Part 7 - DW062 001 021 007

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unimaginable human suffering in the form of a collective punishment on a whole people, a practice explicitly outlawed in international law. I accuse them here in Athens, just as I accused them in Baghdad, and in Karachi, Delhi, Tripoli, France, Spain — over 12 countries in all, and of course Ramsay Clark and others with much greater authority and force than me have advanced this accusation in many other countries as well. We must work hard to become more than just an irritation; we must become a real embarrassment to those who continue to impose the embargo on Iraq; we must grow to a stage where we can exercise an actual influence on our governments' policies. Our Commission opposes all blockades, whether unilateral by the US or the European Community or under the banner of the UN, which are intended to impose greater poverty on the poorer countries of the world. The case of Iraq, where the result of this policy has been to generate a new zone of poverty and destitution where prosperity previously prevailed, is the most extreme and graphic case. But we also oppose this weapon of hunger as such, whether the target be People's Korea, Cuba, Libya, Serbia, Haiti or anywhere else. In the message which he sent to this Conference, Iraq's President Saddam Hussein expressed in a nutshell what I believe lies at the heart of the Middle Eastern situation today — that Iraq's development is in conflict with imperialist objectives. It is consequently encouraging to note that in recent days the situation in the Middle East shows signs of a tendency towards greater independence from Western-imposed policies, with a senior Omani official and other Gulf public figures making important statements against the embargo on Iraq, with a successful visit by Iraq's Foreign Minister to Turkey, and indeed with Egypt beginning to stand up to US and Israeli pressure on the nuclear non- proliferation issue. Surely now even those who have till now acquiesced in the policies of the Al Saud and the Al Sabah must be asking themselves whether or not they wish to resign themselves to joining a Middle Eastern economy united under US-Israeli domination — a new Middle Eastern order whose corner-stone is the embargo on Iraq. I hope that these potential political developments in the Middle East might encourage the Arab community in Britain, perhaps a quarter of a million strong, to support more actively our work to defend Iraq, and to join their Pakistani, Irish and other sisters and brothers of the communities of many nationalities who have till now been our Commission's most active supporters. Finally, I hope my remarks on what we have learnt in practice may make a contribution to implementing the urgent Appeal for Action being discussed by this Conference, and we in Britain will be supporting that

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