FRANCAISSOS Enfants d’Irak - History
Since 1995
-December 1995, France : SOS Enfants d’Irak is established by Jany Le Pen, second wife to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the president of the right-wing National Front (FN). In October 1995, she discretely represented her husband during a referendum in Iraq, since the official visit of Jean-Marie Le Pen in Baghdad would have been too politicised. Moved by the devastation in Baghdad’s hospitals due to the international embargo, she launches SOS Enfants d’Irak with Jean-Michel Dubois, a member of the FN’s political bureau, and Bernard Antony, the leader of the fundamentalist Chrétienté-Solidarité organization.
-1996-1999, Iraq : SOS Enfants d’Irak sends 11.5 tons of medicine (5 tons in February and September 1996, 4 tons in January, March, and May 1997, 2 tons in May 1998, and half a ton in November 1999) and 4 ambulances (2 in May 1996, 2 in January and May 1997). Each distribution is acclaimed by the dictatorship’s media, and the supplies are delivered directly to the ministry of Health, including cash donations (€ 40,000 in December 1998).
-November 2000, Irak : SOS Enfants d’Irak violates the air embargo by chartering a plane from Paris to Baghdad.
-2002, France : SOS Enfants d’Irak informs against the continuation of the embargo on Iraq and the eventuality of an American military intervention.
