Houston, Texas ~ January 18, Houstonians came together "in community to mourn deaths and reflect upon the reality of destruction and devastation suffered by the children and their families in Iraq due to more than seven years of economic sanctions." People gathered in Rothko Chapel, which the director, Suna Umari , described as having been designed by Dominique de Menil "as a place of contemplation and action."
"We stand here with thanksgiving for the inspiration of their lives," Lee Loe said of Jean and Dominique de Menil. They were "individuals inspired to live with a vision of justice and human rights. . .individuals that embraced moral courage and made it their own."
In the presence of this legacy, Ann Bragdon began her section of the service, World of Devastation and Death, with a personal reflection.
"It was a time of rising expectations in Iraq. My husband taught at one of the five medical schools in the country responsible for educating a growing number of health professionals, many of whom also studied for medical specialization in Britain or the United States.
"Education of health care professionals was part of an elaborate medical system that served the entire population. . .with no charge; health care was free. Literacy rates were high and an educational system free and open to all was a priority and a reality.
"Women were educated and employed in all professions. . .this was the subject of my field research. Iraq's secular society enjoyed the benefit of distribution of the revenue of its nationalized oil industry.
"The standard of living was improving for all. The middle class was increasing; home building on newly distributed land was typical throughout the country.
"Sitting on top of the rich natural resources, children and their families of 1980 had every reason to believe the future would be even better. No one would have foreseen the death and devastation that followed — wars and more than 7 years of sanctions, the war that has not ended."
Ann then described the Iraq of 1994 as seen by Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General, three years after the 1991 bombing. "He saw crumpled sewage lines, water pipes and twisted electrical grids. 'I saw how a modern industrializing society is built on a fragile, vulnerable network,' he wrote." Iraq's industrial base was bombed including pharmaceutical and fertilizer plants. Most schools closed due to lack of funds, supplies, transportation and to the illness of students.
Clark said, "vast modern housing developments with wide boulevards, built so proudly on the outskirts of Baghdad, had become fetid swamps, lacking pumps or sewage lines for drainage. Chlorine to purify water and pesticides for the swarms of mosquitos and flies are both banned under UN sanctions," he noted. Fertilizers, ambulances, medical books and journals and pencils are also prohibited.
The significance of the effect of the sanctions, begun in August of 1990, was brought home to participants by the ringing of a bell every ten minutes to mark the death of yet another Iraqi child under five years of age.
Approximately 285 of these children die each day due to the lack of medicines, the spreading of disease and to malnutrition. Of the over 1.4 million Iraqi's who have died (as of June 1997 – UNICEF), 750,000 were young children under 5 years of age, and the number continues to grow.
Iraq's Health Minister, Umeed Mubarak, said on May 9, 1997, that the mortality rate for children under 5 before the embargo was 540 deaths per month. In May the number had risen to 5,600. (An average of the UNICEF figure is 8,928 deaths each month.)
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit, visited Iraq last summer. Upon his return to the U.S., he said the sanctions "constitute the greatest human rights abuses of our times."
In a letter to the UN Security Council in August of 1997, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark wrote: "No government, or individual, who participates in the continuation of those sanctions will act with impunity in the judgement of history, or if international law is liberated from power, escape condemnation for violation of the Genocide and Geneva Conventions."
In the spirit of Rothko Chapel, we must contemplate this crime being committed in our names, and take action. Remember, the bell tolls every ten minutes for the death of yet another Iraqi child. ¨