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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 44 No. 14. July 6 1981

NZUSA in Iraq Criticised

NZUSA in Iraq Criticised

Dear Sir,

To send Virginia Adams to Iraq, as representative of students of a democratic New Zealand, is as much an insult to anti-racism as supporting the Springbok tour. Iraq has long been famous for its brutal suppression of its Kurdish minority, the hanging of Jews in public places (and even televising the hangings as public entertainment), and for the inhuman conditions of its working class. As in any state run by a theocratic military junta, any form of dissent is forbidden, and oppressed ruthlessly by the secret police, torture of opponents, state controlled trade unions, and thought control.

However Iraq's redeeming feature for Virginia Adams is that it is engaged in the same "anti-imperialist", "anti-Western" struggle that she and her Maoist coterie wage. Perhaps this is enough to make her ignore the fact that the B'athist Muslim dictatorship is a stooge of the Russians, using its Russian supplied weapons in a predatory war against Iran; the goal of which is to turn the Persian Gulf, and its oil, into an Iraqi dominated "Arab Sea". I doubt if even the South African Government could match this record.

Why, therefore, are we New Zealand students so selective and hypocritical, destroying our own credibility? The Asian Student Association Executive is made up of an overwhelming majority of countries in which no student, or any other human rights exist. One wonders what can be achieved by such an executive, apart from the usual empty rhetoric against Israel, America, etc.

Moreover, by recognising such a farcical sham we do a grave injustice to the genuine struggles for the most basic human freedoms inside these countries.

J. Harlen

You do not seem to appreciate the difference between a country, and a national student organisation of that country. Attending a meeting of an international student organisation in a particular country does not indicate one way or another our attitude to that country. (Although it does indicate our altitude to the student organisation).

Many of the member organisations of ASA are intensely disliked by their own governments. The Philippines government, for example, regularly arrests and imprisons the officers of the League of Filipino Students (also an ASA member).

ASA actually has an excellent record of working against oppression and injustice, particularly within the countries of its member organisations.

A report of the ASA meeting will appear in next week's issue. Perhaps you would care to wait until you know something about ASA itself before making your criticisms.

Ed.