DATE=05/03/2002

TYPE=EDITORIAL

NUMBER=0-09861

TITLE=EDITORIAL: BRUTALITY AGAINST SOUTHERN IRAQIS

INTERNET=YES

CONTENT=THIS EDITORIAL IS BEING RELEASED FOR USE BY ALL SERVICES.

Anncr: Next, an editorial reflecting the views of the United States Government:

Voice: Along with Iran and North Korea, President George W. Bush has identified Iraq as part of an "axis of evil." By supporting terrorists and seeking weapons of mass destruction, these countries threaten the peace of the world. They also threaten their own people by violating fundamental rights.

In Iraq, the tyranny of dictator Saddam Hussein is virtually unlimited. In the late 1980s, his forces killed tens of thousands of Kurds and others in northern Iraq, many with poison gas.

In 1990, Iraqi forces invaded Kuwait. That aggression was reversed in 1991 by an international coalition led by the United States.

In the wake of his defeat in Kuwait, Saddam Hussein turned his attention to the Shiite Muslim Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq. For some five-thousand years, these people depended on the marshes for their livelihood. They made their homes on islands constructed of reeds and earned their living by farming, fishing, hunting, reed-gathering, and the grazing of water buffalo.

But in 1991, Saddam Hussein launched a project to dry up Iraq's southern marshes. Iraqi forces burned or bulldozed thousands of homes and farms. Many people were killed. Over the past decade, more than eighty percent of the one-quarter million Marsh Arabs have been driven from their villages. Most are now refugees, including nearly one-hundred thousand living in a camp in Iran.

Saddam Hussein's brutal campaign against the Marsh Arabs has been condemned around the world. In 1995, the European Parliament called the Marsh Arabs a persecuted minority "whose very survival is threatened by the Iraqi government." The United Nations Human Rights Commission has called for an end to Saddam Hussein's campaign against the Marsh Arabs and their way of life.

Governments that violate citizens' rights are also likely to threaten their neighbors. Clearly, this is the case with Iraq, which has invaded both Iran and Kuwait over the past two decades. Moreover, Iraq continues to support terrorists and seek weapons of mass destruction. For these reasons, the U.S. is, in the words of Secretary of State Colin Powell, "examining options with respect to regime change, because the people of the. . .world and the people of Iraq will be better off with a new regime."

Anncr: That was an editorial reflecting the views of the United States Government. If you have a comment, please write to Editorials, V-O-A, Washington, D-C, 20237, U-S-A. You may also comment at www-dot-ibb-dot-gov-slash-editorials, or fax us at (202) 619-1043.