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This appeal was launched on 21/01/2003 by Marco Pannella and the
"Transnational Radical Party"

THE CAMPAIGN IS OFF THE GROUND. THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT. THESE ARE THE OBJECTIVES AND HOPES OF OUR BATTLE!! by Marco Pannella

The Bush administration - probably - and almost all the countries of the Middle East, are working on a proposal for a "Saddam regime without Saddam" as the only alternative to a military attack and war. For the same reasons - probably - that led Bush Senior, in 1992, not to aim, as was logical and as we hoped, for Baghdad; ultimately to save Saddam and to condemn the Iraqi people to his cruel dictatorship.

Our proposal aims at an objective that could be defined, without exaggeration, as "opposite": an "interim government", an administration appointed and controlled by the UN with a mandate, for a given period, to guarantee that the Iraqi people can enjoy the democratic and human rights and the political freedom that a mountain of declarations, charters, treaties and conventions have, for the last sixty years or so, been laying down as the founding law of the international community, which far too often remain literally "dead letter", even for the UN itself. On this occasion, however, we must respect this law, make it live, and finally achieve the respect of a legality laid down but so far not implemented, a legality betrayed, in fact. This is the path to reach the World Organisation of Democracy and of Democracies

We are therefore urgently proposing an alternative to war, to achieve the same objectives that make it not only opportune but also necessary. The objective is simple: "FREE IRAQ!", "FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS AND PEACE FOR THE IRAQIS!".

THIS ALTERNATIVE IS NOT ONLY AN ALTERNATIVE TO WAR, BUT ALSO TO THE STATUS QUO, WHICH IS QUITE SIMPLY CRIMINAL, EXTREMELY DANGEROUS, AND INTOLERABLE.

As for the claims that the objective of Saddam's "exile" is groundless, they are based on a complete lack of common sense, presuming, that is, that those who make such claims are acting in good faith.

Saddam must choose between death, in war or more probably in a "coup", in a "Berlin bunker" or together with tens of thousands of his soldiers and civilians crowded into Baghdad as a cynical, futile deterrent, or the path of safe exile that we are suggesting. His French biographer, Pierre-Jean Luizarde, said yesterday that he is sure Saddam could opt for this choice.

It is now a question of moving to action, to battle, in a situation that is also a race against the clock.

Governments, parliaments, political forces, the general public, and nonviolent defenders of freedom and justice must mobilise, therefore, against the re-emergence of the tradition of desertion, betrayal, permanent complicity with the most heinous of dictatorships, with aggressors and oppressors, first of all of their own peoples.

SO LET US SHOUT OUT, IN THE ONLY PLACES WHERE THE MISTAKES AND THE CRIMES OF THOSE IN POWER CAN BE FOUGHT IN PUBLIC, THAT IS IN THE DEMOCRATIC WORLD: "FREE IRAQ!", "FREEDOM, DEMOCRACY, RIGHTS AND PEACE FOR THE IRAQIS!". "SADDAM OUT!".

IRAQ. SADDAM MUST GO.
A "DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT"
HAS TO BE ESTABLISHED BY THE UN.
APPEAL TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL.

Among the advocates of peace at all costs, the heirs of "Die for Gdansk, never!" and "Better red than dead!" or of the "pacifist" and communist appeals to desert in the face of Hitler's armies or of the terrorists of the Taliban regime, and the dangerous and perhaps unnecessary actions of the supporters of the military solution, of war, to put an end to the threat from the Baghdad regime, a blinding truth is emerging: in Iraq and for Iraq, as well as for the Middle East as a whole and for the entire world, the real and lasting alternative is now not "war or peace" but "war or freedom, justice, democracy and peace".

We thus call on the international community, and on the United Nations in particular, to give full credence and backing to the statements confirming that if the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein were to go into exile then this would eliminate the need for war, for the United States itself, and would constitute a starting point for a political solution to the Iraqi question.

We call on the Security Council to decide - on the premise of the departure of Saddam and on the basis of the relevant provisions of the Charter of the United Nations - to place Iraq under international administration (a "democratic government"), charging a respected statesman to establish the conditions, within two years, for the full exercise of rights and liberties by all the Iraqi people, as the UN Charter of Fundamental Rights demands.

We call on women and men of good will to mobilise without delay throughout the world to ensure that this simple truth, as old as democracy and freedom, can become reality! To ensure that freedom, justice, democracy and peace triumph over dictatorship and war.
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