News & Views 06/07/07

Photo: Two people look through the ruins of a damaged train station building after U.S.warplanes and helicopters Shelled al-Abbasiya railway, near Samarra 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of Baghdad, Iraq, on this Monday, June 4, 2007. Four years into the war that opened with "shock and awe," U.S. warplanes have again stepped up attacks in Iraq, dropping bombs at more than twice the rate of a year ago. (AP Photo/Hameed Rasheed, file)

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Number Of Iraqi Civilians Slaughtered In War On Iraq - At Least 655,000 + +

I WAS FORCED TO GIVE UP MY HUMANITARIAN WORK

Hilal Naim, 33, has stopped working with humanitarian agencies in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, after his son was killed and the life of his only daughter threatened by militants. Naim had never had any trouble in his job helping displaced families until militants one day demanded that he give up his job, which involved helping displaced families. When he failed to do so, his 10-year-old son was murdered. "When I first received a letter demanding that I give up my work, I didn't take it too seriously. Since December 2006, I have received three warning letters, but I always thought it was a joke: no one would kill another person for trying to help others to eat. "At the beginning of April, however, my son was kidnapped and two days later a man called me to say that my son could be found along a highway in the capital. Desperate, yet relieved, I rushed to bring my son home, but when I reached the place I found police cars blocking the road. "After stopping my car, I ran to the place happy that the police had found my son. However, when I got there, it wasn't my son at all, but just the smelling remains of his body, his delicate face mutilated.

FOUR JOURNALISTS KILLED IN LESS THAN A WEEK

Reporters Without Borders has voiced deep shock at the murders of four Iraqi journalists by armed groups within a space of five days. The body of a local TV station employee was found in the boot of his car in the northern city of Kirkuk on 26 May 2007. A Turkmen journalist was killed in Kirkuk on 28 May. Gunmen burst into the home of a journalism teacher and contributor to several media outlets in Amariyah, near Fallujah, on 29 May, killing him and seven members of his family. A Shiite journalist was fatally shot on 30 May in the southern town of Amara.

Cheated Of Future, Iraqi Graduates Want To Flee

They started college just before or after the American invasion with dreams of new friends and parties, brilliant teachers and advanced degrees that would lead to stellar jobs, marriage and children. Success seemed well within their grasp. Four years later, Iraq's college graduates are ending their studies shattered and eager to leave the country. In interviews with more than 30 students from seven universities, all but four said they hoped to flee immediately after receiving their degrees. Many said they did not expect Iraq to stabilize for at least a decade. "I used to dream about getting a Ph.D., participating in international conferences, belonging to a team that discovered cures for diseases like AIDS, leaving my fingerprint on medicine," said Hasan Tariq Khaldoon, 24, a pharmacy student in Mosul, in the north. "Now all these dreams have evaporated." Karar Alaa, 25, a medical student at Babil University, south of Baghdad, said, "Staying here is like committing suicide." The class of 2007 came of age during a transformation that according to students has harvested tragedy from seeds of hope. They are the last remnants of a middle class that has already fled by the tens of thousands. As such they embody the country's progression from innocence to bitter wisdom amid dashed expectations and growing animosity toward the Americans. They said would leave their country feeling betrayed, by the debilitating violence that has killed scores of professors and friends, by the growing influence of Islamic fundamentalism and by the Americans, who they say cracked open their country, releasing spasms of violence without protecting the moderate institutions that could have been a bulwark against extremism.

Gunmen Kill Local Shiite Leader South of Baghdad

Gunmen shot dead a local head of Shiite radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's political movement in a town south of Baghdad on Tuesday, local police source said. "Abdul Rahim Muhammed Nayef, head of Sadr movement in the town of Jbela, 65 km south of Baghdad, was showered with bullets by unknown gunmen," the source from Hilla, capital of Babil province, told Xinhua on condition of anonymity. Sadr, a key political ally of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, led his Mahdi Army militia in two uprisings against the American military in 2004 and has repeatedly demanded U.S. forces to leave Iraq.

