The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
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Dear Margarita, Felicity, Dave, John (and everyone else) Many thanks for your thoughtful postings. Like you, I've seen the sanctions at work in hospitals in Iraq, and, like you, I've found it a tearing experience which is very difficult to digest or to deal with. Like you, I've dedicated a large part of the last few years to trying to wake up public opinion back here in the West and to mobilising that opinion into an effective force for change, an effective force against the lies and deceit of the British government in particular. Part of that effort has been trying to gather together and distribute the information needed to refute Foreign Office lies as they appear (and re-appear, and re-appear). Only solid, independent, credible information can empower people to resist the tidal wave of propaganda we get every day about Iraq, and help them to persuade others, and to widen the circle of dissent and resistance. I'm sure we all agree on that. When, inadvertently or perhaps sometimes carelessly - I can think of Voices UK's early use of the supposed FAO estimate of 1995, for example - we disseminate information which is not solid, independent and credible, we weaken the movement. People who get that information use it (against their MPs or the Foreign Office, or whoever). If those activists then are unable to back up what they claim, if those activists are shown to be saying things which aren't true, that failure shakes their confidence, makes them less likely to campaign, undermines other people's willingness to hear what they are saying, sets back the hopes of the Iraqi people. It helps to prolong the agony which all five of us have seen many times in Iraq's hospitals. I'm sure we all agree on this, too. The point of my original intervention, and in part of Per's careful - not academic, but careful - posting, was to say: a) anti-sanctions activists in the past have claimed that the UN or a UN agency has estimated child deaths due to sanctions at 500,000, or total deaths due to sanctions at 1 million, or similar figures b) these claims cannot be backed up - neither the UN nor any UN agency has made such estimates c) if we make such claims ABOUT WHAT THE UN IS SUPPOSED TO HAVE SAID we are shooting ourselves in the foot I'm not urging anyone to stop saying that they believe that 1 million Iraqis may have been killed by the economic sanctions. This seems quite a reasonable figure. But it is not a figure that we can attribute to the UN. By making such unfounded claims, we weaken the movement, we prolong the agony of children in Iraqi hospitals. Let's put it in a suitably un-academic way: Making unfounded claims does not help the children of Iraq. It helps George Bush and Robin Cook and Tony Blair. All of us on this list are dedicated to ending the economic sanctions as soon as possible. There is plenty of solid, independent, credible information around to help us do that (CASI has played an invaluable role in bringing a lot of it together). There is no need for us to make claims that we cannot support. Let's get on with campaigning, using the best information we can and supporting each other as much as we can. Best wishes Mil Milan Rai Joint Coordinator Voices in the Wilderness UK National Office 16B Cherwell St, Oxford OX4 1BG Personal contact details 29 Gensing Road, St Leonards-on-sea TN38 0HE ph 0845 458 9571 (local rate) pager 07623 746 462 -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website: http://www.casi.org.uk