US attacks will violate Geneva Convention

AMERICAN Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that the deployment of human shields in Iraq is “a violation of the laws of armed conflict”.

These protesters are using their presence in Iraq in the hope they can stop the bombing and consequent destruction of buildings and structures critical to civilians, such as power plants, water treatment facilities, hospitals, etc.

The 1977 Protocols of the 1949

Geneva Convention (of which the US is a signatory) prohibits attacks on "objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population such as crops, livestocks, drinking water installations, supplies and irrigation works dams, dykes".

Considering the attacks of such places in the last Gulf War, is the US who

already have, and may again be in "violation of the laws of armed conflict".

Róisín Loughrey,

15, Emorville Ave,

South Circular Road,

Dublin 8.