LONDON -- The Iraqi people, suffering from the dual cruelty of Saddam Hussein's regime and non-humanitarian international sanctions, are being ignored by western powers moving to normalize relations with Iraq before democratic change occurs.
West European countries presumably committed to observing the sanctions adopted by the United Nations in 1991, are reestablishing economic and diplomatic ties with Saddam's dictatorship. It has become a scramble of competitors to get back into a market viewed as all the more profitable for having been denied trade and investment since the Gulf War.
The U.S.-led alliance that devastated Iraq has made no effort to support the democratic Iraqi opposition or to ensure the carrying out of U.N. Resolution 688 that calls for an end to repression and the holding of U.N.-supervised elections. Instead, a settlement is in the making that would preserve Saddam's regime.
In the latter part of 1994 trade delegations visited Baghdad from France, Germany, Italy and Spain. These countries had extensive trade with Iraq before the war.
Britain, principal ally of the U.S. in the war, shows the pattern. Last August, British businessmen journeyed to Baghdad. The trip was organized by an Iraqi British Interest Group (IBIG) which, by that time, had the affiliation of about 100 British companies desiring such trade, including pharmaceuticals, financial services, construction and transport firms.
IBIG claimed that the visit had the backing of the British government. Said one of the businessmen, Ewan Drummond, a director of Johnson & Johnson, "It is clear that the DTI (Department of Transportation and Industry) was involved."
A British parliamentary "fact finding" mission went to Jordan in September. It was headed by Tory MP Henry Bellingham, the parliamentary private secretary of Britain's defense minister, Malcolm Rifkind, an interesting connection in view of Britain's previous large scale military sales to Iraq. Bellingham met with Iraqi officials in Jordan saying his talks were "informal."
In the latter part of November another group of 17 British firms, chiefly engineering companies, were in Baghdad. This was but one more step in the process of resuming trade under the cover of "humanitarian aid."
On Feb. 15 the largest British delegation yet goes to Iraq. It includes Leyland Trucks, RB International which makes giant cranes and other general construction equipment, Angus Fires producing fire engines, and others.
On Jan. 6 France reopened a diplomatic mission in the Iraqi capital. That move, which gives France an important edge in the big power race for trade with Iraq, was made without consulting or informing any of France's European Union partners.
Soon after, the French employers' association, Patronat, announced that it would send a delegation of senior business executives, representing over 20 companies, to Iraq in February. France was one of the biggest arms suppliers to Iraq.
Turkey is permitting mounting trade with Iraq which been Turkey's biggest trading partner. Turkish sources say that it is the Kurds in northern Iraq who benefit, but Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani said, "Turkey is violating sanctions. Trade is more helpful to Iraq than Kurdistan."
The U.S. concern is its oil interests in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. Most of all, however, the interests and welfare of the Iraqi people are losing out, disregarded as unnecessary to imperialist aims in the region.
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