The Rights and Duties of Man

"Dr. Sami al-Jumaili described how US warplanes bombed the Central Health Centre in which he was working at 5:30 am on November 9. The clinic had been treating many of the city's sick and wounded after US forces took over the main hospital at the start of the invasion. According to Dr. al-Jumaili, US warplanes dropped three bombs on the clinic, where approximately sixty patients--many of whom had serious injuries from US aerial bombings and attacks--were being treated.

Dr. al-Jumaili reports that thirty-five patients were killed in the airstrike, including two girls and three boys under the age of 10. In addition, he said, fifteen medics, four nurses and five health support staff were killed, among them health aides Sami Omar and Omar Mahmoud, nurses Ali Amini and Omar Ahmed, and physicians Muhammad Abbas, Hamid Rabia, Saluan al-Kubaissy and Mustafa Sheriff." - Miles Schuman, "Falluja's Health Damage", The Nation, NOv. 24, 2004.

In 1948, the United States distinguished itself as leader of the free world by signing "The American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man", a declaration adopted by the members of the OAS. It was the world's first international human rights instrument of a general nature, predating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by more than six months. The guiding spirit of the document can be read from it's initial statement: "All men are born free and equal, in dignity and in rights, and, being endowed by nature with reason and conscience, they should conduct themselves as brothers one to another."

Among it's provisions:

Article I. Every human being has the right to life, liberty and the security of his person.

Article V. Every person has the right to the protection of the law against abusive attacks upon his honor, his reputation, and his private and family life.

Article XI. Every person has the right to the preservation of his health through sanitary and social measures relating to food, clothing, housing and medical care, to the extent permitted by public and community resources.

Please read and respond to the full story with complete documentation and legal citation at http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=7966. And please consider joining with Humanitarian Law Project / International Educational Development (HLP/IED) and San Francisco-based Association of Humanitarian Lawyers (AHL) against the United States, along with Veterans For Peace who have endorsed the petition.