Broken Lives and Broken Hearts

With the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq in its fifth year, one leading study estimates that more than 655,000 Iraqis have been killed -- with no end to the violence yet in sight. Left behind are loved ones who continue to mourn their loss, as well as what might have been. Iraq was once a country known in the Middle East for its epic love stories, such as in the poetic work "Arabian Nights". Deeply moving love poetry has abounded from Iraqi poets, and Iraqis have been known, when in love, to sacrifice their lives, if necessary, for their beloved. According to a mortality survey published in the British medical journal The Lancet last October, as many as 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and occupation. The study was carried out last July, so the number is likely to be far higher today, after one of the bloodiest years of the occupation. The occupation has impacted Iraqis' personal relationships the same way it has negatively affected all other aspects of life here. "We were engaged to be married after the end of the war," Hussam Abdulla, a 28-year-old engineer from Baghdad, told IPS. "We thought the war would not last more than a month and so we planned our marriage to be in May 2003, but things went wrong as I was detained for two years and my fiancée's family had to flee for Egypt because her father was a senior army officer whose life was threatened first by occupation forces and later by death squads." Like countless other Iraqis, Abdulla's engagement never culminated in the marriage he'd hoped for.

Iraqis Fear Official and Fake Checkpoints

Samir Waleed, 39, said he is scared to go out into the streets of Baghdad after his brother was stopped at a road block, taken away and killed two weeks ago. The deteriorated security situation in the capital has given rise to an increasing number of checkpoints in the city, which, ironically, have become dangerous in themselves. Manned by the Iraqi police, Iraqi soldiers or sometimes by militias, checkpoints are adding to the immense strain already felt by Baghdad residents. Locals say that people are often arrested at checkpoints on suspicion of working with armed groups - and after being arrested, anything can happen. “My brother was in a car with his wife and children when police officers stopped him at a checkpoint in Mansour district. They arrested him and we never heard from him again. One week later, after looking everywhere for him, we found his body with three shots to his head in the city morgue,” Waleed said. “My sister-in-law told me that when they stopped them, they were accusing my brother of being an insurgent because of his long beard. He tried to explain to them that he was a pharmacist and just had a long beard for aesthetic purposes but even so they arrested him,” he added.

…..According to Mukhaled al-A’ani, a spokesman for local Iraqi NGO Human Rights Association (HRA), the number of people who have disappeared after being arrested at checkpoints in the capital has increased significantly since February. “Many families have asked for our help in finding their relatives after they were arrested at checkpoints in the capital. Many others aren’t sure but have received information that their loved ones were passing through a checkpoint and disappeared later,” al-A’ani said. “Since February, we have registered nearly 100 cases of men disappearing after being arrested by soldiers or police officers at checkpoints in the capital. Another 25 have been arrested at checkpoints in Anbar province by insurgents ,” he said. “Families are scared to go to security forces and ask about their relatives as they might be targeted themselves, so they ask local NGOs to help.” The Iraqi Ministry of Human Rights said it has looked into many cases of Iraqis missing after being stopped at checkpoints but said police officers have shown sufficient proof that they have not had anything to do with their disappearances. The apparent lack of justice in Baghdad has led to many of its residents distrusting authorities, whether army, police or government officials.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

Iraq’s Leaders Can’t Get Out of First Gear

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and Tariq Hashimi, the country's Sunni vice president, faced each other across the room as the latter spoke angrily of the bad blood between Sunni and Shiite officials. A hush fell over the room as Hashimi demanded to know whether the prime minister had been accusing his political bloc of being infiltrated by terrorists. "Are you talking about us? If you are … we would ask for proof," said Hashimi, according to his account of a recent closed-door meeting of Iraq's top political and national security officials. "I am treated as an opponent," he said, his voice rising. "If you continue treating me like this, it is better for me to quit." Maliki sat in silence. Iraq's government is teetering on the edge. Maliki's Cabinet is filled with officials who are deeply estranged from one another and more loyal to their parties than to the government as a whole. Some are jostling to unseat the prime minister. Few, if any, have accepted the basic premise of a government whose power is shared among each of Iraq's warring sects and ethnic groups. Maliki is the man U.S. officials are counting on to bring Iraq's civil war under control, yet he seems unable to break the government's deadlock. Even Maliki's top political advisor, Sadiq Rikabi, says he doubts the prime minister will be able to win passage of key legislation ardently sought by U.S. officials, including a law governing the oil industry and one that would allow more Sunni Arabs to gain government jobs. "We hope to achieve some of them, but solving the Iraqi problems and resolving the different challenges in the [next] three months would need a miracle," Rikabi said.

