Hero's welcome for Galloway in Baghdad!
New Worker Online
Hero's welcome for Galloway in Baghdad!
by Our Middle East Affairs correspondent
GEORGE GALLOWAY, the campaigning Glasgow Labour MP, received a hero's
welcome in Baghdad as he arrived in the now famous big red bus at the
end of the mercy mission launched by the Mariam Appeal.
The double-decker London bus arrived in the Iraqi capital last
Saturday evening completing an epic two-month journey which began in
London last September. The bus, carrying medical aid to blockaded
Iraq, travelled through France and Spain, then through Morocco,
Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Jordan to reach its goal, Baghdad.
Now it's in the capital of the defiant Arab country under air and
economic attack from Anglo-American imperialism.
All along the journey the bus stopped for rallies to mobilise public
opinion against the brutal blockade which has led to the death of over
a million Iraqis since 1990.
Last Sunday thousands of Iraqis packed the Great Conference Hall in
Baghdad to welcome Galloway and the volunteers who came with him.
Deputy premier Tariq Aziz called him "a true friend of the Iraqi
people" in his welcome. The Iraqi minister stressed that his country
would not accept any UN resolution that fell short of the total
lifting of sanctions nor would it accept the Anglo-Dutch proposal
currently tabled at the UN Security Council.
This proposal calls for a conditional suspension of sanctions if Iraq
allows the return of weapons inspectors and puts its oil revenues
under UN control.
Galloway slammed the sanctions regime in an address to the Iraqi
parliament on Monday.
"You know better than me the gravity of this great crime, one of the
great crimes of the 20th century that has been committed against
Iraq," he declared, apologising forBritain's shameful role in
maintaining the deadly blockade which has brought famine and disease
to millions, a crime he compared to Poi Pot's genecide in Cambodia.
"Genocide means killing someone not for what he has done but because
of who and what he is. Everyone of the one million dead in Iraq under
the embargo was killed ... because they are Iraqis. This is genocide,"
he said.
As for the so-called Iraqi opposition in exile, he said they were
nothing more than "a few hundred paid slaves sitting in London and
Washington".
Britain and the United States were "trying to break this country
because they want to install a slave government in Baghdad. But this,
the Iraqi people with their ancient culture, would never accept, he
said.
The "Big Ben to Baghdad" bus is the focus of the Mariam Appeal, the
international charity named after Mariam Hamza who was rushed to
Scotland for emergency leukemia treatment in May 1998.
On his second day in Iraq George went to the children's hospital in
Baghdad and visited the leukaemia ward. Mariam Hamza was the first
child he visited.
She initially responded well to treatment and entered a period of
remission. Now her condition has worsened. The five-year-old girl is
now suffering from neurological disorders such as blindness, seizure
and weakness.
Back at Galloway's hotel Iraqi parents and their children queued to
ask him to help them get treatment which Iraq cannot provide because
the sanctions regime bars the import of vital medicines and medical
equipment.
Over the past two months George and the Mariam Appeal volunteers have
worked to raise the question of the suffering of the Iraqi people
everywhere they went. Last week in Jordan, Galloway said "World
countries must work to lift the unjust embargo on Iraq which leads to
the death of more than 84,000 Iraqi children per year at a rate of one
child every six minutes."
Iraq and Yugoslavia have pledged to work together to resist the
United States and its Western allies following a meeting between
Yugoslav Foreign Trade Minister Borislav Vukovich and Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein in Baghdad this week. "We are with you... and both
Baghdad and Belgrade are fighting imperialism," Saddam told the
Yugoslav minister.