a man of great integrity, resigned in 1998 because he could not accept the death and suffering that UN sanctions were causing in Iraq.
In John Pilger's programme, he indicted Tony Blair and Bill Clinton for genocide. Approximately 4,000 children were dying every month because of the most comprehensive sanctions against any country in human history. Basic human needs were denied the innocent and most vulnerable in Iraqi society which is the opposite of what the UN stands for. February 13th saw the resignation of Hans van Sponeck, UN chief co-ordinator in Iraq. This was followed by the resignation of Jutta Borghardt, director of the UN's World Food Programme in Iraq. These resignations have dismayed both the US and Britain and underline the seriousness of the accusations of violations of the very human rights that the UN is supposed to safeguard and nurture.
The oil-for-food programme, according to Von Sponeck, has degenerated into welfare handouts and the heavily US-influenced sanctions committee in New York decides at its whim and fancy how much and what type of aid can be sent - vaccines were held back as they could be used for potential biological weapons; lead pencils were not allowed because the graphite could be in some way to make weapons of mass destruction! Thousands of innocent children die each month from the effects of depleted uranium 238 from the weapons of "allied" bombings while a UN committee assumes the moral high ground and wants us to believe that such action is necessary to save the world from Saddam Hussein.
The continuation of such harsh sanctions and the loss of so many young children, whose right to life, health and education the UN and its various committees promote world wide, cannot go on. We have just entered the 21st century and the international community it seems has not learned from its past mistakes of too little to late. When asked by John Pilger about the current nuclear capability of Iraq, John Ritter, UNSCOM weapons inspector replied "zero". When asked what potential threat Iraq posed now, his answer was "zero".
The Western media is dominant on the world stage. Sometimes, however, it is also part of the corporate elite. The US and Britain have successfuly used a campaign of demonising its opponents and justifying its actions to "save mankind" from disaster. While the quiet genocide goes on in Iraq, the world's press has turned its attention elsewhere. The public is led to believe that "allied" action in Iraq is totally justified. John Pilger must be credited for his courage as a journalist for bringing the powerful images of yet another human tragedy. When asked about the folly of sanctions as applied to Iraq at present, Has von Sponeck replied: ". . . you try to catch a tiger and end up killing the nightingale". - Yours, etc.,
A. Amod, Westland Row, Dublin 2.