Top World thinkers & writers sign Le Feyt Declaration for END to US-UK Iraqi Holocaust & Iraqi Genocide

The “Le Feyt Declaration on Iraq” (see: http://www.anti-occupation.org/ ) demands the withdrawal of foreign occupation forces from illegally occupied Iraq and has been signed by eminent scholars, writers and professionals from around the world.

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. I was accordingly OBLIGED to add my name to the Le Feyt Declaration when invited to do so, the more so since I have been researching the avoidable deaths (excess deaths, deaths that should not have happened) associated with the Iraq War.

I have reported the results of my research on post-invasion Iraqi deaths in numerous articles on the ethical and humanitarian, Canada-based but very International Media With Conscience News (MWC News) (e.g. see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ); in a 2007 book entitled “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/137... and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); in my contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/oc... ); and in my recently published, revised and updated 2008 version of my 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (that also deals with other British and American atrocities, including the 200 year duration, 1.5 billion excess death, British Raj Indian Holocaust) (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ).

In short, for Iraq under Sanctions and Occupied Iraq (1990- September 2008), under-5 infant deaths have totalled 1.9 million, indicative of 2.8 million total non-violent excess deaths to which we must add 0.2 million Bush I Gulf War violent deaths and an average estimate of 1.2 million post-invasion violent deaths (as compared to about 1 million 2003-2008 non-violent excess deaths) i.e. a total of 4.2 million excess deaths (1990-2008) (for details and documentation see “9-11 excuse for US global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity: millions dead in Bush Wars”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/251...).

Post-invasion excess deaths in Occupied Iraq presently (October 2008) total 2.2 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.6 million; and there are now also about 6 million Iraqi refugees – this carnage being indicative of an Iraqi Holocaust and indeed an Iraqi Genocide as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see: http://www.edwebproject.org/sidesho... ).

The most famous signatories on the Le Feyt Declaration include UK Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, US international human rights lawyer Dr Curtis Doebbler and US Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney.

Other famous signatories from the US include Professors James Petras and Michael Parenti, famous journalist Dahr Jamail and William Blum, author of the best-selling book “Rogue State”. Other famous signatories from the UK include Jewish Israeli Gilad Atzmon, Professor David Miller and Middle East journalist Felicity Arbuthnot.

THE TEXT of the Le Feyt Declaration is as follows:

The US occupation of Iraq is illegal and cannot be made legal. All that has derived from the occupation is illegal and illegitimate and cannot gain legitimacy. These facts are incontrovertible. What are their consequences?
Peace, stability and democracy in Iraq are impossible under occupation. Foreign occupation is opposed by nature to the interests of the occupied people, as proven by the six million Iraqis displaced both inside and outside Iraq, the planned assassination of Iraqi academics and professionals and the destruction of their culture, and the more than one million killed.

Propaganda in the West tries to make palatable the absurdity that the invader and destroyer of Iraq can play the role of Iraq’s protector. The convenient fear of a “security vacuum” — used to perpetuate the occupation — ignores the fact that the Iraqi army never capitulated and forms the backbone of the Iraqi armed resistance. That backbone is concerned only with defending the Iraqi people and Iraq’s sovereignty. Similarly, projections of civil war ignore the reality that the Iraqi population overwhelmingly, by number and by interest, rejects the occupation and will continue to do so.

In Iraq, the Iraqi people resist the occupation by all means, in accordance with international law1. Only the popular resistance can be recognized to express and defend the Iraqi people’s interests and will. Until now the United States is blind to this reality, hoping that a “diplomatic surge”, following the military surge of effective ethnic cleansing, will secure a government it imposes on Iraq. Regardless of who wins the upcoming US presidential election, the US can never achieve its imperial goals and the forces it imposes on Iraq are opposed to the interests of the Iraqi people.

Some in the West continue to justify the negation of popular sovereignty under the rubric of the “war on terror”, criminalizing not only resistance2, but also humanitarian assistance to a besieged people. Under international law the Iraqi resistance constitutes a national liberation movement. Recognition of the Iraqi resistance is consequently a right, not an option3. The international community has the right to withdraw recognition from the US-imposed government in Iraq and recognize the Iraqi resistance.