Iraqi Oil Workers On Strike

Workers began the strike at 6.30 this morning by shutting two 14" pipelines carrying oil and gas products inside Iraq. The strike is over unfulfilled demands tabled by the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU) - of which the Iraqi Pipelines Union is a member - to Prime Minister Maliki on May 16th 2007. The 16 demands focus on improved working conditions, pay, land for homes, a reduction in the national price of fuel and crucially, inclusion in the Oil Law drafting process. Prime Minister Maliki agreed to the Federation's demands and established a committee comprised of Ministry of Oil, IFOU and Southern Oil Company representatives to implement the demands. Strike leaders say, if the government does not implement the agreement, the 48" crude pipeline to Baghdad will be shut.

Iraqi Lawmakers Pass Resolution That May Force End to Occupation

The parliament today passed a binding resolution that will guarantee lawmakers an opportunity to block the extension of the U.N. mandate under which coalition troops now remain in Iraq when it comes up for renewal in December. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose cabinet is dominated by Iraqi separatists, may veto the measure. The law requires the parliament's approval of any future extensions of the mandate, which have previously been made by Iraq's prime minister. It is an enormous development; lawmakers reached in Baghdad today said that they do in fact plan on blocking the extension of the coalition's mandate when it comes up for renewal six months from now. Reached today by phone in Baghdad, Nassar al Rubaie, the head of Al-Sadr bloc in Iraq's Council of Representatives, said, "This new binding resolution will prevent the government from renewing the U.N. mandate without the parliament's permission. They'll need to come back to us by the end of the year, and we will definitely refuse to extend the U.N. mandate without conditions." Rubaie added: "There will be no such a thing as a blank check for renewing the U.N. mandate anymore, any renewal will be attached to a timetable for a complete withdrawal." Without the cover of the U.N. mandate, the continued presence of coalition troops in Iraq would become, in law as in fact, an armed occupation, at which point it would no longer be politically tenable to support it. While polls show that most Iraqis consider U.S. forces to be occupiers rather than liberators or peacekeepers -- 92 percent of respondents said as much in a 2004 survey by the Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies -- the U.N. mandate confers an aura of legitimacy on the continuing presence of foreign troops on Iraq's streets, even four years after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

CAR BOMB WRECKAGE FROM MUTANABBI BOOKMARKET TO BE
EXHIBITED IN AMSTERDAM

The Bazaar, a whole day of workshops, lectures, films, debates and interviews, brings the symbol of the fear and destruction to the Netherlands: the wreckage of a car bomb that has been used in the bomb attack on Mutannabbi Street bookmarket on 5 March 2007. The bookmarket was the meeting place for writers, artist en students from the different
ethnic and social groups in Baghdad. With this symbolic and powerful action the Bazaar wants to demand attention for the horrible fate of the civilians in Iraq.

Human Rights Slain on US Global Battlefield

Amnesty International yesterday launched a scathing attack on the United States accusing it of trampling on human rights, and using the world as "a giant battlefield" in its "war on terror." The war in Iraq and the politics of fear being spread by the administration of US President George W. Bush around the globe were fuelling deep international divisions, the human rights group charged. Washington was also guilty of "breathtakingly shameless" double speak, claiming to be promoting human rights while at the same time brazenly flouting international law, the London-based group charged in its 2007 annual report. "Nothing more aptly portrayed the globalization of human rights violations than the US-led 'war on terror' and its programme of 'extraordinary renditions' which implicated governments in countries as far apart as Italy and Pakistan, Germany and Kenya," said the group's secretary general Irene Khan. Last year, evidence revealed how "the US administration treated the world as one giant battlefield for its 'war on terror', kidnapping, arresting, arbitrarily detaining, torturing and transferring suspects from one secret prison to another across the world with impunity," she added. Hundreds of people have now been transferred by the US and its allies through these secret renditions to countries such as Syria, Jordan and Egypt. Yet Washington remains deaf to pleas to shut down its remote military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many of these detainees have ended up, held without charge or trial, virtually incommunicado. The "misguided military adventure in Iraq has taken a heavy toll on human rights and humanitarian law," Khan said in Amnesty's hard-hitting report. If Iraq was to escape from the cycle of violence and bloodshed and avoid its "apocalyptic prognosis", the Iraqi government and the US-led coalition had to set clear human rights benchmarks such as disarming the militia and reforming the police. The international community, led by the US, had also squandered the opportunity to build an effective state based on human rights and the rule of law in Afghanistan, the group said.

