BISMILLAH
AL RAHMAN
The Honourable Ms. Luisa Morgantine,
Vice-President;
European Parliament
Members of the European
Parliament
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Allow me to thank you very much, as well as our colleagues who have given us
this opportunity to have the honour in meeting with
you and speaking to you; to convey to you a clear and honest picture of the
health situation as well as the dire humanitarian situation experienced by the
afflicted people of
I come from Mesopotamia, (The
Land Between The Two Rivers), very ancient and has always been called "the
black land" because of its prosperity, its crowded population and its
abundance of good living conditions; because of its people's ancient
civilization and its contributions to human civilization: the first letter and alphabet, the
pen, and law, thousands of years ago, as you have read in ancient history.
I, an experienced doctor and
cardiac specialist, who is experienced in the treatment of heart disease and who has served in his specialty in The State
of Iraq for the past 4 decades, stand in
your presence and addresses you. I have
lived with and through the rule of several successive governments and political
regimes which you know. I haven't any
particular party or political fealty and affiliation. My people as well as my
students and my colleagues in Iraq bare witness to my service in the medical,
health and military and civilian medical services fields, professionally as
well as academically. I specialized and
trained in European hospitals in
In this center we used to
perform 8 open heart surgeries on Iraqi adults and children, daily. European
doctors from
Gentlemen, Members of the
European Parliament and Distinguished audience, when my colleagues and medical
students in Iraq knew that I was going to be present amongst you, I was asked
by their Union which was lately formed and carries a membership of more than
350 doctors, to
carry forth their concerns and suffering as a result of the seriously
deteriorated health situation in Iraq; their letter which arrived 2 days before
my arrival, here, is in my possession.
I left Iraq after continuing to work and restore parts of the Center
with my colleagues, up to 5th March, 2005, when I received a letter
threatening to liquidate and kill me in company with 10 other colleagues who
are all cardiac specialists, should we not
leave Iraq before this date. Its
letters still follow me like ghosts and the style in which it was written still
fills me with horror and pain.
Gentlemen, before the
invasion and despite the cruel embargo, there were 18 Faculties of Medicine,
six of which were established during the period of the embargo, six dental colleges, four pharmacological faculties, and tens of colleges, institutes and schools of
nursing, assistant doctors and aides, in Iraq. The first Faculty of Medicine in
Baghdad, was opened in 1927 whose first dean, for a very long time, was the
English Doctor, Sanderson, the author of the golden memories of his decades
long medical service in Iraq called "10,000 Nights and a Night in
Iraq".
In
The Founding Constitution of
The Iraqi State in the 1920s granted the right to all Iraqis to free education
and state medical treatment and preventative medicine (national health
insurance). These services were established
throughout
The Educational system in
Iraq is British in its method since its establishment, and Europe understands
and knows the standards and efficiency of Iraqi doctors as well as the
standards of medical teaching and health care in Iraq; a large percentage of
these doctors, today, is spread throughout Europe and Britain. The World Health Organization, UNESCO,
UNICEF, THE INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF RED CROSS, and other world organizations
evaluated Iraq's achievements positively in vaccination programmes,
family medical care, general health, child health, rehabilitation of the
disabled, birth control and the decline in mortality of the under 5s and of the
newly born since 1980, which put an end to the spread of infectious diseases
and epidemics such as Cholera, Infantile
Paralysis, Meningitis, Diphtheria and Whooping Cough, and Tuberculosis. In addition to
this, Iraq was the foremost in the region in controlling HIV Aids and in
fighting addiction and drug abuse as well as establishing School Health Programmes and establishing Protective Child and Maternal
Centers as well as establishing specialized centers for Fertility, Cancer,
Cardiac and Vascular, Orthopedic, Glandular, Radio Isotopes, Nerves, Ophthalmology,
Paralysis, Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, Toxicity, Herbal Medicine, and even Acupuncture
Treatment.
Iraqi women have contributed
heavily to
The method of importing medicines and medical
equipment and supplies since the '70s in the last century was successful in
importing safe, effective and solid medicines from international, multi
national solid, well-known companies, so was the local manufacture of medicine,
enjoying the same specifications as that of the imported, both of which
succumbed to identical analyses and tests as well as to efficient central registry
in order to safeguard society from its possible
resultant catastrophic effects. The importation of medicines was limited
to the Organization for Medicinal Imports – The Ministry of Health, with
scientific supervision of a committee specially chosen for its efficiency.
Gentlemen, Members of the
European Parliament and Distinguished Colleagues and Audience:
What did the invasion of
To abbreviate my talk, and
because of the constraints of time, leaflets in English will be handed out to
you which will give you a clear picture in numbers which reflect the state of
my country's health. These numbers are
not a figment of the imagination, but numbers extracted from studies and follow
up reports carried out by international professional and humanitarian
organizations, institutions and societies, referred to, opposite each fact and
number mentioned.
As for the reality on the
ground, CDs will be handed out to you which will, in pictures, reflect and document a little of the suffering of the
Iraqi people from the terror of bombardment and bombing, the destruction of
infrastructure, violence and terror, the killing which has targeted the people
and its doctors, its efficient professionals, and its scientists and academics
as well as the forced displacement of people inside and outside Iraq; the
suffering of women as well as the widows and the orphans and the spread of
crime and sickness and epidemics; the spread of
commercialization of bad medicines and addictive drugs; the internally
displaced refugee camps; their conditions as well as the condition of the
detainees in the prisons of the occupation as well as in those of the imposed authority. However,
suffice it for me to state that we are in a country that :
1-
70% of its doctors have emigrated.
