(A Young Saudi Woman’s Appeal for Peace)

The French Mission at the United Nations This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Russian Mission at the United Nations This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The Chinese Mission at the United Nations This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Saturday, 15 February 2003

Dear Sirs,

I’m a young Saudi Arab woman who supports peace among humankind.

I appeal to you, the French, Russian and Chinese missions to the United Nations, to veto -- in your capacity as permanent members of the Security Council -- the forthcoming proposal to pass a Security Council resolution sponsored by the United States and Britain to launch a war on Iraq for alleged non-compliance with UN resolutions on disarmament.  All peace loving people everywhere in the world oppose such a war.  This very day there are antiwar demonstrations representing a rainbow of faith, color, languages and races in over 600 cities all over the world, including the largest demonstration within living memory in London.

The firm stand of France, Russia and China at the Security Council has won the admiration of the world, especially the powerful, reasoned and spirited views of the French Foreign Minister Mr. Dominique de Villepin expressed at the Security Council meeting on Friday, 14 February.  I must also add that the antiwar position of your three countries (and that of Germany as well) against the aggressive stance of the United States and Britain will resonate very well not only with peace seekers everywhere, but also with the more than 1.25 billion Muslims, some of whom are citizens of your countries.

The vast majority of Americans is peace-loving and does not support military adventures, but the Bush Administration is leading a desperate, unwise effort to launch an unwarranted war of aggression against Iraq allegedly in the name of peace and democracy.  However, don’t you think that by doing so, the United States and the United Kingdom will claim the lives of many thousands of innocent civilians whose only crime is that they happen to have been born in unfortunate times and in an unfortunate country?  What crime have these suffering people committed, many of them old men and women and children?

The US Administration’s stance on Iraq is the height of hypocrisy.  If the US Administration wants to ensure non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, it should first of all set an example to the world: it should disarm the United States.  Instead, it has opted to produce even more lethal weapons of mass destruction.  The US Administration sensibly says that it will try to resolve peacefully the very serious problem posed by North Korea, which has announced its intention to produce more nuclear weapons and has booted out the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors.  It’s a case far worse than that of Iraq, which is cooperating with the UN inspectors.  So, why not negotiate a peaceful resolution with Iraq?

The United States and Britain both keep repeating ad nauseum that Iraq has flouted UN resolutions and therefore force has to be used to enforce those resolutions.  Are the United States and other permanent members of the Security Council -- who are all ultimately complicit in the dispossession and oppression of the Palestinians -- blind to the fact that Israel, thanks to the shameless backing and vetoes of the United States at the Security Council, is in breach of some SIXTY resolutions of the world body?  Can anyone of you identify a single resolution about which the UN Security Council took an ENFORCEABLE action in order to bring Israeli policy into accord with the will of the international community?  Why these double standards, which are a blot on the United Nations and a blow to its credibility?  The United States and Israel are two bulls in the United Nations’ shop, which, unless reined in, will eventually wreck it altogether.  For the Bush Administration time for Iraq “has run out.”  But, apparently, for the Bush Administration and for the Security Council time can never run out for the rogue state of Israel, whose violations of UN resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention and perpetration of state terrorism have gone on for more than FIFTY years and whose never-inspected biological, chemical and nuclear weapons destabilize regional peace.

Successive British governments, and Tony Blair -- that lackey of the United States and great hypocrite, and whose support of the United States’ belligerence against Iraq is opposed by the majority of the people who elected him -- consider the Irish Republican Army to be a terrorist organization, which has always received funds from the Irish in the United States.  As is well known, the IRA has for several decades terrorized London and other British cities and assassinated the respectable Lord Mountbatten, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth and attempted to kill Margaret Thatcher, then Britain’s Prime Minister.  But did Britain bomb the IRA in Ireland and also the United States, the main supplier of funds to the IRA?  No, sensibly Britain worked hard to resolve its differences with the IRA peacefully.
 
Aren’t all human beings equal in respect of life and death?  Or is Arab and Muslim blood cheaper than the blood of people who come from Western ethnic backgrounds?  It is such racial attitudes which inflame those already oppressed in Muslim lands and unfortunately and inexorably nurture the hotbeds of hatred and violence.  
 
Today, the credibility and prestige of the United Nations is on the line.  It’s you who can save the world body, the hope of peace for all humanity, from the arrogance and warmongering of the United States, which is exerting all the pressure it can to impose its will and agenda for world hegemony on all members of the Security Council.  Please act to show that might is not right and that there are states with backbone who are willing to stand up for the principles of justice and peace in international relations.

France, Russia and China are the only three permanent members of the Security Council who could really make a DIFFERENCE by casting their veto against a US-led war on Iraq.

So, please act now and in the coming days in the interest of world peace and your own citizens.

With the utmost regard for France, Russia and China and other Security Council members who are working hard to ensure that the credibility of the United Nations is maintained and justice and the rule of law prevail,  

Sincerely,

Huda Ismail Nawwab

Courtesy of and © 2003 by Huda Ismail Nawwab.  The writer is a Saudi Arab, who works in the field of translation.  Her interests range widely: Middle Eastern politics, the English theater, human resources issues, cyber technology, special education, aerobics, cars, and fiction.  Huda is the daughter of Ismail Nawwab, a retired pillar of Aramco/Saudi Aramco Public Relations organization.

 

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