It is evident that Iraq cannot recover lasting stability, unity and territorial integrity until its sovereignty is guaranteed. It is also evident that the US occupation cannot avoid accountability by trying to switch responsibility to Iraq’s neighbors. A pact of non-aggression, development and cooperation between a liberated Iraq and its immediate neighbors is the obvious means by which to achieve this stability4. In its median geopolitical position, and given its natural resources, a liberated, peaceful and democratic Iraq is central to the welfare and development of its neighbors. All of Iraq’s neighbors should recognize that stability in Iraq serves their own interests and commit to not interfering in its internal affairs.

If the international community and the United States are interested in peace, stability and democracy in Iraq they should accept that only the Iraqi resistance — armed, civil and political — can achieve these by securing the interests of the Iraqi people. The first demand of the Iraqi resistance is the unconditional withdrawal of all foreign forces illegally occupying Iraq — including private contractors — and disbanding all armed forces established by the occupation.

The Iraqi anti-occupation movement — in all its expressions — in defending the Iraqi people is the only force empowered to ensure democracy in Iraq. Across the spectrum of this movement it is agreed that upon US withdrawal a temporary administrative government would be charged with two tasks: preparing the ground for democratic elections and reconstituting the national army. Upon completion of these tasks the administrative government would disband, leaving decisions regarding reparations, development and reconstruction to a sovereign and freely elected Iraqi government in a state of all its citizens without religious, ethnic, confessional or gender discrimination.

All laws, contracts, treaties and agreements signed under occupation are unequivocally null and void. According to international law and the will of the Iraqi people, total sovereignty of Iraqi oil and all natural, cultural and material resources rests in the hands of the Iraqi people, in all its generations, past, present and future. Across the spectrum of the Iraqi anti-occupation movement all agree that Iraq should sell its oil on the international market to all states not at war with Iraq, and in line with Iraq’s obligations as a member of OPEC.

The 2003 US invasion was and remains illegal and the law of state responsibility demands that states refuse to recognize the consequences of illegal state acts5. State responsibility also includes a duty to restore. Compensation should be paid by all state and non-state actors that profited from the destruction and plundering of Iraq.

The Iraqi people are longing for long-term peace. On the basis of the 2005 Istanbul conclusions of the World Tribunal on Iraq6, and in recognition of the tremendous suffering of the aggressed Iraqi people, the signatories to this declaration endorse the abovementioned principles for peace, stability and democracy in Iraq.

The sovereignty of Iraq rests in the hands of its people in resistance. Peace in Iraq is simple to attain: unconditional US withdrawal and recognition of the Iraqi resistance that by definition represents the will of the Iraqi people.

We appeal to all peace loving people in the world to work to support the Iraqi people and its resistance. The future of peace, democracy and progress in Iraq, the region and the world depends on this.
Please circulate this statement widely.

END QUOTE

What can decent people do in the face of continuing, war criminal Anglo-American mass murder and genocide in Occupied Iraq?

In the face of genocide and indeed any gross human rights abuses, decent people must (a) inform everyone they can and (b) act ethically by imposing individual and collective Sanctions and Boycotts on the perpetrators.

Just as Sanctions and Boycotts eventually defeated the US-, UK- and Apartheid Israel-backed Apartheid régime in South Africa that denied basic human rights to Africans and Indians, so international Sanctions and Boycotts are likely to STOP the Anglo-American mass murder in Occupied Iraq (post-invasion excess deaths 2 million) and Occupied Afghanistan (post-invasion excess deaths 4-6 million).

NOW is the time for such peaceful, ethical anti-war action by decent people around the world as the major perpetrators of the Iraqi Holocaust and Iraqi Genocide, the US and the UK, are entering a period of acute Recession and Credit Squeeze in which the mass murder of Indigenous Asians (mostly utterly defenceless Women and Children) is becoming increasingly expensive.