Turks Shell Rebels in Northern Iraq Again, Says Kurdish Report

Turkish troops shelled a border area in northern Iraq for a second day early yesterday in an attack on Kurdish rebels based there, a pro-Kurdish news agency reported. The report could not be confirmed immediately. The leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, confirmed shelling by Turkish troops in Kurdish areas on Sunday but said there was no Turkish incursion. Yesterday, the Belgium-based Firat news agency, citing local Iraqi Kurdish sources, said Turkish artillery again targeted an area close to the border town of Zakho. On Sunday, the agency said the troops shelled the Hakurk area, further east. Turkish authorities, who have called the Firat agency a mouthpiece of Kurdistan Workers' Party, known by its Kurdish acronym PKK, were not immediately available to comment.

Turkish Officials Say Troops Enter Iraq

Hundreds of Turkish soldiers crossed into northern Iraq on Wednesday pursuing Kurdish guerrillas who stage attacks on Turkey from hideouts there, Turkish security officials and an Iraqi Kurd official said. The reports came amid worries Turkey might launch an offensive against the rebel bases, touching off a conflict with U.S.-backed Iraqi Kurds in one of Iraq's most stable regions. The U.S. is urging its NATO ally not to strike, and Turkey's foreign minister denied any incursion occurred. An American intelligence official in Washington, who agreed to discuss the tense situation along the frontier only if not quoted by name, said the reports of a border crossing should be treated with skepticism. The official said some Turkish officials might be feeling pressure to show increasingly angry Turks that the government is responding to a recent escalation of attacks by PKK rebels, who are fighting for autonomy in Turkey's heavily Kurdish southeast. On Monday, for instance, Kurdish rebels assaulted a Turkish outpost and killed seven soldiers.

U.S. Doubles Air Attacks in Iraq

Four years into the war that opened with "shock and awe," U.S. warplanes have again stepped up attacks in Iraq, dropping bombs at more than twice the rate of a year ago. The airpower escalation parallels a nearly four-month-old security crackdown that is bringing 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Baghdad and its surroundings - an urban campaign aimed at restoring order to an area riven with sectarian violence. It also reflects increased availability of planes from U.S. aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf. And it appears to be accompanied by a rise in Iraqi civilian casualties. In the first 4 1/2 months of 2007, American aircraft dropped 237 bombs and missiles in support of ground forces in Iraq, already surpassing the 229 expended in all of 2006, according to U.S. Air Force figures obtained by The Associated Press

IRAQI REFUGEES

DISPLACEMENT SITUATION CONTINUES TO WORSEN

UNHCR is rapidly expanding its operations and presence in the region, but the magnitude of the crisis is staggering. We have 300 staff working full time on Iraqi displacement. Since the beginning of the year, our offices have registered more than 130,000 Iraqi refugees. By the end of May, UNHCR had interviewed some 7,000 of the most vulnerable Iraqis and sent their dossiers to potential resettlement countries for their further assessment and action. We urge these countries to make rapid decisions and facilitate the departure of those most in need. Resettlement, however, remains an option for only a few of the most vulnerable Iraqis. Our goal is to provide up to 20,000 Iraqi resettlement cases to governments this year.

Analysis of detailed statistics show that in Syria alone, about 47,000 of the 88,447 refugees registered since the beginning of this year are in need of special assistance. About a quarter of them require legal or protection assistance, including many victims of torture. Nearly 19 percent have serious medical conditions. UNHCR has opened two community outreach centers in Damascus and will shortly open two more. Food and medical aid is being provided to the most vulnerable. We are also working with an increasing number of local and international partners who are helping with health, education, counseling and vocational training.

War Refugees Live in Baghdad Trash Dump

Their old homes were in mixed neighborhoods of Abu Ghraib and a-Haswa. Their new homes are literally built of garbage. At first glance it looked like a huge field of trash with water buffalo wallowing in stagnant water and piles of garbage burning in the distance. And then the garbage trucks came. As a landslide of trash came sliding from the backs of the trucks, women in abayas rushed forward to pick through it, darting around the sheep competing with them. The last time I’d seen people pick through garbage in Iraq was immediately after the 1991 war, when Baghdad was shattered by the bombing and the shock of trade sanctions, when people would do almost anything to eat. One woman carried away a large square of cardboard. Another flung masses of plastic bags out of her way as she dug deeper into the pile. “They live on the garbage,” said one of the Iraqi policeman on a highway overpass overlooking the field.

