Call to boycott all trade with the USA, Britain, Australia and their allies.

People all over the world are being asked to impose a five year personal and collective boycott on the purchase of all goods and services from the United States of America, Britain, Australia and any of their allies, if they attack Iraq militarily. This call is irrespective of whether the United Nations Security Council supports such action or not. It has been issued by a small peace group, Not in Our Name, from the village of Samford, in Queensland, Australia. The group has issued the following statement:

"We are asking all those who do not believe in inflicting capital punishment and lifelong torture and mutilation on people who are guilty of nothing, to simply check the source of whatever it is they are about to buy. If it is from one of these belligerent nations, please put it back on the supermarket shelf, or fly by another country’s airline, or buy a different brand of car, or whatever.

We are not in any sense supporters of the government of Iraq. We are supporters of the right of the Iraqi people to live peaceful and decent lives, and to not live in constant fear of airborne terrorists, or of any other kind of inhumane behavior.

The last time Iraq was attacked, a long string of war crimes was committed by the attackers, and hundreds of thousands of people were killed and terribly injured. The country was impoverished, and next to nothing was achieved. The belligerent nations now demanding that Iraq scrap the weapons of mass destruction it may have, but are quite deaf to all calls to scrap the weapons of mass destruction they themselves definitely do have, or to submit to similar UN weapons inspections and destruction themselves. They are likely to shortly use radio-active foul bombs on the cities, towns and fields of the country that is the cradle of human agriculture. These will not only kill children and blow their feet off, they will render some of Iraq’s fields, and parts of its ancient towns and cities, uninhabitable for all time. Under the patriotic rhetoric of the leaders of the western belligerents and their supporters, there seems to lurk the thin edge of an attempt at species suicide.

We wish to see a civilized, negotiated settlement to this problem, and the stripping of all belligerent nations of their weapons of mass destruction, by the United Nations.

We are tired of nationalistic and patriotic barbarism.

We apologize to those who are opposed to this and other wars and will suffer financially from this boycott, but we can, at this late hour, see no other way to try make the militant people of these countries reconsider their course. They seem to be impervious to appeals to decency, so perhaps self-interest will stay them. Probably four billion people on this planet are opposed to this war. Together, we have considerable purchasing power. We have once again been sold short in country after country, by our governments. Let’s now use our right to buy what we choose, from whom we choose, to remedy that. In particular, we are calling for a boycott of any and all services directly supplied by the governments of the United States, Britain, Australia and their militant or collaborating allies.

We appeal to all the world’s people who are opposed to the settling of disputes by the barbarities of war, to help spread this call and to make this boycott effective. It is issued in defence of the children of Iraq."

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