Blood and oil AS THE gigantic inferno of the Gulf War flickers out, the time for drawing the balance sheets has arrived. It will take some time for the most terrible one, the human toll of the most murderous Desert Storm in history to become fully known. However, it is already clear enough that it is numbered in tens of
ASIA / GULF WAR thousands of deaths - perhaps a hundred thousand or more women who are much stronger, are much
- and in hundreds of thousands of people physically and more vocal, and much more courageous.
materially harmed by being left with no shelter or resources.
And the number of people of all ages who have suffered
• They feel pity for the Japanese psychological damage as a result of the dreadful experience, women?
unprecedented in history, of six weeks of intense and
Yes. Many women visiting Japan comuninterrupted bombing (with more than one air sortie per ment that Japanese women seem to them to be just like robots. They don't have minute) will certainly run into millions.
their own opinions at all. They are manipulated by the media, the consumer culand disciplined by the very ture,
"How dehumancontrolled education.
ized" - that is what they say.
• So in the coming decade of the what are the issues and
1990s, strategies that the Asian women's movement should concentrate on?
One thing is that they should confront the type of development strategy that promotes strong consumerism, with only important. Asia material things being used to have a very rich spiritual culture, but because of this economic development, Asian women are losing their spiritual culture. So we should look at our own positive spiritual tradition.
Also, Asian women should have some kind of organization or network to fight women have together. Usually, Asian been divided because of the colonial bond with their former colonizer, so that Indian women know more about English women and Indonesian women have stronger ties with the Dutch women. They don't know consciousness
Regional other.
each already should be strengthened. And there are many attempts in that direction, and many meetings, workshops, with conferences being organized that cover subjects such as migration, human rights, women workers. *
SALAH JABER - March 1, 1991.
HE cost of the damage wrought T by the war is estimated in hundreds of billions of dollars - a large part of Iraq's economic infrastructure (industry, transport, communications) has been destroyed. To this should be added the hundred billion dollars spent on the coalition's war effort. It is not possible to put a figure on the ecological disaster, but it is sure to be enormous, and is not limited to the one of the worst oil slicks in history and the massive carbonic cloud rising over the Kuwaiti oilfields. Only in the course of the coming days, months and years, will it be possible to draw the full balance sheet of all these aspects. But there is one area where some conclusions can even now be drawn — subject to correction in the future, since they involve variable elements - that of the political balance sheets of the main protagonists of this spectacular introduction to the century's final decade.
Let us begin with the most powerful: