What drives the fighters in flip-flops
Falluja is not unique. Collective punishment is escalating in Iraq
Haifa Zangana
Wednesday November 17, 2004
The Guardian
In a statement that directly echoed George Bush, Qasim Daoud, Iraq's interim minister of state for national security, told a news conference at the weekend: "Mission accomplished ... Falluja has been liberated". He proudly recited the list of the dead - 1,400 terrorists, foreigners and Saddamists. And what about civilians, the women and children trapped in the fighting zone. Any casualties? He avoided the question.
At the same time, thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad, Basra and Heet in support of the people of Falluja. Many were arrested, some were beaten. The US-appointed Allawi regime responded by imposing new curfews. The US military is still struggling to contain a spreading wave of resistance, in Najaf and now Mosul.
Around Falluja, camps have been erected to receive displaced women and children. Men aged 15-50 were not allowed to leave the city, so 150,000 wait in anguish for news of fathers, husbands and sons.
Will they survive the US military's wrath? Many will not. The execution-style killing of the wounded Iraqi inside a mosque by a US marine, captured by NBC television, was one of many, according to an eyewitness interviewed by al-Jazeera television yesterday.
Yet all members of Allawi's regime have greeted the suffering of Iraqi civilians with complete silence. The dignified voice of Firdus al-Abadi, spokeswoman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad, has haunted us for days. Appealing for relief supplies, she said simply: "Conditions in Falluja are catastrophic." The Red Crescent suggested yesterday that as many as 800 civilians had died during the bombardment.
The plight of the people of Falluja is not unique. Since the nominal handover of sovereignty on June 30, we have witnessed an escalation of Israeli-style collective punishment of Iraqi cities. Civilian carnage, coupled with enormous damage to homes and infrastructure, has became our daily reality.
In Tall Afar, in the north, US troops cut off water for three days last month and blocked food supplies to 150,000 refugees. Then in Samarra, residents cowered in their homes as tanks and warplanes pounded the city. Bodies were strewn in the streets but could not be collected for fear of American snipers. Of the 130 Iraqis killed, most were civilians. Hospital access was denied to the injured. And Qasim Daoud hailed the massacre as a "very clean" operation.
Every day of occupation brings fresh atrocities. But the architects of that occupation claim that it is Iraqis themselves who are beyond the reach of democracy. They are "militants" and "insurgents", bent on terror ising their own people and destroying hopes of reconstruction. Why can't they get involved in the peaceful democratic political process?
But they did, and they continue to do so. Over the last 19 months there have been protests, appeals, initiatives to set up a reasonable programme for elections, the opening of human rights centres, lecturing at universities, even poetry writing. This torrent of activism is still being practised by a broad variety of political parties, groups and individuals who oppose the foreign occupation. And they have been ignored. Newspapers were closed. Editors were arrested. Demonstrators were shot at, arrested, abused and tortured.
On the fourth day of the ground attack on Falluja, last Friday, joint Shia-Sunni prayers were held in the four mosques in Baghdad, and were massively well attended. Inter-communal prayers were the hallmark of the 1920 revolution, revived early this year by the Iraqi National Foundation Congress, a loose umbrella organisation of academics, cross-sectarian clerics and veteran political leaders. Early on, Allawi set the tone for building democracy in the "sovereign" Iraq by insisting: "We will stand up to destroy the terrorists." This language has become the daily currency of the interim ministers, who like children in a school choir echo their instructor, the US military spokesman.
But time after time, it has been shown to be false. Most fighters in Iraq are Iraqis who are outraged to see their country's resources robbed while they live in slums, drink water mixed with sewage and have no say in the political process. Nineteen months after "liberation" they can see how little the liberators have done to ease their suffering. No wonder an increasing number of Iraqis are either joining or supporting the resistance, realising that, as in the past, they must fight on their own.
The overwhelming popular support for the people of Falluja is a salute to young fighters wearing flip-flops, who carry ancient weapons, and yet continue to resist.
Western governments, led by the US and UK, supported Saddam's regime against the will of the Iraqi people for decades. They are committing a similar crime now.
· Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and former prisoner of the Saddam regime
Falluja is not unique. Collective punishment is escalating in Iraq
Haifa Zangana
Wednesday November 17, 2004
The Guardian
In a statement that directly echoed George Bush, Qasim Daoud, Iraq's interim minister of state for national security, told a news conference at the weekend: "Mission accomplished ... Falluja has been liberated". He proudly recited the list of the dead - 1,400 terrorists, foreigners and Saddamists. And what about civilians, the women and children trapped in the fighting zone. Any casualties? He avoided the question.
At the same time, thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad, Basra and Heet in support of the people of Falluja. Many were arrested, some were beaten. The US-appointed Allawi regime responded by imposing new curfews. The US military is still struggling to contain a spreading wave of resistance, in Najaf and now Mosul.
Around Falluja, camps have been erected to receive displaced women and children. Men aged 15-50 were not allowed to leave the city, so 150,000 wait in anguish for news of fathers, husbands and sons.
Will they survive the US military's wrath? Many will not. The execution-style killing of the wounded Iraqi inside a mosque by a US marine, captured by NBC television, was one of many, according to an eyewitness interviewed by al-Jazeera television yesterday.
Yet all members of Allawi's regime have greeted the suffering of Iraqi civilians with complete silence. The dignified voice of Firdus al-Abadi, spokeswoman for the Iraqi Red Crescent in Baghdad, has haunted us for days. Appealing for relief supplies, she said simply: "Conditions in Falluja are catastrophic." The Red Crescent suggested yesterday that as many as 800 civilians had died during the bombardment.
The plight of the people of Falluja is not unique. Since the nominal handover of sovereignty on June 30, we have witnessed an escalation of Israeli-style collective punishment of Iraqi cities. Civilian carnage, coupled with enormous damage to homes and infrastructure, has became our daily reality.
In Tall Afar, in the north, US troops cut off water for three days last month and blocked food supplies to 150,000 refugees. Then in Samarra, residents cowered in their homes as tanks and warplanes pounded the city. Bodies were strewn in the streets but could not be collected for fear of American snipers. Of the 130 Iraqis killed, most were civilians. Hospital access was denied to the injured. And Qasim Daoud hailed the massacre as a "very clean" operation.
Every day of occupation brings fresh atrocities. But the architects of that occupation claim that it is Iraqis themselves who are beyond the reach of democracy. They are "militants" and "insurgents", bent on terror ising their own people and destroying hopes of reconstruction. Why can't they get involved in the peaceful democratic political process?
But they did, and they continue to do so. Over the last 19 months there have been protests, appeals, initiatives to set up a reasonable programme for elections, the opening of human rights centres, lecturing at universities, even poetry writing. This torrent of activism is still being practised by a broad variety of political parties, groups and individuals who oppose the foreign occupation. And they have been ignored. Newspapers were closed. Editors were arrested. Demonstrators were shot at, arrested, abused and tortured.
On the fourth day of the ground attack on Falluja, last Friday, joint Shia-Sunni prayers were held in the four mosques in Baghdad, and were massively well attended. Inter-communal prayers were the hallmark of the 1920 revolution, revived early this year by the Iraqi National Foundation Congress, a loose umbrella organisation of academics, cross-sectarian clerics and veteran political leaders. Early on, Allawi set the tone for building democracy in the "sovereign" Iraq by insisting: "We will stand up to destroy the terrorists." This language has become the daily currency of the interim ministers, who like children in a school choir echo their instructor, the US military spokesman.
But time after time, it has been shown to be false. Most fighters in Iraq are Iraqis who are outraged to see their country's resources robbed while they live in slums, drink water mixed with sewage and have no say in the political process. Nineteen months after "liberation" they can see how little the liberators have done to ease their suffering. No wonder an increasing number of Iraqis are either joining or supporting the resistance, realising that, as in the past, they must fight on their own.
The overwhelming popular support for the people of Falluja is a salute to young fighters wearing flip-flops, who carry ancient weapons, and yet continue to resist.
Western governments, led by the US and UK, supported Saddam's regime against the will of the Iraqi people for decades. They are committing a similar crime now.
· Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and former prisoner of the Saddam regime
