Hundreds of British veterans who helped end the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait are to hand back their medals to show their disgust at the UK government's treatment of victims of Gulf War Syndrome.

They claim many colleagues have already died from Gulf War Syndrome and that ministers are not doing enough to help other former service personnel who have developed health problems since serving in Operation Desert Storm.

The mass return of medals is scheduled to take place at the Ministry of Defence's headquarters in Whitehall in London on January 17, to mark the seventh anniversary of the start of the Gulf conflict.

Honours returned

Tony Flint, one of the coordinators for the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, said: "Former soldiers from as far afield as Scotland and Cornwall will be coming to London that day. Some families of Gulf War veterans who have already died will lay wreaths on the steps of the MoD and the Gulf veterans will lay their medals around them and walk away."

He added that the event will be followed the next day by a ceremony at the Cenotaph in London, where the veterans will lay more wreaths to commemorate those who died in the war against Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army in 1991.

Mr Flint said: "We will draw some attention to the lack of care that the Government has given us. We want compensation because we strenuously believe that it was our Government which has made us ill through the cocktail of vaccines we had. They were never tested. We were used as human guinea pigs."

British veterans are outraged at the official response to Gulf War Syndrome

Andrew Honer, a spokesman for the Gulf Veterans Association, said veterans had gone along with the Government for years and now felt it was time to fight back.

"We want to make them stop and realise that we may be sick, but we are still fighting soldiers," he said. "It is quite conceivable that quite a few soldiers will hand their medals back. There is such dissent among the veterans at this stage."

He claimed that the MoD should follow the lead of the American government and recognise the symptoms and existence of Gulf War Syndrome.

"Any breakthrough that comes from the States regarding research, treatment, causation and compensation should be immediately taken on board by the British Government," he said.

"The Government must see that they have a moral obligation to look after and care for their soldiers.

"This protest is the first of many situations where the veterans will have let their feelings be known to the Government. We have planned other events in addition to this."

Warnings ignored

The medals protest is sure to cause further embarassment to the MoD which in October admitted that the army used medically harmful and unlicensed drugs to vaccinate soldiers in the Gulf War - in spite of health officials misgivings.

In a damning report the MoD said its own officials failed to deal with health warnings about a vaccine taken by British troops to protect them against biological and chemical weapons.

On the report's publication the Defence Minister, John Reid, told parliament his ministry did not act on the advice that a cocktail of vaccines could have negative side-effects if taken together because a faxed warning in December 1990 was never seen by senior officials.

Mr Reid, who ordered the inquiry in July, said the Health Department's faxed warning was overlooked due to "the extremely busy period leading up to the Gulf War."
 

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