“Disengage, avoid, and withhold support from whatever abuses,
degrades and humiliates humanity.” (Alice Walker, b:1944) The
siege of Leningrad is still considered the most lethal siege in
world history, a shocking “racially motivated starvation
policy”, described as: “an integral part of Nazi policy in the
Soviet Union during World War 11.” The 872 day siege began on
8th September 1941 and was finally broken on 27th January 1944.
It is described as: “one of the longest and most destructive
sieges in history and overwhelmingly the most costly in
casualties.” Some historians cite it as a genocide. Due to
record keeping complexities the exact number of deaths resultant
from the blockade’s deprivations are uncertain, figures range
from 632,000 to 1.5 million. Sieges now extend to entire
countries, they have become the torture before the destruction.
And they are not counted in long days, but in long years. Iran
thirty three years, Iraq thirteen-plus years. Ironically the
disparity in the deaths in Iraq resultant