Former Attorney General discusses Iraq

About 200 people gathered last night at the First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor to listen to former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark speak against the trade sanctions on Iraq and the effects they are having on the Iraqi people.

Clark, who now chairs the International Action Center, said the sanctions are genocidal and must stop.

"Sanctions use hunger as a weapon of peace," Clark said. "It's absolutely imperative that we ... show our opposition to these sanctions and ensure that they are not used again."

Clark talked about the problems sanctions cause in Iraq and discussed the hypocrisy of the United States in using such sanctions. Clark said the United States' use of human rights as a justification for the restrictions is not valid.

SARA STILLMAN/Daily Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark speaks yesterday at the First Presbyterian Church on the results of U.S. sanctions against Iraq.

"We better practice virtue at home before we preach it abroad," Clark said.

LSA sophomore Will Youmans said one problem in the United States today is the apathy citizens feel toward their government. He said people "go along like sheep" with everything the government does.

"We no longer hold the government accountable for its actions," Youmans said. "We can punish a whole country because of a leader."

Clark compared the struggle against sanctions to the civil rights struggle that occurred during his tenure as attorney general. He quoted the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., although he said that even King "couldn't imagine the violence our government commits" today.

Clark plans to visit Iraq on May 6 with a group of about 100 other activists to give medicine to children and elderly people suffering from curable diseases.

The medicine will be paid for with money raised at events such as last night's, said Brian Becker of the Campaign for Medicine for Iraq.

"The sanctions are evil and must be destroyed," Becker said. "They have successfully carried out the extermination of 1.5 million people."

Clark said he hopes the trip will provide the people in Iraq with hope.

"We can show them that there are millions of people over here that love them, care for them and will sacrifice to help them," Clark said.

The group will buy discounted medicine from companies and then travel through the Mideast before going to Iraq. Youmans said he hopes the group does not encounter trouble on their trip and that the trip increases visibility of the problems in Iraq.

LSA senior Heidi Arraf, president of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination League, said recent events, including the forum on Iraq in Columbus, Ohio, in February, have raised concern about conditions in Iraq.

"That was a real shocker to the government," Arraf said. "It told them that they don't have as widespread support as they think they have."

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