Hunger Strike to protest Ireland's complicity in an immoral, illegal war

national | miscellaneous | news report

Sunday March 23, 2003 23:41

by Caoimhe Butterly fan

087 7605762

Hunger Strike to protest Ireland's complicity in an immoral, illegal war

Hunger Strike to protest Ireland's complicity in an immoral, illegal war. http://www.endiraqsanctions.net/resources/2003/caoimhe.htm 22/3/2003 Press Release Peace Activist begins Hunger Strike to protest Ireland's complicity in an immoral, illegal war.

Caoimhe Butterly, human rights activist, today began day three of a 10-day
hunger strike to:-
1) protest at yesterday's Dail decision to allow for the continuation
of the
re-fuelling of U.S. military aircraft at Shannon and Baldonnell Airports.
2) Call upon the Irish government to be a voice of courage, sanity and
conscience in condemning the present large-scale intensification of a war,
that has been waged without respite on the Iraqi people for the past 12
years, in the form of genocidal sanctions.

Butterly, as part of the water- only fast, will be vigiling daily outside
the Dail from 10am to 5pm everyday with pictures of Iraqi women, men and
children "to bear witness to the unspoken narratives, the faces of the
victims of 12 years of a genocidal policy of continual sanctions and to
those who in the coming weeks will die,- collectively punished for their
government's stance and because they have the misfortune of inhabiting a
land which has both material ( in the form of oil reserves) and strategic
in the form of being a launching-ground for the potential colonisation of
the Middle East) importance for the U.S. and Britain and the rag-tag
'coalition of the willing'.
"Ireland must not be part of any such coalition-a coalition which cheapens
the blood of the Iraqi people, puts more emphasis on profit and
territorial
gain than on the lives of innocent civilians, and seeks then, to cloak it
all in a language, co-opted from the peace and social justice movement-
using the words 'liberation' and 'dignity' and 'human rights' to describe
acts that are their very antithesis.

"The re-fuellings of U.S. military aircraft and troop carriers at Shannon
and Baldonnell airports must stop. Irish people have expressed vehemently-
through marches, opinion polls, and political pressure that they are not
prepared to forgo Ireland's neutrality and its conscience in aiding and
abetting the coalition's acts of aggression and further violations of the
Iraqi people.
If warplanes were re-fuelled during the Vietnam war, last Gulf war and
Afghani assault, it was wrong. It is still wrong to re-fuel them today. No
material worth can be placed on human life.
The hunger strike and vigil will last until March 30th . All are welcome.
Contact Caoimhe at 087 7605762.

Strike to protest Ireland's complicity in an immoral, illegal war