|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 6/7/06 |
|
Iraq Occupation Focus This IOF Newsletter is produced as a free service for all those opposed to the occupation. In order to strengthen our campaign, please make sure you sign up to receive the free newsletter automatically – go to: lists.riseup.net/www/info/iraqfocus. Please also ask all those who share our opposition to the increasingly brutal US-UK occupation to do likewise. Contents: * Military Offensive <#Military> Military Offensive Residents Struggle to Survive Dahr Jamail and Ali Fadhil write (June 23rd): <www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=10469> In Ramadi residents are suffering from lack of water, electricity, cooking gas and medical supplies for the hospitals. The streets are eerily empty, with armed resistance groups controlling vast swathes of the city, and other areas subject to frequent shooting from U.S. snipers on the rooftops of houses. Correspondents with the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in Baghdad reported: “People in Ramadi… estimate that about 70 percent of the city’s population have fled in the last week, many of them holding white flags for fear of being shot at by Marine snipers.” Report from Ramadi Dahr Jamail writes (June 28th): www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062806A.shtml U.S. terror from the skies Socialist Worker reports (June 30th): www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/594/594_02_Ramadi.shtml Ramadi is normally home to some 400,000 residents. Today, only 150,000 people remain. The rest have fled because of a suffocating U.S. siege. Beginning weeks ago, the U.S. closed all but one of the roads into and out of the city and began cutting water and electricity supplies, imposing tight curfews, stationing snipers on rooftops, limiting medical aid and—most terrifying of all—carrying out random air strikes. “They’re using the Falluja model,” said Beau Grosscup, a professor of international politics at California State University-Chico. Bush’s visit Dahr Jamail reports (June 22nd): www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=10466 On the second day of “Operation Forward Together,” a hospital source in Fallujah reported that 8 Iraqis, some of whom were women and children from the same family, were killed and six wounded when US warplanes bombed a home in the northeastern Ibrahim Bin Ali district of the city. That same day, the Washington Post Foreign Service reported: “Iraq’s prison system is overrun with Shiite Muslim militiamen who have freed fellow militia members convicted of major crimes and executed Sunni Arab inmates, the country’s deputy justice minister said in an interview.” We cannot control the prisons. It’s as simple as that, said the deputy minister, Pusho Ibrahim Ali Daza Yei. An inmate in one of the photos held out his misshapen, limp hands for the camera. The man’s hands had been broken in a beating. According to the same Washington Post story, “A group of parliament members paid a surprise visit to a detention facility run by the Interior Ministry in Baqubah, north of Baghdad. “We have found terrible violations of the law,” said Muhammed al-Dayni, a Sunni parliament member, who said as many as 120 detainees were packed into a 35-by-20-foot cell. “They told us that they’ve been raped,” Dayni said. Curfew escalates chaos as Baghdad battle rages Seattle Times reports (June 24th): seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003082505_iraq24.html Some frightened residents were caught away from home when the expanded curfew was declared at midmorning, virtually shutting down the city. 15 killed in US raids in farmland near Baquba Middle east on line reports (June 20th): www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=16777 The US military said it killed 15 “terrorists” during overnight raids in farmland near the restive town of Baquba but Iraqis insisted the dead were innocent poultry farm workers. Iraqi police, relatives of those killed and a human rights organisation in Baquba said the victims were all poultry farm workers who had been sleeping in the fields of Bushaheen village when US troops raided the area. On June 12, the US military said it killed seven Al-Qaeda-linked operatives in the village of Hashmiyat in an air strike after US soldiers patrolling the area came under fire. But witnesses said the firefight was triggered when a guard in the village mistook US soldiers in the distance for gang members and began firing towards them. Two of the dead were children. Daily Life Rebuilding Not Yet Reality for Fallujah Dahr Jamail and Ali Fadhil write (June 24th): domino.ips.org/ips/eng.NSF/vwWEBMainView?SearchView&Query=%28Fallujah www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33759 The Fallujah General Hospital “is more a barn than a hospital,” said one doctor. “There is a horrible lack of medical supplies and equipment,” added another doctor. He said people are too afraid of seeking medical attention in any of the Baghdad hospitals for fear of being kidnapped and killed by death squads. