Leading UK Green heads for Iraq
18 January 2003
Dr Lucas, MEP for South East England, will represent the Green/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament on the delegation, which will take place from 1-5 February - just days after the January 27 deadline for UN weapons inspectors to report back to the UN Security Council, viewed by many commentators as a likely trigger for war.
"The Parliament has agreed to send this delegation to Iraq at the request ofmore than 100 MEPs, from all 15 member states and most political groups, who signed an Anti-War Appeal in December," said Dr Lucas.
"The majority view in Europe - as in the UK - is that we should not embarkon an immoral and counter-productive military adventure at the behest of theUS. War will cause a humanitarian tragedy and a political crisis. It islikely to throw the region into chaos and spark a wave of fear, anger,desperation and anti-Western feeling - in other words a fertile breedingground for terrorism."
The delegation aims to demonstrate the strength of anti-war feeling acrossEurope to the UK and US governments - as well as other members of the UNSecurity Council - and to assess the ongoing humanitarian impact of previousmilitary action and the sanctions regime on Iraqi civilians.
Dr Lucas added: "The victims of any war have already suffered terribly - anddied in the hundreds of thousands - as a result of the sanctions imposedafter the 1991 Gulf War. The European Parliament will be extending a hand offriendship to ordinary Iraqis by sending this delegation and attempting to distance Europe from the polarisation between Islam and the West which is bound to result from military action."
We won't meet Saddam
She continued: "But we will neither seek nor accept any invitation to meet Saddam Hussein or allow or visit to be used as a propaganda coup by his brutal regime. Our opposition to war sits alongside our disgust for his repressive dictatorship and appalling mistreatment of his own people.
"Clearly the people of Iraq need regime change before they can begin toenjoy freedom, respect for human rights and a share in the country's futureprosperity. But they must be allowed to bring this about themselves. TheWest can help them do this - not by bombing them but buy loosening thestranglehold of sanctions which so effectively limits their ability tochallenge Saddam's repression."
Dr Lucas will be participating in a several key anti-war events in thecoming weeks. As well as travelling to Iraq, she will be taking place in amass lobby of Westminster on Tuesday, January 21, and speaking at the Stop the War Coalition's London march and rally on February 15.