…….But then there was that field of trash. What had looked at first glance like just a garbage dump was dotted with crude brick homes and mud huts with walls reinforced with tin cans and roofs of corrugated iron and cardboard. Small children played barefoot in the dirt. An elderly man hobbled by on a crutch. The water buffalo, valued in the south of Iraq for their milk, wallowed in stagnant ponds that had turned a dark maroon color from the waste. There is no clean water, no sewage, no electricity. Just makeshift houses in a seemingly never-ending field of trash.

Number of Iraqi Displaced Tops 4.2 Million; Shanty Towns Mushroom

The situation in Iraq continues to worsen, with more than 2 million Iraqis now believed to be displaced inside the country and another 2.2 million sheltering in neighbouring states. Calls for increased international support for governments in the region have so far brought few results, and access to social services for Iraqis remains limited. Most of the burden is being carried by Jordan and Syria. Inside Iraq, some 85 percent of the displaced are in the central and southern regions. Most of those displaced are from Baghdad and surrounding districts. Since February last year, an estimated 820,000 people have been displaced, including 15,000 Palestinians who have nowhere to go. "Individual governorates inside Iraq are becoming overwhelmed by the needs of the displaced. At least 10 out of the 18 governates have closed their borders or are restricting access to new arrivals," UNHCR spokesperson, Jennifer Pagonis, told reporters in Geneva on Tuesday. "UNHCR is receiving disturbing reports of regional authorities refusing to register new arrivals, including single women, and denying access to government services. Many displaced have been evicted from public buildings," she added. Combined with the general lack of resources, this has led to a growing number of impoverished shanty towns. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq and the World Food Programme indicate that at least 47 percent of the displaced have no access to official food distribution channels. The number of Iraqis fleeing to neighbouring countries remains high. According to government figures, some 1.4 million Iraqis are now displaced in Syria, up to 750,000 in Jordan, 80,000 in Egypt and some 200,000 in the Gulf region. Syria alone receives a minimum of 30,000 Iraqis a month.

RESISTANCE

U.S. Marines Move To Discharge Protesting Iraq Vet

A U.S. military disciplinary panel on Monday recommended that a decorated combat Marine be involuntarily discharged after he joined an anti-war demonstration and spoke out against the Iraq war. The three-member panel at a Marine command center in Kansas City recommended that 25-year-old Marine Cpl. Adam Kokesh be given a general discharge -- one step below an "honorable discharge" and a reflection of "significant negative" conduct. Kokesh was accused of misconduct for wearing desert fatigues at a protest in Washington in March to mark the fourth anniversary of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Kokesh said he would appeal the recommendation, which stops short of the honorable discharge he wants but is better than the other-than-honorable discharge that could have been recommended. "I'm standing on principle and we're going to contest this on principle. It's not going to go away," he said.

Congressman Kucinich to Receive Statement By Iraqi Oil Workers Union

Two top leaders in Iraq's labor movement, Hashmeya Muhsin Hussein, President of the Electrical Utility Workers Union and Faleh Abood Umara, General Secretary of the Iraq Federation of Oil Unions, will begin a 12-city U.S. tour, which concludes in Atlanta on June 29. They will describe the likely consequences if the occupation continues, what might occur if it ends and prospects for a stable, democratic, non-sectarian future for Iraq. Kucinich, along with leaders in Iraq's labor group, will discuss the extensive deception about the content of the hydrocarbon law, a deception which has taken in members of Congress and the media. Misdescribed tactically as a revenue sharing plan, it is in fact a radical plan to privatize Iraq's oil. The law before the Iraq Parliament contains 3 vague lines about revenue sharing and 33 solid pages of a complex legal restructuring, facilitating the privatization of Iraq's oil resources. This event is part of a "Voices of Iraqi Workers Solidarity Tour" sponsored by U.S. Labor Against the War, United for Peace and Justice and the American Friends Service.

How to Help Iraqi Refugees

Quote of the day: "I swore never to be silent whenever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." ~ Elie Weisel