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Interview with Ewa J. about current situation in Falluja, Iraq

ab | 10.04.2004 21:21 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Repression | World

Audio Interview with Ewa Jasiewicz who was present at the Balata Installation in Glasgow today, and who spoke about the situation in Palestine and Iraq.


Ewa Jasiewicz is currently touring Scotland on a speaking tour.

For the last eight months Ewa Jasiewicz has been living in Baghdad and Basra, supporting human rights groups, womens organisations, families, workers, trade unionists and Palestinian refugees. She also lived for 6 months with communities of resistance in Jenin and Nablus in Occupied Palestine, volunteering with Paramedics at the Red Crescent Society, monitoring checkpoints, delivering food and medicine, accompanying council workers, teachers and children during curfew, and organising demonstrations. She has written for Red Pepper, Electronic Iraq, Z-Net, Counterpunch, Infoshop, Occupation Watch and The Socialist Review in the US.

Today Ewa has been guest speaker at the Balata installation organised by the Camcorder Guerillas in Glasgow, where she gave a talk about the current situation in Iraq and the phone calls she received today from her friends outside Falluja.

Interview is 3min 43sec long. More about the general situation in Iraq under the occupation later.

This interview can also be found in the ogg vorbis format from external site 1.9 M (as ogg uploads to indymedia uk are broken)

ab

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Transcription

10.04.2004 22:12

Couple of friends of mine have been driving back and forth from Baghdad to Fallujah and trying to take the pressure of the hospitals in Fallujah which have run out of supplies. They're running out of blood, they're running out of medicines - they're running out of space.

So, people have been evacuated to baghdad, which is only about a half an hour / forty minute drive. Ambulances are being fired upon, or being followed by snipers - therefore they're not getting in to Fallujah.

Thirteen-kilometre colomn of refugees - the elderly, women & children - have been leaving Fallujah since yesterday morning. This is on the command of the American Occupation - asking people to leave Fallujah, but also the fact that they've been bombing Fallujah with F16s, Apache helicopter gunships and B52s has contributed to this - you know, there's been a lot of destruction in Fallujah, and people leaving, and people are afraid, and they're stuck in the desert.

They're stuck in between Fallujah and Baghdad. My friend was saying that they've been surrounded, and the occupation forces have actually been firing upon them. A lot of Iraqi people have responded to the crisis call from Fallujah, and are bringing supplies - food, medicine, and trying to get in to Fallujah.

They've been getting stopped at American checkpoints, but I think today, there was a plan to breach the American checkpoint, and a bus-load of twenty-five internationals was going to be participating in that, and that includes Jo Wilding, who's been in Iraq for ages - she went there with a travelling circus. She brought a load of clowns with her - which is actually a brilliant thing to do, because it's an uncomplicated message, it's a very healing message, it appeals to children, it's putting a smile on
someone's face, which is sometimes the hardest thing to do, and the most valuable thing for Iraqi kids right now, because they're so traumatised.

But she and her clowns, are gonna try and breach the checkpoint - and the Christain Peacemaker teams, and a couple of independent film-makers.

When I spoke to my friend Lee Gordon, who's a journalist - he'd been ferrying the sick and injured in and out of Fallujah - he said that him and a friend of mine who has family in Fallujah, tribal family, and friends, particularly from the Iraqi Islamic Party, and they said that they were gonna go in and that they were probably gonna get killed, because it's expected, either today or tommorow - 'cause I haven't managed to speak to anyone today actually, it was all last night I spoke to people. They're expecting a massive assault on Fallujah - you know that's why the men, the elderly, the women & children have been taken out - the only people left in Fallujah are pretty much fighters and people who refuse to leave their homes.

People are expecting a huge assault, because the American central command, itself, have said that the whole operation should be over in about five days. You know, I've seen on the Internet that they're calling for a cease-fire, and allegedly they did yesterday, but that's crap. Minutes after Bremmer declared a cease-fire, planes were coming and dropping bombs on Fallujah. They have no intention of actually pulling out. What people are expecting is an intensification of the violence - so to hear my friends say "well, you know, we might not get out", is just really really frightening.

And, there have been demonstrations called all around the world. they'll be happening in Milan, in San-Fransisco, in Washington, - all over the place. There's one in London tomorrow outside downing street, but there's also the possibility of people trying to breach military bases, particularly Fairford. If this Intifada is sparking off a new wave of violence from Britain and America, in an attempt to suppress it, which is likely, you know, it is likely, then the war is on again, and planes will be taking off from Fairford, and refuelling, and re-supplying at Shannon Airport in Ireland, and God knows where else.

So it's really serious.

typist


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