Following Von Sponeck's example, Jutta Burghardt, who headed the World Food Program in Iraq, also resigned her position. . Von Sponeck's predecessor, Denis Halliday, a 34-year veteran of the United Nations, resigned his posts as U.N. Assistant Secretary General and Chief U.N. Relief Coordinator for Iraq in protest of the sanctions in October 1998. Halliday continues to speak out against the sanctions throughout the United States and Europe. Sanctions are undermining cultural and educational recovery. Sanctions will not change governance to democracy.
Sanctions encourage isolation, alienation and possibly fanaticism.
Von Sponeck also intends to report more fully by the end of March on the effects of the almost daily bombing of Iraq by the United States and Great Britain in the no-fly zones. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark calls the sanctions genocide. For the sake of the people of Iraq, for the sake of peace in the entire region, and for our own sake, we need to lift the sanctions, assist Iraq in rebuilding its civilian infrastructure, re- establish diplomatic relationships and let Iraq live.