1. Sanctions Against Iraq
Given that: ten years of sanctions against Iraq have had little effect on the regime, but devastated the lines of ordinary people in Iraq, depriving them of essential food and medical supplies, and resulting in over a million deaths, three quarters of whom were children under five years of age;
will you, if elected, press the Government of Canada to lift all non-military sanctions against Iraq and to urge other countries to do likewise?
Background: The strict ten-year economic embargo against Iraq is the longest, most comprehensive and most severe set of multi-lateral sanctions ever imposed.
The sanctions have had a grave effect upon people in Iraq. Scarcities in food and medicine as a result of the sanctions led to an estimated 1.2 million deaths between 1990 and 1997.
Seven hundred and fifty thousand of these were children younger than age five - more than tripling their mortality rate. Thirty-two percent of children under five are chronically malnourished, a rise of 72 percent from 1991.
Continuing the sanctions for this long is a gross violation of the political, cultural, social and economic rights of the people of Iraq. The sanctions also violate international law, specifically the letter and spirit of the Geneva Convention of 1949, which prohibits collective punishment.