Cox demonstration ironic in two ways

To the Editors:

I am hurt because the demonstrators who occupied Cox last week didn't demand my confession. As a result, I am reduced to sending it to the Review. Here it is, and I look forward to being chastised for it.

I confess that I found the actions of the demonstrators ironic in two ways. First, although they claimed to be protecting Oberlin from becoming like Dartmouth, they were, in fact, behaving just like Dartmouth students. At Dartmouth, students this year are demonstrating because they believe that they have not been properly included in the process by which the administration is examining the fraternity system. The language of complaint at the two schools is identical, except for details. At neither campus have significant issues, like the atrocities in Kosovo or the increasing gap world-wide between rich and poor, attracted the wide-spread attention of demonstrators. At both campuses, they whine about narrow issues of self-interest. As far as demonstrations go, Oberlin is already Dartmouth.

This paradox was pointed out to me by my brother, a Dartmouth graduate, who was visiting for the weekend. I sent him over to observe the action at Cox on Friday because Brother Jed had left town.

The second irony is that while claiming to protect the administrative assistants in Cox, the demonstrators were actually harassing them. I don't mean simply by preventing them from working, for which, incidentally, the College would never have considered docking their pay.

When I walked into Cox on Friday morning, I found a boombox placed at the door of the Dean's office, turned up full blast, filling the whole building with noise. I can only suppose that the demonstrators learned this technique from agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who used it to wage psychological warfare against the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas.

Fortunately, the outcome at Oberlin has been much brighter than in Waco, thanks to good sense on both sides: the administration, of course, and, I suppose, even the demonstrators.

-Michael Henle, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science

Call to action against the U.S./U.N. imposed sanctions on Iraq

To the Editors:

(This is an open letter to the student body.)

For more than a century, student movements have had an important place among the agents of social change. Students have a history of fighting for peace and justice. In the 1960s, students spurred debates in Congress about the war in Vietnam and led the protests for peace. Students also struggled against discrimination and racism - both in the civil rights movement in the U.S. and in the fight to end apartheid in South Africa. Now, in the 1990s, there is another war we must end; another struggle for peace and justice in which we, as students, must make our voices heard.

For more than eight years, our government has been waging a silent war against the people of Iraq. This month, the US-led sanctions will kill 4,500 infants and toddlers, according to UNICEF reports. Today, this policy will kill 250 people in Iraq, as it did yesterday ... and as it will tomorrow. Since 1991, more than one million people have died due to the scarcity of food and medicine and the spread of waterborne diseases - all direct consequences of the sanctions.

Since 1991, United Nations agencies and independent human-rights organizations have been reporting on the devastating impact of sanctions on human life in Iraq. Four years ago, UNICEF reported that:

"Sanctions are inhibiting the importation of spare parts, chemicals, reagents, and the means of transportation required to provide water and sanitation services to the civilian population of Iraq. What has become increasingly clear is that no significant movement towards food security can be achieved so long as the embargo remains in place."

And what is our government's response? When asked on "60 Minutes" about the death of half a million children in Iraq (more children than died in Hiroshima), Madeline Albright responded "we think the price is worth it."

We say NO! The death of one child is a death too many.

As Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Edward Herman, and Edward Said recently stated, in their national call for action, "The time has come for a call to action to people of conscience. We are past the point where silence is passive consent - when a crime reaches these proportions, silence is complicity."

We refuse to be silent in the face of this war.

We denounce the trade sanctions against the people of Iraq as immoral, illegitimate and contrary to fundamental principles of humanity and human rights. We demand that Congress and the President immediately end the ongoing sanctions against the people of Iraq.

We call upon all students dedicated to peace to join the growing movement to end the war against Iraq. We must issue the wake up call to the conscience of our nation.

-Lendri Purcell, College senior

-Gillian Russom, College junior

-Gitta Zomorodi, College sophomore

-The Coalition against the War on Iraq