ANGIE LEVINE Students collect pencils on Bruin Walk to
raise awareness about U.N. sanctions placed on Iraq. For each
pencil, 17 cents will be donated human rights groups.
By Michaele Turnage
Daily Bruin Contributor
Cries for pencils echoed down Bruin Walk Tuesday as the United
Arab Society tried to raise awareness about the United
Nations’ sanctions on Iraq.
Since 1990, the U.N. has banned import of such products as
pencils, baby food, electrical equipment, water purification
chemicals and medical syringes to Iraq to encourage the elimination
of weapons and mass destruction in the country and to punish it for
violating international law.
Initially supported by more than 32 countries, the
sanctions’ only major supporters today are the United States
and Britain, UAS members said.
“We as Arabs feel that we should educate the UCLA campus
about what is going on,” said Sasha Totah, a third-year
economic international area studies student.
Like other members of UAS, Totah wore a black shirt featuring an
outline of Iraq with the words “starving for a pencil …
help us help them” etched on it.
“Donate a pencil, save a kid’s life,” members
said to passers-by.
For every pencil UAS collects, an organization will donate 17
cents to various human rights organizations to distribute to Iraqi
hospitals. UAS members would not reveal the name of the
organization.
Besides collecting pencils, members of UAS circulated petitions
urging the end of the sanctions. The petitions will be sent to
Secretary of State Colin Powell.
The UAS also set up 12 sign boards and planted 2,000 pencils in
the grass lining the walkways around campus to symbolize how the
embargo limits nations with such fertile land, said UAS President
Fadi Amer, a third-year political science student.
“Just because someone doesn’t support the sanctions
doesn’t mean that they support Saddam Hussein,” Amer
said. He added that relief from sanctions is a humanitarian issue,
not a political one.
According to members, UAS asked various campus sources for the
$3,000 needed to pay for supplies. Funding was denied to the group
because it did not have a specific target audience and its event
did not have a central location, members said.
“We wanted to target everybody, not just a specific
community,” Totah said. Although UAS did not receive campus
funding, members salvaged the program by funding the event
themselves.
“We feel so strongly about this that we continued through
with this even though we were denied funding,” Totah
said.
According to UNICEF in April 1998, approximately 250 people die
each day from the sanction.
“This will continue until the sanctions are gone. We need
to do something about it,” said Abdul Ghafoor, a fifth-year
political science student who stopped to talk to group members.
“The situation in Iraq is a silent tragedy,” Ghafoor
said, “since most people aren’t aware of it.”
Michael Davis, a third-year religious studies student, said
students should stay informed about human atrocities worldwide.
“People over here in a place where they easily get
everything they want have a responsibility to know what is going on
in a place where people don’t easily get everything,”
Davis said after signing a petition.
“People who don’t use what they have to help others
are not using what’s handed to them responsibly,” he
continued.
Students can donate pencils today and Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 4
p.m. on Bruin Walk and various places on campus.