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Ramadi General Hospital is no longer accessible due to the ongoing U.S. military siege of that city. Ali Ahmed, a 17-year-old student, said that the U.S. military continues to kill and arrest people for any reason whatsoever, and sometimes for no reason. Security has eaten up as much as 25 percent of reconstruction funding, but even more has reportedly been siphoned off by corruption and overcharging by contractors. Oil union bank account frozen NAFTANA report (June 20th): www.basraoilunion.org/ The Iraqi regime’s decision comes in the wake of a series of anti-union measures, including the disbanding of the council of the lawyers’ union, freezing the writers’ union accounts and the September 2005 decree making all trade union activity illegal. For that anti-union act the regime used the pretext of promising the promulgation of a future law to ‘regulate’ trade union organisations and their activities. Sharp increase in rents hurting people in Dahuk IRIN reports (June 22nd): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54088&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ Concern over reports of child trafficking IRIN report (June 29th): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54295&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ “At least five children are disappearing every week,” said Omar Khalif, vice-president of the Iraqi Families Association (IFA), an NGO established in 2004 to register cases of missing children. Officials confirm that there are organised international gangs carrying out the trafficking in collaboration with Iraqis who are arranging the abductions from their own country. Poor sanitation poses serious health risks, say experts IRIN report (June 29th): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54305&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ “We’ve observed a 30 percent increase in cases of waterborne diseases, especially cholera,” said Dr Muhammad Khalid, a paediatrician at the Children’s Teaching Hospital in Baghdad. Abuses How Doctors Got Into the Torture Business Time reports (June 23rd): www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,1207633,00.html At Camp Na’ma, where the unofficial motto was “No blood, no foul,” doctors essentially signed off on torture in advance. At Abu Ghraib, according to the Army’s surgeon general, only 15% of inmates were examined for injuries after interrogation. Some of the medical involvement in torture defies belief. In one high-level interrogation, that of Mohammed al-Qhatani, doctors were present during the long process of constant sleep deprivation over 55 days, and they induced hypothermia and the use of threatening dogs, among other techniques. “An anesthesiologist repeatedly dropped a 2-lb. bag of intravenous fluid on a patient; a nurse deliberately delayed giving pain medication, and medical staff fed pork to Muslim patients.” Of the 136 documented deaths of prisoners in detention, Miles found, medical death certificates were often not issued until months or even years after the actual deaths. One certificate claimed a 63-year-old prisoner had died of “cardiovascular disease and a buildup of fluid around his heart.” According to Miles, no mention was made that the old man had been stripped naked, doused in cold water and kept outside in 40° cold for three days before cardiac arrest. In Mosul, according to Miles, one medic witnessed guards beating a prisoner and burning him by dragging him over hot stones. The prisoner was taken to the hospital, treated and then returned by doctors to his torturers. The Occupation of Iraqi Hearts and Minds Nir Rosen writes (July 2nd): www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20060627_occupation_iraq_hearts_minds/ The raids began at night. The convoy approached the first house and the teams charged over the rubble from the wall, breaking through the door with a sledgehammer and dragging several men out. The barefoot prisoners, dazed from their slumber, were forcefully marched over rocks and hard ground. Each male was asked his name. None matched the names on the list. A prisoner was asked where the targeted military officer lived. “Down the road,” he pointed. “Show us!” he was ordered, and he was shoved ahead, stumbling over the rocky street, terrified that he would be seen as an informer in the neighborhood, terrified that he too would be taken away. Home after home met the same fate. Some homes had only women; these houses too were ransacked, closets broken, mattresses overturned, clothes thrown out of drawers. Men were dragged on the ground by their legs to be handcuffed outside. One bony ancient sheik walked out with docility and was pushed forcefully to the ground, where he was wrestled by soldiers who had trouble cuffing his arms. A commando grabbed him from them, and tightly squeezed the old man’s arms together, lifting him in the air and throwing him down on the ground, nearly breaking his fragile arms. Ugly Americans in Iraq Nir Rosen reports (July 2nd): www.truthdig.com/report/page2/20060627_ugly_americans_iraq/ “If I were an Iraqi under the U.S. occupation, I’d be an insurgent. I could never escape the impression from our heavy-handed insertions into hundreds of family homes that our presence only fueled more and more hatred. For every insurgent or jihadist we caught, we created two times as many future fighters. Five US soldiers in Iraq rape and murder inquiry The Guardian reports (July 1st): www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1810326,00.html In the latest suspected war crime, it is believed the woman’s body was burnt, and that a child was killed along with two other Iraqi adults in the family’s home. The alleged rape and murders are believed to have taken place in the town of Mahmoudiya, about 18 miles south of Baghdad several months ago. The events were brought to the attention of the authorities on June 23 by two soldiers who saw blood on their comrades’ clothing and heard them talking about the incident. Three