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Friday,
March 21, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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It’s crime against humanity: Saddam
Annan urges UN to help rebuild Iraq |
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Protests across globe
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WHILE the UN Security Council has chosen to remain a spectator, though not mute, of the US aggression against Iraq launched early today, the US Congress is maintaining what Democrat lawmaker Ms Jackson-Lee calls “deafening silence.” Oil price drops more
than $1 Malaysia regrets raid on Indians
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It’s crime against humanity: Saddam
Dubai, March 20 Dressed in military fatigue, Saddam Hussein in a television broadcast nearly three hours after the US-led coalition launched air and missile strikes on military installations, said “Iraq is being treated unjustly by enemies... and Iraq’s enemies will be humiliated.” Reading out from a prepared statement, Saddam exhorted the Iraqi people to “protect and defend this dear nation and its values” and said “you will be victorious against your enemies.” It was not clear whether the broadcast was live or pre-recorded. “Those who thought they are treated unjustly are granted permission to fight and God will give them victory,” Saddam said. The US-led attack was “added to the series of their shameful crimes against Iraq and humanity. This is a start for other additional crimes,” he said. “All Iraqis and those who care for our nation, sacrificing for the values of our nation... I will not repeat what should be said. It is the duty of all good people to protect and defend this dear nation and its values.” “We will resist the invaders, Saddam said, blasting the “cowardly aggression”. Appearing on his son Uday’s Youth Television, Saddam began by saying there “was no need to remind Iraqis what to do and what not to in the face of the attack.” “In any event you will be victorious over your enemies who are covered in opprobrium and ignominy,” he said in the nearly 10-minute address. “We promise you that Iraq, its leadership and its people will stand up to the evil invaders, and we will take them to such limits that they will lose their patience in achieving their plans, which are pushed by criminal Zionism, Saddam said. “They will face a bitter defeat, God willing,” he said. “You will be able to achieve glory and your despicable infidel enemies will be defeated.” “Draw your swords and not be afraid,” he told the Iraqi people before concluding his address in which he quoted classical Arab poetry boasting heroism of Arabs. Iraqi Information Minister Mohamed Saeed al-Sahhaf branded as “criminals” and “killers” US and British forces taking part in the attack and said it was “flagrant aggression”. “The war will be difficult and will finish in defeat for the Americans,” Sahhaf said. “The President is on duty,” he said at a press conference in Bagdad when asked where Saddam Hussein was.
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Saddam’s half-brother ‘defects’ London, March 20 The tabloid also claimed that soldiers were deserting Saddam in droves as they waved the white flag and fled before the onslaught of war.
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Annan urges UN to help rebuild Iraq United Nations, March 20 Noting that Iraq’s infrastructure had been devastated in the past 20 years by two major wars, internal uprisings and conflict and by more than a decade of UN sanctions, Mr Annan told the council yesterday: “In the short term, the conflict that is now clearly about to start can only make things worse, perhaps much worse.” There was a risk of epidemics and starvation in a country where the most vulnerable were denied basic health care for lack of medicine and medical equipment and one million children were chronically
malnourished, he said. Mr Annan said he shared the regrets expressed by many members that they were unable to find a common position before Britain and the USA said they would act outside the United Nations to disarm Iraq by force. “Whatever our differing views on this complex issue may be, we must all feel that this is a sad day for the United Nations and the international community,” he said. But while noting that “in any area under military occupation, responsibility for the welfare of the population falls on the occupying power,” Mr Annan said the United Nations would do whatever it could to help the Iraqi people. As a first step, Mr Annan will make recommendations to the council so as to revive the oil-for-food programme in Iraq as soon as possible after war begins, officials said. Two-thirds of Iraq’s 23 million people are almost totally dependent upon the programme, which permits their government to sell oil and import humanitarian supplies exempted from UN sanctions imposed on their country after it invaded Kuwait in August 1990. In Washington, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: “We look for prompt action to modify the oil-for-food programme,” which is supervised by the United Nations but implemented in most parts of Iraq by the government.
