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PRESS RELEASE
Voices in the Wilderness UK
23rd May 2002
Contact: 07947839992/ 0845 458 2564
Iraqi airways sick bag to be auctioned in London Friday
An Iraqi airways sick bag will be among dozens of more desirable items to be
auctioned at an Iraqi sanctions breaking auction this Friday in London.
(Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, Holborn 7.30pm). The bag was picked up (but
not used) last week by Gabriel Carlyle, during a flight from Baghdad to
Basra, through the so called "no fly zones" in Iraq. Gabriel was in Iraq as
part of a Voices in the Wilderness sanctions breaking delegation.
Other items to be auctioned include Iraqi headscarves, material,
dresses, books, dates, soap, henna, postcards and stamp sets, all purchased
last week in Iraq by the delegates. By purchasing, importing, and selling
the goods, the delegation will be breaking the export sanctions on Iraq,
punishable by five years in prison. (1)
Gabriel, a communication support worker from Oxford, and Emma
Sangster, an artist and designer from London who was also on the delegation
will talk about what they found in Iraq last week and the discussions they
had with senior UN officials.
Uppermost in Gabriel's mind was the devastation which the military
onslaught favoured by George Bush and Tony Blair is likely to cause.
"It's inevitable that if the US and UK do launch another Desert
Storm type
attack on Iraq that they will destroy Iraq's infrastructure again,
just as they did in
1991. We have had dire warnings from Carol de Rooy, the UNICEF
representative in Baghdad that bombing could cause a "nightmare
scenario" if
it disrupts the food ration. Should Iraq's electricity system be
targeted - as it
was in 1991 - the water and sewage systems could collapse with
truly
catastrophic consequences."
Attend the auction, hear eyewitness reports: Friday 24 May at 7.30pm, Conway
Hall, Holborn, London.
Contact: 0845 4582564/ 07947839992
(1) The legal status of selling goods exported from Iraq in this country is
spelt out in the Iraq and Kuwait (United Nations Sanctions)(Amendment) Order
1990 of 29th August 1990.
This states that 'Except under the authority of a licence granted by the
Secretary of State under this order or the Import of Goods (Control) Order
1954(c) ... no person shall ... make or carry out any contract for the sale
of any goods which he intends or has reason to believe that another person
intends to export from ... Iraq.'
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