US soldiers charged with murdering Iraqi prisoners The Guardian reports (June 20th): <www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1801415,00.html> Three US troops have been charged with murder for shooting three Iraqi prisoners and threatening to kill a fellow soldier who wanted to report the incident. The three men killed were among 200 Iraqis held after a raid on a former chemical factory south-west of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown, the Pentagon charge sheet said. The conduct of US forces in Iraq was also under scrutiny in Italy where prosecutors called for the indictment of an American soldier for the shooting of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Iraq last year. Basra residents call for human rights recognition IRIN report (June 28th): www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=54273&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ Residents of Basra are calling for recognition of their human rights following a series of allegations of abusive treatment by local police. “We urge the government and human rights groups to open their eyes to what is happening in Basra with regard to the lack of human rights, “ said Hussein Haydary, a resident of Basra and spokesperson for the Peace Movement for Human Rights (PMHR). Ali Jalil, a local resident, who said: “Just because I told them [police] that they do not have the right to search my home without an official letter from the Ministry of Interior, they hit me and my son.” Jalil went on to claim that he was arrested without any evidence, was tortured for three days in prison and then was dropped some 30km from his home with a stern warning to never disobey the police again. Australia apologises for killing of minister’s guard The Guardian reports (June 23rd): <www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1803891,00.html> The Australian government apologised for a shooting incident in which a bodyguard for the Iraqi trade minister and a civilian were killed by security forces guarding the Australian ambassador. The gun battle happened in the trade ministry car park when the men guarding Howard Brown, who was going into the building for a meeting, opened fire thinking they were threatened by security men assigned to the trade minister, Abdul-Falah al-Sudani. Torture of women Haifa Zangana writes (June 22nd): weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/800/focus.htm A report by the Iraqi Women’s Will organisation listed the types of physical and psychological torture inflicted upon women in Iraqi jails. Amongst the most degrading is being brought in nude for questioning. Prior to this, detainees are routinely threatened to be deprived of water, food, have been confined to small cages inhibiting all movement, exposed to extremes of heat and cold, and subject to forced sleep deprivation. Hoda Al-Ezawi relates that she was kept in solitary confinement for 156 days. Then her sister was arrested and thrown into the cell with her, along with the corpse of their dead brother. Suheib Baz, a cameraman for Al-Jazeera, told The Independent that he had personally seen a 12-year-old girl being tortured: “She was naked, and crying out to me for help while being beaten.” He also relates that prison wardens would photograph these horrors. According to a report of the UN Assistance Mission to Iraq, Iraqi police tortured a woman detained in Diwaniya police station since March 2005. The victim recounted that electric shocks were applied to her heels. She was told that her teenage daughter would be raped if she did not supply the information her interrogators wanted. Cost A Shocking Waste of Money Alternet reports (July 2nd): alternet.org/module/printversion/38013 The shocking truth, according to Bilmes and Stiglitz, is that if one applies the Congressional Budget Office’s basic assumptions about the duration of the conflict (”a small but continuous presence”), it will cost nearly a staggering $1.27 trillion dollars before all is said and done. Anti-war news Japanese troops to be withdrawn The Guardian reports (June 21st): www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,1802349,00.html Japan became the latest member of the US-led “coalition of the willing” to announce its withdrawal from Iraq. The prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, said Japanese troops would end their humanitarian mission in Samawa, southern Iraq, as soon as British and Australian troops in the area handed over responsibility for security to Iraqi forces. Slovak election winner says withdrawal from Iraq being readied Yahoo reports (July 1st): news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060701/wl_mideast_afp/slovakiairaqdefence Romanian PM demands referendum on troops withdrawal from Iraq People’s Daily reports (July 1st): english.people.com.cn/200607/01/eng20060701_279041.html Open Letter From Mother of Lt. Ehren Watada, Resister of Illegal War Carolyn Ho writes (June 24th): www.truthout.org/docs_2006/062406Y.shtml Celebs to Join Cindy Sheehan in Hunger Strike Crosswalk.com reports (June 22nd): www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200606/POL20060622a.html The fast, organized by Code Pink and Sheehan’s Gold Star Families for Peace, will begin on Independence Day in Washington, D.C. In her statement Sheehan said she would move the fast to Crawford, Texas, where the president owns a ranch and often vacations. Upcoming events IOF monthly meeting: Thursday 13 July, 7.30pm, Indian YMCA, 41 Fitzroy Square, WC1 (nearest tube Warren Street): | |
|
|