Will we in the West, I wonder, have a few minutes silence in our homes and work places in grief and memory of the hundreds of women, men and children who are currently being massacred in Fallujah, as we did for the victims of New York and Madrid? I doubt it. Yet this atrocity is no less an act of terror. It is certainly not an act of war. The besieging of a small town and indiscriminate bombing and shooting of its inhabitants without any military aim, can only be described as deliberate genocide. A mass punishment for the murder of four American businessmen, or, as many in Fallujah believe, an assault planned long ago to crush their resistance to occupation and finalised after the attack on General Abu Zaid. Some note the mystery of the day the burned bodies of the Americans were found, when, of all the days of the year, the US military were completely absent from the streets and skies of Fallujah from 10am till 5pm. What was it the Americans knew that day?
What the people of Fallujah know is that retaliatory murder has been committed on a massive scale. Approximately 800 dead and three times that injured and after twelve days the siege and attack is still not ended. 20 000 top US marines backed by tanks, helicopters, F15s and F16s raining tons of missiles and cluster bombs on a civilian and virtually defenceless population. What was the crime, we should ask, of six-year-old Ahmed, blown to pieces along with his father and uncle as they sat in their home in a quiet residential area, or the crime of his cousin, four-year-old Ali, also killed in his home, or of Yassin, another cousin, aged six, who had his leg sliced off and his father killed, or the boy and his mother who were shot point blank in the head as they were climbing into an ambulance? - Just a few examples of the hundreds of children maimed or dead. If you want mass graves, look no further than Fallujah stadium or the gardens filling up with corpses, often six bodies to a grave, or to the streets where dogs tear at the bodies that Americans have not allowed people to collect.
The atrocity of Fallujah is but one example of the brutality of this occupation. There is no doubt that Iraq has entered one of the darkest phases of its recent history. The people of Iraq refuse to accept military occupation and loss of sovereignty and Britain and America refuse to give up their prize. The months ahead look bloody and the fragile light which had begun to glimmer during 2002, when it seemed that the sanctions regime might be crumbling despite the iron fist of the US and UK, is now quite extinguished.
The concentration camps set up Guantanamo-style by the Americans and British are being filled through the arbitrary arrests of men, women and children – some as young as 11-years-old. Stories and evidence are emerging of torture, rape and death in custody. By holding people indefinitely without any recourse to law and often without the knowledge of their families, these camps break every rule of international law. We know that Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but what does it say of Britain and America that they have managed to surpass him in their abuse of the people of Iraq?
The so-called ‘liberation’ of Iraq has heralded a year of mismanagement, which beggar’s belief and a disregard for the most basic of human needs. Security is worse than ever before, communications dire, the hospitals have gone a whole year without even one batch of medicine being delivered via the Ministry of Health, the infrastructure goes from bad to worse as no reconstruction is being attempted, and the mass of people are unemployed with absolutely no hope of future work. If crime is increasing in Iraq, it is because people are being pushed to the edge of starvation and destitution. Prices are rising and the minimal buffer of subsidies on basic goods has been removed. While the Western press speaks of ‘insurgents’ and ‘militants’, they do not explain that these are just the ordinary working people of Iraq, who are, in desperation, using their unemployed time to form militias with the only thing that is free and readily available in Iraq - munitions. If the occupation has achieved one thing, it has been to unite Sunni and Shi’a as never before.
The strength and unity of feeling, especially over Fallujah, was brought home to us on April 10th, when Baghdad went comprehensively on strike. Walking out into the middle-class district of Mansour – one of the few areas, which may have benefited from the occupation and increased spending power of the few - was like walking into a dead city. Not a single shop or business was open, apart from a bakery, greengrocer and pharmacy which ensured the basic essentials. Such solidarity would be unthinkable in any Western capital.
If we in the West do not honour the thousands of dead and injured in Fallujah, should we be surprised that we are no longer welcomed in Iraq? We are pointlessly and needlessly making an enemy of the Muslim world and our erstwhile friends. The policies of our governments and the words of our media are steeped in racism and hypocrisy, not liberation and democracy. Our weapons may be sophisticated but our tactics and attitudes are truly medieval. The people of Iraq know that we are here to loot. They may have considered Saddam Hussein a thief, but that is nothing to the thieving propensity of the US and UK. We pretend to champion human rights while abusing these rights on a scale unimaginable. We in Britain should not be surprised that the occupation is not going as smoothly as Mr Blair would have us believe. As we were lied to over weapons of mass destruction and the reasons for war, so are we being lied to over the nature of the occupation. As Fallujah still lies under siege and troops surround Negev, the future for Iraq and the credibility of the Western world looks very bleak.
Joanne Baker
Abdul-Haq Al-Ani
Child Victims of War and LAAW in Baghdad.
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