Mohammed Samaana
The way former US President Bill Clinton was welcomed as if he was a saint during his visit earlier this month to Derry and Belfast – and in fact any visit he’s paid to the North – has always baffled me.
I understand that he invested a lot of effort and energy during his presidency to bring peace and prosperity to this part of the world. However, it is important to remember that peace would not have been possible without the real will and desire of the local people to make it happen.
But like other American presidents, Clinton’s legacy is not only about Ireland or about one place in the world.
During his period of office between 1993 and 2000, he continued to impose sanctions on Iraq started in 1990 by his predecessor George Bush Sr. The sanctions continued after Clinton left office until 2003, when President George W Bush authorised another war on Iraq.
The sanctions caused widespread malnutrition, preventing the import of many necessities including equipment to clean the country of depleted uranium – associated with elevated rates of cancer – that was used to bomb Iraq by the US and its allies, allegedly causing the death of countless Iraqis, including hundreds of thousands of children.
According to Unicef, the sanctions caused the death of 4,000 Iraqi children every month. This means that during Clinton’s presidency these sanctions killed 384,000 Iraqi children, not counting those who died as a result of bombings. Not allowing essential medicines like chemotherapy and painkillers made things only worse.
President Clinton was heckled by protestors during his speech in Derry about Iraq. His answer was that Iraq’s problem is its lack of an inclusive government. In other words, he told us to forget about the sanctions, the two wars that his country led against Iraq and the sectarian political system they created after the war, which ensured that Iraq will never know peace until they get rid of the existing political system. Basically, he gave a classic whitewash answer.
Foreign policy prolonged conflict
While President Clinton genuinely committed himself to the peace process in Northern Ireland, his effort to tackle the Arab-Israeli conflict was a continuation of American foreign policy that prolonged the conflict and caused more death.
That’s because it has been always biased towards Israel, with unconditional political, financial and military support that encouraged that country to ignore international law, the UN and its Security Council.
Towards the end of his presidency, Bill Clinton was the mediator of talks held between the Israelis and the Palestinians at Camp David in July 2000. Not surprisingly, President Clinton was just another American leader who was a partial mediator.
His administration’s proposal for peace presented for the Palestinians was effectively the Israeli proposal that denied them most of their basic right and favoured the Israelis. This led to the failure of these talks.
Soon after that, in September 2000, hardliner and leader of the Israeli opposition at the time, Ariel Sharon, carried out a provocative visit to the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Israeli security killed four Palestinian protestors on that day, which sparked the second Palestinian intifada in which thousands were killed – most of them were Palestinians, including many children and women.
It is fair enough to praise President Clinton for his achievement in Northern Ireland.
What’s not fair, however, is to ignore his other inhumane policies and decisions which caused the death of hundreds of thousands of children in the Arab World.
Mohammed Samaana is a freelance writer based in Belfast.
