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From	Andrew.Bacelis@directory.Reed.EDU (Andrew Bacelis)
Date	26 Sep 99 20:29:53 PDT
Subject	globe_l: Iraq Sanctions update; Cluster Bomb Kills 4 Children; Uprising in Italian Immigrant "Detention" Camp

(1)	Iraq sanctions: Albright seethes, Van Sponek pleads (South News 9/21)

(2)	NATO Cluster bomb in Yugoslavia kills 4 children (Reuters 9/21/99)

(3)	Violent Suppression of Uprising in Italian "Detention" Camp for Immigrants (Ya Basta!, Milan, Italy)
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(1)	Iraq sanctions: Albright seethes, Van Sponek pleads (South News 9/21)

--- Forwarded Message from Peace and Justice Works <pjw@agora.rdrop.com> ---

Albright lobbies for Iraq human shield at UN
                                      
   United Nations: Sept 21 ( South News) US Secretary of State Madeleine
   Albright insisted Monday that any easing of the devastating sanctions
   against Iraq must not enrich Saddam Hussein "for palaces and poison
   gas"  on the eve of expected talks about Iraq at the United Nations.
   
   Albright claims: "The Baghdad regime has tried hard to silence the
   Iraqi people and to hide the evidence of its crimes against them." Her
   comments seem to come in reply to the senior United Nations official,
   Hans von Sponek in Baghdad. He called on Sunday for an immediate and
   unconditional lifting of many sanctions that would open the way to
   bigger flows of food, medicine and most other Iraqi imports.
   
   In an impassioned call about the dangers of "using the human shield"
   in hopes of coaxing Iraqi concessions on arms issues Hans von Sponek,
   United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq said on Sunday,
   "Please remove the humanitarian discussions from the rest in order to
   really end a silent human tragedy."
   
   On the opening day of the annual U.N. General Assembly session,
   Albright met in her hotel room with a group of Iraqi opposition
   leaders, financed by the U.S. to lobby other countries about the Iraq
   sanctions, as part of President Clinton's $97 million that Congress
   earmarked for supporting efforts within Iraq to topple the current
   government.
   
   "This courageous group, visiting New York for the opening of the
   General Assembly, has shown that Saddam has failed." She said the
   dissidents "told me of the regime's continuing daily oppression
   against all those Iraqis still subject to Baghdad's control."
   
   Foreign ministers of the five Security Council permanent members,
   meanwhile, are to meet on the sidelines of the General Assembly, for
   talks on a possible suspension of the embargo.
   
   France, Russia and China, three of the five permanent Security Council
   members, have been sympathetic to Iraq's contention that its
   Government has essentially carried out its obligations to the weapons
   inspectors. Those Governments now appear to support a plan that would
   allow an immediate end to the sanctions in return for Iraq's agreement
   to a new and less intrusive system of weapons inspection.
   
   The United States and Britain, claim that Iraq may still be concealing
   an illicit weapons program and have argued for tougher terms. Together
   with the Netherlands, Britain has called for a plan that would allow
   only a moderate easing of the sanctions -  and only after a test
   period of several months that would be intended to gauge Iraq's
   cooperation with a new inspection regime.
   
   But United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, Hans von Sponek, said a
   dispute over plans to revive international weapons inspections in Iraq
   now posed increasing risks to the social fabric in a country that has
   already suffered more than nine years of United Nations sanctions.
   
   "Don't play the battle on the backs of the civilian population by
   letting them wait until the more complex issues are resolved," von
   Sponek, from Germany, who is the United Nations Humanitarian
   Coordinator for Iraq, said in an interview.
   
   Von Sponek and his predecessor, Denis Halliday, have long tried to
   turn international attention toward the suffering of ordinary Iraqis,
   while the United States and Britain continue to focus on the perceived
   intransigence of the Iraqi Government, and to blame that Government
   for the economic plight of its citizens.
   
   Sponek, the United Nations representative, has responsibility only for
   humanitarian issues, and not the arms inspections. But among those who
   disagree about further weapons inspections, he noted, there is a
   consensus that ordinary Iraqis have suffered under the embargo. All
   nations, he argued, should now move to halt what he called the
   "continuing deprivation" of the Iraqi people.
   
   Pointing to increases in poverty and crime, including prostitution,
   and the deteriorating quality of education, von Sponek said he
   believed that Iraq should be given broad latitude to import any goods
   that did not also have military use.
   
   Iraq's health authorities said on Sunday that 7,632 children under the
   age of five died in August as a result of shortages of food and
   medicines caused by the sanctions, the Iraqi News Agency said.
   
   It said the children died of diarrhoea, pneumonia, breathing problems
   and malnutrition, compared to 302 in August 1989. Among elderly
   people, 2555 deaths have been reported because of preventable diseases
   including heart disease, hypertension, diabetes and malignant tumours,
   much higher than August 1989 figures which reported 480 deaths for
   this category.
   
   It quoted the Health Ministry as saying that the latest deaths brought
   to nearly 1.2 million the number of people who have died during the
   nine years of sanctions. Since the imposition of sanctions on August
   6, 1990 and up to late August 1999, nearly 2 million (1,187 486)
   Iraqis have died of sanctions-related causes.
   
   Meanwhile Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf travelled to
   New York on Sunday to argue Iraq's case at the UN General Assembly for
   a lifting of the sanctions. Last week  al-Sahhaf presided over the
   Arab League meeting, marking the first time Iraq had taken the chair
   since the Gulf war. Speaking at the close of the league's two-day
   meeting here, Esmat Abdel-Meguid, the Arab League's secretary general,
   said Arab states would like to see the lifting of U.N. sanctions.
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(2)	NATO Cluster bomb in Yugoslavia kills 4 children (Reuters 9/21/99)


--- Forwarded Message from Peace and Justice Works <pjw@agora.rdrop.com> ---
>Subject: NATO Cluster bomb in Yugoslavia kills 4 children (Reuters 9/21/99)

Four Kosovo children killed by NATO cluster bomb
   
   Updated 12:19 PM ET September 21, 1999

PRISTINA (Reuters) - Four children were killed when a cluster bomb left
over from NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia exploded in a field in eastern
Kosovo, international peacekeepers said Tuesday.
   
The NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force said two more children were wounded
by the explosion near the town of Mogila Monday afternoon.
   
"One of the wounded children has been hospitalized and is now in a
satisfactory condition," KFOR spokesman Major Roland Lavoie said in the
force's daily update of incidents.
   
"The other has already been treated and released. Explosive ordnance
disposal teams are currently searching the area for other potential 
threats," Lavoie said.
   
Lavoie also reported that Russian troops in the eastern town of Kamenica
Tuesday found an 82-year-old Serb woman murdered in her home.
   
Attacks on the province's Serb minority have plagued Kosovo since the
peacekeepers arrived in the mainly ethnic Albanian province in mid-June.
                                      
http://news.excite.com/news/r/990921/12/yugoslavia-kosovo-bomb
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(3)	Uprising in Italian "Detention" Camp for Immigrants:	More Violence Against Immigrants Entering Fortress Europe

--- Forwarded Message from "Ya basta!" <yabasta@tin.it> ---
>Subject: globe_l: CORELLI IN FLAMES - QUESTIONS IN PARLIAMENT
>Reply-To: globe_l@ecn.org

CORELLI IN FLAMES - QUESTIONS IN PARLIAMENT

Milan, 23 September, 6.00 p.m.

Via Corelli, new revolts, more beatings, more wounded.

The institutions continue to keep silent, to hide the facts, to pretend
nothing is happening.

Today the prisoners of the Via Corelli camp rebelled once again, setting
fire to tables to try and attract attention and escape in any way possible
from behind those bars.

There followed an incursion by the $E3forces of law and order$E4 with helmets
and truncheons, who re-established order in their own way, causing a large
number of casualties and intense ambulance traffic.  IT WAS A TRUE BEATING,
AIMED AT RE-ESTABLISHING ORDER AND TERROR INSIDE THE MILAN CONCENTRATION
CAMP.  Even a fireman was overcome by smoke in the attempt to put out the
fire.

We must remember that this is only the latest in a series of similar
episodes that have taken place inside the Corelli camp, where we have seen
people deported under the effect of drugs, accusations of violence towards
women, self-inflicted bodily harm, suicide attempts.

The speakers at the two-day conference, $E3THE ALIENS$E2 CONFERENCE - Migrants
without papers and refugees -  from possible alternatives, to the network
for the closure of the prison camps$E4, asked for access to be granted during
the sit-in to be held on Sunday 26 September at 4.00 p.m. at the Corelli
camp, in order to check on conditions inside.

In the light of the most recent events, it seems particularly important that
this check should be carried out but the buck is already being passed as to
whose responsibility it is to grant access.

WE MUST REVEAL THE BARBAROUS ATTITUDE OF THE $E3FORCES OF LAW AND ORDER" AND
THE NECESSITY TO TEAR DOWN THE VEILS THAT CONCEAL THE MILAN PRISON CAMP,
MAKING IT INACCESSIBLE TO ANY KIND OF MONITORING.

The Hon. Paolo Cento has announced his intention to present urgent questions
to Parliament on the subject of today$E2s events in the Corelli camp.

Milan, 23 September, 2.00 p.m.

26 September, 4.00 p.m., Visit to the Milan prison camp.
The Questura will not grant access.
Will this be granted by the Prefettura?

We accept bets..

Today the Questura refused the application to visit the $E3Temporary Residence
Centre" for immigrants without papers, in Via Corelli, Milan.

The application regarded access to the city$E2s prison camp by Don Andrea
Gallo, Don Luigi Ciotti, Alessandro Dal Lago,  Marco Revelli, Salavatore
Palidda, Alessandro Mezzadra, Bruno Menotti (from the Ya Basta! Association
and the Leoncavallo Social centre) and the other speakers at the two-day
conference to be held at the Leoncavallo Social Centre on the theme, $E3THE
ALIENS$E2 CONFERENCE - Migrants without papers and refugees - from possible
alternatives, to the network for the closure of the prison camps$E4.

As usual we see the beginning of the buck-passing game - the Questura passes
the buck to the Prefettura, which, during the last few months$E2 experience of
observation and filing of complaints from inside the centre, has shown rigid
indifference.

Conversations only in the presence of jailers?  Immigrants without papers,
forcefully deported after having been drugged, wake up in a country that is
not theirs?  Constant revolts and fighting subdued by the use of force?
Suicide attempts and self-inflicted bodily harm, in order to be sent to
hospital and at least get out of the camp?  The Prefettura has never made
any comments.

In times of summits on security, the mechanisms of the expulsion machinery
for immigrant-criminals are to be flaunted and praised without a trace of
uncertainty, quickly wiping away the blood.  And city prison camps, like the
one in Via Corelli, must remain hidden, invisible, inaccessible to any kind
of check on their viability.

This is the reason why all these illegal aliens$E2 have made an appointment
where they will reflect and take action, to suggest possible alternatives to
the expulsion machinery and to observe and make known the conditions they
observe inside the camp.


The Questura will not grant access. Will this be granted by the Prefettura?
We accept bets..

Ya Basta! Association - Lombardy.  Leoncavallo Social Centre.
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european counter network
contact e-mail : samizdat@ecn.org
www.ecn.org/samizdat
envoi de messages sur la liste :  globe_l@ecn.org
archives web : www.ecn.org/lists/globe_l

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