Te Kaha - protecting "peace and freedom in the Gulf"?

The National government has spent more than $6,000,000 in 1999 ... "protecting peace and freedom in the Gulf"

(Wayne Mapp, 20 July 99).

Protecting peace and freedom ? What a joke !

They have sent the frigate Te Kaha to the Gulf to enforce economic sanctions against Iraq. The sanctions are responsible for the deaths of more than 6,000 people in Iraq (mainly of children under five years old) every month according to the United Nations Children's Emergency Fund.

More than 1,500,000 people have died in Iraq because of the sanctions since 1991 (*1).

Do you think NZ should be part of this terrible genocide ? Should our foreign policy simply be the same as US foreign policy - regardless of whether it is morally right or wrong ?

If you believe our government should not be involved in mass killing, then please help to make this an election issue !

What you can do :

* ask the parliamentary candidates in your electorate if they will stop NZ support for these immoral sanctions;

* ask list candidates what their party is going to do about the deployment of Te Kaha for such a purpose.

For more information on the effects of the economic sanctions, and the ongoing bombing raids by US and British warplanes - check out the PMA Iraq index of articles, alerts and updates.

*1 The sanctions were intended by the US government and its allies to stop Iraq producing weapons of mass destruction - yet the US has more weapons of mass destruction than anyone else. Is it fair that millions of people are being deliberately starved and not allowed access to medical supplies because of such hypocrisy ?
Stop killing the people of Iraq

Return to main page on Iraq.

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