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Protests across globe
London, March 20 Barely three hours after the first US missiles struck Baghdad, a crowd that organisers put at 40,000 and which the police said numbered “tens of thousands’’ brought Australia’s second largest city, Melbourne, to a standstill. In Germany, 50,000 school students marched from Berlin’s central Alexanderplatz past the guarded US embassy and through the Brandenburg Gate. In France, the most vocal Western opponent of the war, a string of organisations planned a rally outside the US Embassy in Paris. British anti-war campaigners blocked roads, boycotted schools and workplaces, and began gathering in public places. In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian children marched in the Rafah refugee camp, holding Iraqi flags and posters of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, and setting fire to Israeli and US flags. About 150 people marched in the West Bank city of Bethlehem waving Iraqi and Palestinian flags and carrying portraits of Saddam. Egyptian police in Cairo beat back protesters trying to reach the US embassy and cordoned off the area, restoring order. Australia, a staunch ally of the USA, deployed armed police for the first time around parliament in Canberra and increased their presence at US diplomatic missions. Anti-American sentiment was stronger still in Muslim Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, where many saw the attack as the beginning of an American campaign to subjugate the Islamic world and seize control of oil. In Pakistan there were scattered but peaceful rallies across the country against what some called “American terrorism’’. Hundreds of people took to the streets of the commercial hub of Karachi, the cities of Multan and Lahore, and Peshawar on the northwest frontier with
Afgahnistan, as well as Rawalpindi. Reuters |
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Deafening silence in US Cong WHILE the UN Security Council has chosen to remain a spectator, though not mute, of the US aggression against Iraq launched early today, the US Congress is maintaining what Democrat lawmaker Ms Jackson-Lee calls “deafening silence.” Recent moves for discussing afresh the congressional authority given to President George W. Bush in October last year to use force against Saddam Hussein have proved to be a non-starter. Democrat congressman Peter DeFazio, contending that the sole authority to declare war rested with the Congress and the Congress alone, regretted that in the first ever pre-emptive war in the nation’s history, “the House of Representatives, under Republican leadership, has slipped into irrelevance, silent and compliant.” Another Democrat, Pete Stark, in a media interview, denounced the Bush administration’s policy towards Iraq as “an act of extreme terrorism.” If the President initiates the conflict, “it is blood on Bush’s hands,” he said, earlier this week. On Monday, Senate minority leader Tom Daschle earned the ire of the Republicans for his statement that he was “saddened that this President failed so miserably at diplomacy that we are now forced to war.” Mr Jim McDermott, Democrat, told the House of Representatives: “We have never before in the history of the USA invaded another country without some kind of immediate provocation. But from now on, under the Bush doctrine, we are going to invade when we think it is a good idea, whether the Security Council agrees or not. This is a dangerous course.” |
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Oil price drops more than $1 Singapore, March 20 The OPEC producers’ cartel pledged to fill any gap in supply due to hostilities in the oil-rich Middle East, while the West’s energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said it saw no reason to release emergency stocks for the time being. Hours after US jets began a dawn raid of Baghdad, officials in nearby Saudi Arabia and Kuwait said crude production continued normally, while shippers reported no interruptions to tanker movements. US light crude fell $1.35 to $28.53 a barrel, while London’s Brent crude dropped $1.02 to $25.73 a barrel. “Prices have come down because the uncertainty is gone. The start of the war just means the end of the war is closer,” said David Thurtell, commodities strategist at Commonwealth Bank in Sydney. Geoff Pyne, consultant to Sempra Energy, said there were still potential dangers ahead that could cause crude to shoot higher. “Most obviously, there is a danger that Saddam may blow up the Iraqi oilfields, either as a defensive measure, or to deny them to the USA. Even if this doesn’t happen there is a high chance of at least a month of missing Iraqi exports,” Pyne said.
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Malaysia regrets raid on Indians Kuala Lumpur, March 20 “We are not so proud as to not apologise if there is a mistake committed by our enforcement officers,” said Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmed Badawi. “I have already informed the ministry to take whatever action is necessary, and regarding the complaint to say that we are sorry for what has happened,” added Abdullah. “What is important is we want the bilateral relations between Malaysia and India to be good all the time and to improve,” Abdullah said.
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