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Walking from Jordan, U.S. Peace Activists Arrive in Baghdad
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Over 1.5 million Iraqis have died as a result of sanctions |
BAGHDAD,
May 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Sixteen U.S. peace
activists arrived in Baghdad Wednesday after a 345-mile trip across
the desert designed to express support for an end to U.N. sanctions on
Iraq and opposition to an eventual U.S. military strike.
Crowds
gathered at the entrance of the capital to greet the group from the
U.S.-based anti-sanctions group Voices in the Wilderness, and the
Compassion Iraq Coalition, an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent
reported.
Their
"walk for peace" set off at the Jordan-Iraq border on Friday
to highlight the need to avert a U.S. strike on Iraq and demand the
lifting of sanctions that have been in force since Baghdad's 1990
invasion of Kuwait.
"You
express the real noble feelings of the American people against their
government's policies," said the head of Iraq's Friendship, Peace
and Solidarity Organization, Abderrazzak Hashem, as he greeted the
group on its arrival in Baghdad.
The
activists will meet Iraqi officials and tour hospitals during a
week-long stay.
The
United States has threatened to take military action against Iraq and
try to unseat President Saddam Hussein unless he readmits U.N. arms
inspectors to claims by U.N. officials that Baghdad no longer
possesses weapons of mass destruction.
Voices
in the Wilderness, which is active in both the United States and
Britain, said last week it would set up an "Iraq Peace Team"
that would go to the country to be with "ordinary Iraqis" in
anticipation of a possible U.S. attack.
Meanwhile,
Iraq urged U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Wednesday to intervene
to bring about an end to raids by US and British warplanes in the
north and south of the country.
"No-fly
zones imposed by the U.S. Administration of evil and its British ally
in northern and southern Iraq constitute an aggression and a terrorist
act," Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said in a message to the U.N.
chief, cited by the official INA news agency.
"The
international community is required to take appropriate measures to
put an end" to U.S. and British raids in the air exclusion zones,
Sabri wrote.
"The
international community's silence vis-a-vis this crime, which has been
ongoing for more than 11 years, encourages the aggressors to commit
further aggression against independent states," he said, warning
that Iraq "reserves the right of self-defense against any
aggression."
Iraq does not recognize the no-fly
zones, which are not sanctioned by any U.N. resolution or the
international community.
According to Baghdad, U.S. and British air strikes have killed 1,477
people and injured 1,363 since the zones were imposed after the 1991
Gulf War, with the two latest strikes happening over the past few
days.
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