Part 6 - DW062 001 021 006

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I feel we at this Conference are all left asking the same question — how to develop means of building effective action in a practical way that can rise to the urgent task of exercising pressure on the UN Security Council, the US Congress, the British Parliament, and other bodies responsible for the embargo. Our International Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions is proposed as just one example of how to build means of influencing public opinion. It continues the work of the International War Crimes Tribunal initiated by Ramsay Clark following the Gulf crisis and war of 1990-1991. In form, the Commission is quasi-judicial, but in essence it aims to develop means of by-passing the media blockade on the embargo question. We aim to provide a popular platform for lawyers, journalists, religious and peace activists along with all others from the community who can express what so many people feel, that the embargo on Iraq is a crime. This way we can at least reach local newspapers and radio, and exercise pressure on local parliamentarians and in other ways advance ordinary decent people's capacity to exercise that influence for justice which they have the desire and right to exercise. We are proud that our efforts have received the sponsorship of the distinguished members of our Honorary Presidency, which consists of Ramsay Clark himself, and Ahmad Ben Bella, former President of Algeria, along with Dr Morad Ghaleb, former Foreign Minister of Egypt, Tony Benn MP of Britain, Daniel Ortega, former President of Nicaragua, Shaikh Mohammad Rashid, former Deputy Prime Minister of Pakistan, Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, former Prime Minister of Malta, and Clodomiro Almeyda, former Vice-President of Chile. All these personalities have expressed great interest and concern for the success of our project. It is encouraging to us that Dr Ghaleb is present with us at this Conference, and I can assure you that all the others are following our proceedings with equal concern. Having organised Public Hearings of our Commission and its predecessor organisation in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Bradford and Nottingham, and having attended such events also in Madrid, Lahore and Delhi, I should like to propose that this Athens Conference, in view of the testimonies it has heard, be considered to have the status of a Public Hearing of the International Commission of Inquiry on Economic Sanctions. If you accept, I believe it will be a concrete way in which we can support each other's work. In pressing forward this work, we can popularise the founding documents of modern international law, such as the Geneva Convention and the Nuremberg Principles, under which there can be no doubt that the actions of Thatcher, Major and Hurd are plainly and simply illegal, and I am prepared to accuse them here in Athens of the exercise of criminal means for unjustified political and economic aims — means that are inflicting

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