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The People's Daily, the Communist Party newspaper of China, on Friday issued a commentary on the United States-led war against Iraq, terming it a war lacking legality.
The following are excerpts from the article "Oppose War, Maintain Peace."
Firstly, the war lacks legality. It was launched with no authorization of the United Nations as most of the 15 UN Security Council member countries, the League of Arab States, the European Union and other important regional organizations oppose or hold disputes with the United States and Britain over the war.
Since the Security Council approved Resolution 1441 on Nov. 8 last year, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency had made effective inspections in Iraq. Most Security Council members hold that the inspections should be pursued because the means of a political solution to the Iraq crisis have not been exhausted.
Secondly, the war lacks morality and justice. During the Iraq crisis, anti-war and peace demonstrations swept across the world, with great numbers of people calling for a peaceful world by various actions, reflecting the international community's general dislike to the abuse of force.
The war will inevitably cause a humanitarian catastrophe, and bear negative impacts on peace, stability and development in the Middle East and the world as a whole. Currently, people are particularly concerned about the fate of civilians in the war-stricken region, praying for them to suffer less.
The war failed to win global approval, but still broke out amid anti-war protests. This, on the one hand, reflects the fact that power politics exists in today's world relations, but on the other hand, demonstrates peace-loving forces' ability to contain war, and the multipolarity influence over unilateralism.
The war broke out in the turmoil of the Middle East region ridden with complicated contradictions, and will bring about many unpredictable instabilities to the situation in the region, and uncertainties to the future world. Yet, the war, which is still a regional one, cannot go so far as to change the fundamental trend of the world and direction of world development.
(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2003)
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