Reporter John Pilger, whose British television documentary "Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq" was released last year, states that British Royal Air Force pilots are protesting the way the zones are being enforced. Apparently, they are ordered to return to their base in Turkey while the Turkish Air Force flies bombing runs to attack suspected encampments of the PKK, a Kurdish group which has bases in northern Iraq. Although the NFZs were ostensibly set up to protect Iraq's minority populations in the north (the Kurds) and the south (Shi'ite Muslims), the pilots noted that those killed and wounded by the Turks and by allied planes often include the very people allegedly being protected.

Countries which condemned the U.S. bombing of Iraq on February 16 include: Russia, France, China (three permanent members of the U.N. Security council), Malaysia, Syria, Saudi Arabia and India. Many Arab nations, once members of the coalition which fought to get Iraq out of Kuwait in 1991, have denounced the U.S. bombings, particularly in recent months. With the Palestinian uprising and the harsh Israeli response, the Arab community is uniting. At a late March summit, the Arab League‹including Kuwait‹ called for a lifting of sanctions, and stopped short of condemning the no-fly zone policies only because of a dispute in wording between Iraq and Kuwait.

On April 2, Reuters reported that U.S. planes dropped leaflets warning Iraqi soldiers not to fire at them. As is the case with the U.S. plane which crashed into Chinese planes, one has to wonder what right the U.S. has to fly in or near these other countries' airspace without international support.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is looking at changing the sanctions on Iraq, in place since August, 1990, so that more humanitarian aid can get in, and commercial flights may resume (although some 20 countries have flown humanitarian flights into Iraq since September), while keeping all of Iraq's oil proceeds flowing through a U.N.-controlled account in Iraq. The lowest estimate of the number of people who have died as a result of the sanctions, in combination with the effects of the country's infrastructure being destroyed in the 1991 war, is 500,000. (Higher estimates are that over 1.5 million Iraqis have died.)

What can you do? Call for the end of the no-fly zone patrols. They have no legal basis, they are destructive, dangerous and costly. Tell your friends and neighbors. Tell your elected representatives, call the media and ask them to cover this story so that people will know what is being done in their name. While you're at it, call for an end to the sanctions. The U.N. was not created to run the world's nations in the way that they now control most of Iraq's financial resources. The people will never be able to change their leadership if they are hungry and ill and see their government as protecting them from the outside world. It has been ten years and we, too, signed a cease-fire agreement. It is time to set an example and obey this U.N. resolution.

CONTACT INFORMATION Send a message to END THE BOMBING and LIFT THE SANCTIONS: UN Security Council United Nations Headquarters New York, NY 10017 Secretary General Kofi Annan (212) 963-5012 Secretary of State Colin Powell (202) 647-6575 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (202) 224-4651 House Committee on Foreign Affairs (202) 225-5201 U.S. Representative to the United Nations 799 UN Plaza New York, NY 10017 (212) 415-4404/415-4062 President George W Bush 1600 Pennsylvania Ave Washington, DC 20500 (202) 456-1111 +1 +1 president@whitehouse.gov

For more information contact Voices in the Wilderness (Chicago): (773) 784-8065; kkelly@igc.org; www.nonviolence.org/vitw Iraq Action Coalition: rmasri@leb.net; www.iraqaction.org (flyer prepared by:) Peace and Justice Works Iraq Affinity Group PO Box 42456 Portland, OR 97242 (503)236-3065 call for meeting times!

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