The following Seattle Times article features Bert Sacks who traveled with Voices in the Wilderness to Iraq. It is a good overview of the court case. Following the article is a Letter to the Editor by Sacks correcting “one important error in the story.”

Sunday, July 12, 2005
Seattle Times
Local B5
BY MARCEL HONORE

Medill News Service

WASHINGTON - Whether at home in Washington state or away in Washington, D.C., Bert Sacks can’t seem to get the federal government to see things his way.

Sacks, an outspoken Seattle antiwar activist, took nine trips to deliver medicine to Iraqi children between 1996 and 2002 in defiance of U.N. sanctions. Last week, he faced new legal hurdles from the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), the Treasury Department agency that enforces economic and trade sanctions.

Sacks says his trips were motivated by a 1992 article in the New England Journal of Medicine which estimated that because of economic sanctions, more than 46,900 children had died in Iraq between January and August 1991.

“It’s a matter of principle,” Sacks said in defending the trips. “It’s a matter of what we’re doing as a country.”

He cited a 1999 UNICEF report estimating that more than 500,000 Iraqi children under the age of 5 died between 1991-98 as a result of sanctions.

In 2002, OFAC fined Sacks $10,000. He refused to pay, sued the agency in federal court and lost. His appeal is pending before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

OFAC spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said the agency does not comment on lawsuits.

Last week, Sacks faced more problems resulting from other sanction-defying trips to Iraq: OFAC brought a suit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., against Voices in the Wilderness, a group founded in 1996 to raise awareness of the humanitarian crisis posed by sanctions against Iraq.

With nine trips, Sacks stands out among some 11,000 Voices members, said Kathy Kelly*, co-coordinator for the organization. His persistence has earned Sacks extra attention from OFAC.

(* Editor’s note: Kathy Kelly notes that Voices in the Wilderness does not have a membership, although Voices does have many supporters.)

“To me, he’s one of the most exemplary people I’ve ever encountered,” Kelly said. “He left work he enjoyed, but he couldn’t live with his conscience. Once he went to Iraq the first time, he assiduously stayed on this issue.”

Originally, the second OFAC case carried a fine of $10,000 for Sacks and fines totaling $33,000 for three other members. The case has been amended to collectively fine Voices $20,000 instead.

“It’s a possibility that if this case is decided against us and it’s handed over to the Treasury Department for collection, they may sue me for part of that money,” Sacks said.

OFAC fined Voices for humanitarian-aid missions taken in 1998, but it did not issue the penalty until four years later — nine days after Voices members participated in an antiwar demonstration in Washington, D.C.

OFAC filed the lawsuit seeking to enforce the fine.

Lawyers for Voices argued last week that OFAC’s timing was retaliation for the protest and was a case of selective enforcement.

They cited congressional testimony by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., in May that Houston-based BayOil had paid $37 million in illegal surcharges to the Iraqi government for 200 million barrels of oil, a violation of U.N. sanctions. OFAC sought no penalties against BayOil; Levin said OFAC claimed the matter fell outside its jurisdiction.

A lawyer for BayOil was unavailable for comment.

Judge John Bates, who is hearing the case brought last week, said in court that he does not think the BayOil situation is comparable to the Voices in the Wilderness case.

Sara Clash-Drexler, a Justice Department lawyer, said OFAC’s four-year delay was simply a “function of the need to spread limited agency resources over increasing demand.” She said the agency works to enforce penalties within the five-year statute of limitations.

Bates is expected to rule with­in the next few weeks. Kelly said if the group is found liable, it will refuse to pay the fine on moral grounds.

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Bert Sacks’ Letter to the Editor

Thank you for your good story about my troubles with the U.S. government (”Government pursues activist over Iraq trips”, Sunday, July 17, 2005, page B5). I am particularly pleased by the prominent mention of what motivated me on 9 trips to bring medicine to Iraqi kids: a 1992 New England Journal of Medicine report by US and UK doctors of the deaths of 46,900 Iraqi children in 1991.

That report made it clear that U.S./U.N. economic sanctions imposed on Iraq - preceded by Gulf War bombing of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure - were the prime causes of these deaths. Basically lack of safe drinking water and adequate nutrition were killing Iraqi kids in large numbers. As is still happening today.

However there is one important error in the story. I have never defied U.N. sanctions by bringing medicine to Iraqi civilians — because the U.N. has always excluded medicine from its sanctions. To do otherwise would be to violate the Geneva Convention’s prohibition on restricting medicine to civilians. It is U.S. sanctions, which have always included medicine, that I challenge. They violated international law and concern for the very people today we say we want to help.

Bert Sacks