Iraqis' Suffering
Can Be Made Worse
Don't go to war
By Barbara Stocking
OXFORD, England -- Iraq is not only on the brink of war. It is teetering
on the edge of a humanitarian disaster. Child mortality rates have rocketed
since the United Nations imposed sanctions in 1990. Up to 16 million
people - more than two-thirds of the population - already rely on a
fragile system of food aid for their survival.
What are we planning to do
about this? The United States and Britain are gearing up for war. Oxfam
has 60 years experience of working in conflict. We know the impact that
military action has on civilians. In some cases, as in Rwanda, military
action is necessary to save lives and is justified. But, on the basis
of our experience and the current evidence, we cannot see how a military
strike on Iraq can be justified, nor indeed how such an attack could
be waged without violating international humanitarian law.
Iraq's economy is already
devastated. Even with the food rationing system set up by the international
community, malnutrition is widespread, especially among women and children.
A recent visit to Iraq by
aid agency experts, including an Oxfam specialist, confirmed that the
water and sanitation system is on the verge of collapse.
Most urban homes get piped
water but two-thirds of it is untreated. In rural parts of central and
southern Iraq, Unicef says only 46 percent of homes have piped water.
In the towns, the trucks that empty cesspits and septic tanks are not
working properly because there are no spares, tires and batteries. Sewage
flows back into people's houses.
Iraq's water and sanitation
system depends on an electrical supply that was crippled during the
1991 air strikes. Eleven years later, it is thought that one-third of
the national power supply is still down. Most water treatment plants
have their own generators, but 70 percent of them don't work.
Any military action that
damages power supplies will inevitably destroy the already fragile water
and sanitation system. Inevitably, disease will sweep through the population.
Any attack that affects roads, ports or railways will lead to the collapse
of the system of food distribution upon which the bulk of Iraq's population
depends.
Article 54 of Additional
Protocol 1 of the Geneva convention prohibits attacks upon "objects
indispensable to the survival of the civilian population." In Iraq,
this must be taken to include ports, roads, railways and power lines.
The convention states that "in no event shall actions against these
objects be taken which may be expected to leave the civilian population
with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation or force
its movement."
Given this, how can an attack
on Iraq fail to violate international humanitarian law?
Weapons of mass destruction
are a real threat to global stability. But in this case the advocates
of military action have failed to demonstrate that Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction pose such an imminent threat that the risks to the
civilian population can be outweighed.
It is dangerous to assume
that the suffering of Iraq's people, from Iraqi government policy as
well as from 12 years of inept sanctions, could not get any worse. A
military attack on Iraq could worsen it.
(The writer is
director of Oxfam. She contributed this comment to the International
Herald Tribune.)