Episcopal Press and News

Presiding Bishop Urges Relief for Iraqi People

Episcopal News Service. December 12, 1995 [95-1333K]

(ENS) Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning recently wrote to President Clinton urging him to "use your influence in the United Nations' Security Council to find a way to bring relief to the Iraqi people." Browning wrote that he was "extremely disturbed by recent reports that international economic sanctions against Iraq are causing widespread malnutrition and death among the Iraqi population, especially children." In his letter, Browning noted to a recent Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations report that more than 500,000 children have died as a result of the sanctions against Iraq. Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), a coalition of religious denominations and organizations -- including the Washington office of the Episcopal Church, sent a similar letter to Clinton. Both letters recognized the complicity of the Iraqi government in the crisis, but, the CMEP letter stated, the coalition could not "remain silent in the face of a policy which victimizes the most vulnerable citizens" of Iraq. The economic sanctions policy "has failed to modify the behavior of the Iraqi government, but rather has contributed to the death of children," the CMEP letter stated.