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Institute for Public Accuracy
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Afghanistan and Iraq: Interviews Available
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| WASHINGTON
- October 30 -
PETER BOUCKAERT,
bouckap@hrw.org, www.hrw.org/press/2001/10/afghan1030.htm
Senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, for the last three weeks Bouckaert has been
interviewing five to ten Afghan refugees in Quetta and Peshawar daily. He said
today: "We have seen an increase in the impact of the bombing campaign on
the civilian population. There's a broader range of targets being hit -- the
International Committee of the Red Cross has been hit twice in Kabul and other
aid organizations have also been affected. It's clearly more than just radar
stations and airfields. I don't think that the U.S. is targeting civilians, but
some serious targeting errors are happening. A lot of the bombing is taking
place in the cities and so people are fleeing to the rural areas. That will
deplete the limited food supplies there and increase the likelihood of
famine." Human Rights Watch has just documented civilian deaths in two
Afghan villages caused by U.S. weaponry.
HANS VON SPONECK,
von_sponeck@yahoo.com,
www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june00/iraq_5-3.html
Former UN Assistant Secretary General, von Sponeck headed the UN "oil-for-food" program
until he resigned last year in protest over the continued sanctions on Iraq. On
a speaking tour in North America until November 11, von Sponeck said today:
"There's no evidence linking Iraq to the anthrax outbreak though some are
arguing that it is a likely suspect without offering evidence. Following this
path will only intensify the prospects of a silent suffering which has gone on
for 11 years. Iraq has polluted water, lack of medicine and malnutrition, all
due to the sanctions. The UN sanctions committee currently has 'holds'
preventing delivery of $4 billion of humanitarian supplies. It's clear that in
the case of Afghanistan, the so-called collateral damage that the international
community was told would not happen is now occurring."
PETER PELLETT,
pellett@nutrition.umass.edu,
www.fao.org/WAICENT/OIS/PRESS_NE/PRESSENG/2000/pren0049.htm
Professor emeritus of nutrition at the University of Massachusetts and team leader for several Food and Nutrition Missions to Iraq for the UN agency Food and Agricultural
Organization, Pellett said today: "In both Afghanistan and Iraq, we are
seeing widespread malnutrition, especially of young children. Both have
external causes though there has been a drought throughout the region for
several years. In Iraq the 'oil-for-food' program is providing 2,200 calories
per day, but child malnutrition is mainly caused by the dilapidation in the
water and sanitation systems. Afghanistan is clearly much more of an emergency
situation and the required food aid, which even previously was barely coping,
is now massively disrupted by both the air strikes and large population
movements. Significant distribution of food will only be possible when agreed
pauses are made in the air campaign."
KATHY KELLY,
kkelly@igc.org, www.vitw.org
Coordinator of Voices in the Wilderness, a group which has openly violated the economic
sanctions against Iraq, Kelly said today: "In the past, U.S. officials
presented a simplistic view of foreign policy -- everything that went wrong in
Iraq was blamed on Saddam Hussein. Now we're seeing the same thing for
Afghanistan. The Pentagon has been bombing Iraq continuously and that has been
ignored; now we bomb Afghanistan with cluster bombs. Aid agencies warn us that
millions of people in Afghanistan face starvation. People in other parts of the
world will be watching their plight. There is no clear indication that the
military campaign against Afghanistan is going to dislodge the Taliban or the
Al-Queda network. If anything, it may strengthen the existing regime the way a
decade of economic sanctions on Iraq have strengthened Hussein's government."
###
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