Fax for urgent meeting with US Ambassador
Marie Huhtala for DAP leaders to convey strong opposition to unilateral
US-led war on Iraq without specific UN Security Council sanction
Media Statement (2)
by Lim Kit Siang
(Petaling Jaya Monday):
DAP leaders have asked for an urgent meeting with the US Ambassador to
Malaysia Marie Huhtala this week to convey the DAP's strong opposition to
any unilateral United States-led war on Iraq without specific United Nations
Security Council sanction in a fax to the US Embassy today.
In an interview with malaysiakini on Saturday, Huhtala said that US
Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council
last Wednesday was not a "justification for war" and that "War is not our
first priority".
These assurances have, however, been belied by the almost daily hawkish and
war-mongering speeches and statements by the top figures of the Bush
Administration.
In the latest development, for instance, the Bush administration had reacted
with rage to a Franco-German initiative to extend arms inspections in Iraq,
tripling the number of UN weapons inspectors and backing them up with
surveillance flights and thousands of UN troops.
DAP supports the latest Franco-German plan, which is said to have received
Russian support for an extension of time for the UN weapons inspectors.
The international community must mount relentless pressure on the Saddam
Hussein regime in Iraq to disarm all weapons of mass destruction, whether
biological, chemical or nuclear, and that it comply with the 1991 UN
Security Council resolution to pass legislation to ban all programmes
involving weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, however, the
international community must send a clear and unmistakable message to the US
Administration that any unilateral US-led war and invasion of Iraq without
specific UN Security Council sanction would be no less an action of
international lawlessness.
All countries must give full support to the UN weapons inspectors led by
Hans Blix for biological and chemical weapons and Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei for
nuclear weapons who advocate strong and longer inspections as an alternative
to an American military attack.
(10/2/2003)
*
Lim Kit Siang, DAP National
Chairman
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http://dapmalaysia.org