2-
It has lost more than 5,500 of its scientists and academics,
killed, imprisoned, or emigrated.
3-
70% of its hospitals have minimum standard performance, below the
required standards in the remnants of what is destroyed, raided, or stolen.
4-
90% of medicines in pharmacies is neither analysed
nor is it registered or is bad or corrupt and contaminated; it is brought on to
the black market across the borders by ghost companies and a country in
which thousands of unlicensed pharmacies
and drug depots exist, run by people who are not pharmacists.
5-
Its hospitals are used as centers for ethnic and sectarian
physical liquidation and terror by the militias.
6-
The Ministry of Health is part of a sectarian quota division
system that specifies the identity of the minister and the directors general
and is controlled by the theocratic political parties as well as the religious
and sectarian militias. It is an institution in which financial and
administrative corruption prevails and according to the Transparency Committee,
more than 2 Billion US Dollars have disappeared as a result of phony ghost
contracts and bribery.
7-
There is no supervisory or monitoring role to be mentioned by the
present parliamentarians who are doctors, but on the contrary, their
interference may cause a negative effect on the size and the nature of the
financial and administrative corruption.
8- Widespread
mental illness and drug addiction and the widespread growth of opium poppy plantations and opium for
the first time since occupation.
9- Alteration of basic
medical purchase requirements and their replacement with insignificant lists
and invoices.
10- The spread of epidemics and the loss of credibility of
all statistics and the lack of statistics of cholera, Measles, Diphtheria and
Whooping Cough, and Toxoplasmosis and a worsening situation of Tuberculosis and
HIV Aids.
11-
Unsafe imported foods.
12- A rise of incidence
in cancer and the nature of the
registered cases recently and a rise in cases of congenital malformation as due to the aggravated
complications as a result of radioactive pollution and the burning down of trees.
Pollution of rivers, as a result of the collapse of the sewage system,
particularly in the Middle and the South caused by the use of Depleted Uranium
and White Phosphorous as well as Cluster Bombs, and the prevention by the occupation
forces of remedial measures and surveys to discover the polluted locations for
sterilization and cleansing.
13- The proliferation of landmines in the
sites of the old wars, as well as unexploded ordinance, especially in
14- Loss of
cooperation and harmony with the humanitarian and voluntary organizations, such
as the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and others, as well as financial
corruption in the Iraqi Red Crescent Society, and the escape outside Iraq, of
its President with US protection.
15 - Lack of medicines and supplies and, as well as minimal
financial allocations, since they did not exceed 4% of the overall
budget allocations in the best of cases, and because of rampant corruption.
16 - Lack of safe potable water for more than 70% of the
population and the continuing lack of electricity as well as the lack of proper
sanitation.
17 - The highest rates of infant and newborn mortality in
the world.
18 - In
o
More than five million are displaced.
o
More than 4 million are below poverty level.
o
Approximately, 2 million widows.
o
Five million orphans.
o
Insufficient food for more than eight million.
o
More than 400,000 have been detained and prisoned.
o
More than 28% of the population is unemployed.
Conclusion:
It is clear that human health and safety is
being targeted as well as the Iraqi identity; depersonalization, and
interference in the process of education and upbringing in order to weaken and
divide Iraq by depletion of its capabilities and its scientific resources which
is being implemented by devising a political process and service institutions
based on ethnic and sectarian quotas which are inconsistent with efficiency,
integrity and reconstruction, transparency and construction.
Distinguished Members of the
European Parliament:
Occupation, invasion, murder,
terrorism, intimidation, and threats would not put an end to the aggravated
violence because of the worsening oppression of peoples and unjustified wars
that do not create freedoms and democracy.
All that the occupation built as a political process which it alleges to
be legitimate, has proved that it is a failure, for the Government of Iraq is
classified as the most failed in the world, and the most financially and
administratively corrupt.
Thus, I urge you to work on
expelling the occupation out of Iraq as soon as possible and to allow the Iraqi
people and international will to achieve genuine national reconciliation
between the patriotic forces and the components of the mosaic of our people and
its factions so that it is an Iraqi solution with regional and international
support and so that it is not a forced solution as a result of force, invasion
and threats.
International law obliges the
occupying power to pay equitable compensation for all the damage committed
after the occupation while the country was under its patronage. We also hope
that all those involved in all the political administrations formed during the
occupation, be made accountable and
tried for their planning for, and execution of the invasion of Iraq, without
any justification. Your stance with the will and aspirations of the
ill-fated Iraqi People is required and is basic for what it expresses in its
message of justice and support for all the oppressed peoples, in opposition to
and a cessation of all lethal wars and all occupation and imperialistic
projects in the world, for they will only contribute to further violence,
tension and political and economic instability which threaten the world today,
with choking crises as well threatening
the heart of humanity and the achievements of the peoples of the world.
Finally, please accept from
our people and ourselves, words of the deepest gratitude, of thanks and of
praise as I also ask of The Brussels Tribunal for helping in granting me this
opportunity.
Dr. Omar Al–Kubaisy
March 18th, 2009.