Kuwait "Liberation " conference

[Julio Pino <jpino@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Comrades: I sent this letter to the chief of the Board of Vestors of the U.
of Virginia.I hope, via this list,  it can reach activists in the
Washington DC area who might mount a counter-conference or picket the
scheduled one. I shall propagate the idea at the American Historical
association meeting in Boston, a month before the Kuwait "Liberation" Party.
Julio Cesar
>Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2000 15:57:44 -0400
>To: agg@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>From: Julio Pino <jpino@xxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Kuwait "Liberation " conference
>
>Dear Dr. Gillliam:
>
>Yesterday, September 22, 2000, I received the following post-card from the
University of Virginia:
>Dear Professor Julio C. Pino:
>"The Institute for Global Policy Research at the University of Virginia,
>directed by Ambassador W. Nathaniel Howell, announces a conference on the
>Tenth Anniversary of the allied liberation of Kuwait. Prominent leaders
>such as former President Bush, The Secretary General of the UN and the
>former Ambassador of Kuwait to the United States will join with
>international scholars to review the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and the
>international effort to liberate that country.
>Major Sponsors include The Kuwait Ministry of Information...and ExxonMobil."
>
>   I must protest in the harshest terms U. of Virginia's decision to host
this conference. The "liberation" of Kuwait came at the cost of an
estimated 200,000 Iraqi lives, so that Exxon and Mobil (now ExxonMobil, who
by coincidence is co-sponsoring this conference)could pay five cents less
per gallon of petroleum. US/UN sanctions on Iraq since 1990 have killed an
estimated 300,000 Iraqi children, according to human rights agencies.
Aerial bombings by US and UK warplanes kill Iraqi civilians every day.
>   Kuwait was "liberated" in order that the royal family, including the
Kuwaiti ambassador,could continue to pillage the country's natural
resources, oppresses its women and subjugate foreign workers in that land.
>   This conference is a shameful tribute to infamy, and I pray that it is
canceled or strongly protested by students, faculty and visitors.
>Dr. Julio Cesar Pino
>Professor of History
>Kent State University
>Kent, Ohio
>cc. Ambassador W. Nathaniel Howell