Systematic liquidation
By Mahmoud Abdel-Fadil
UN Resolution 1441 requires that arms inspectors be given the names of individuals connected with Iraq's programmes of chemical, biological and nuclear warfare as well as with the construction of ballistic missiles. Inspectors must be informed, moreover, of the research, development and production facilities associated with such programmes. The UN issued an official warning to the Iraqi government requiring it to submit, before the end of December 2002, the names of all those who are or have been associated with arms programmes.
This unprecedented UN demand involves the compilation of a massive inventory of Iraqi human resources, with a view to ridding Iraq of its intellectual and scientific power, forcing such people out of the country and placing Iraq back in a dark age. One consequence of this will be an appalling development situation in Iraq. It is precisely such human resources that will be necessary in rebuilding the Iraqi economy.
There seems to be a systematic tendency to liquidate human and epistemological capital in those countries that may challenge the United States' monopoly on knowledge and technological hegemony -- a tendency evident in recent protests by scientists following the cutting of research budgets in Russia, which now amount to half of the sums spent on a single university in the West. In the last 10 years, indeed, Russia has lost, through Western-bound emigration, some 500,000 scientists, 200,000 of which now reside in the United States. Such is the role played by Washington.
Human resources form the most valuable part of a developing country's capital, and ridding these countries of scientists capable of developing defence arms, acts merely to broaden the chasm between north and south.
This week's Soapbox speaker is a professor of economics at Cairo University.
