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CPT Iraq Report, June 20-23, 2003
June 20, 2003CPT team members Peggy Gish, Maureen Jack
and Anne
Montgomery travelled an hour north of Baghdad on the
road to Tikrit to visit the uncle of a friend of the
team who had recently been imprisoned. At 6.00 am one
morning he, his wife and five young children were
awakened from sleep by a megaphone. Their house was
surrounded by a number of army vehicles and two
helicopters. The soldiers said that they werelooking
for a senior member of Saddam's regime, who they had
been told was hiding there. The children saw them as
they pointed their weapons; they were frightened and
crying. The soldiers found and removed a significant
sum of money. They handcuffed the owner of the house
and two members of his extended family. They said that
they would hold them for an hour and then release
them; about a kilometre along the road they freed the
other two, but they took the owner of the house to
prison and held him there for twelve days. In prison
there were 80 men in the same room; they had blankets
but no beds. There were two outside toilets, which
seemed to be open, without walls. During the time in
prison no one visited from outside the prison. After
twelve days he was simply told that he could go and
that they were sorry. The money has still not been
returned. When the owner visited the army recently to
ask for it to be returned he came out of the building
to find his car on fire; the Americans had
accidentally shot at it!
June21, 2003
Gish and Jack visited a local church to inquire after
the people there. The priest reported that one of
their people had been killed during the fighting; he
was a Saddam fedayeen. Several had been injured in
bombing and a car crash on the Mosul road. Security
was a concern: one woman who had been at mass the
previous week had disappeared on her way home.
June 22, 2003 Jack and Anne Montgomery accompanied a
local man to the International Red Cross to inquire
about his son, who had been detained by the US
military. There they met by chance two former
detainees who both reported that while in prison they
had witnessed the killing by American soldiers of
three Iraqi detainees. Members of the family of one of
the men reported to have been killed (a young man of
nineteen years, who had been married for four months)
were also there seeking the return of their son's
body. One of the former detainees was clearly still
distressed by what he had seen; he said that the
soldiers opened fire when the detainees were shouting,
''Freedom!'' That afternoon the team met
representatives from the Union of the Unemployed in
Iraq, an organization with 15,000 members. The
representatives asked CPT members to attend and
participate in their non violent demonstrations and
help link them with international workers unions.
Arrangements were made for further links. Team members
attended evening mass at St Raphael's.
June 23, 2003
Jack and Gish visited Baghdad University, where Jack
made contacts to ink up library workers with Edinburgh
University in Scotland which is launching a "Books for
Baghdad" project, to help replace books lost in
looting and burning of several university libraries.
While there, they came upon a non violent student
demonstration, protesting the U.S. military checkpoint
at the entrance to the University, and were able to
talk to staff and students. Signs said, "We ask the
coalition forces to get out our university and we
don't need you to keep our security" and "Islamic
religion don't like cheeking women." Nadia, a worker
at the University, told Gish that "the U.S. military
doesn't understand the people here. Iraqis have a
different understanding of freedom. The soldiers don't
realize the shame connected with having your house
searched and searching women."
That afternoon Jack and Gish visited the home of the
leader of a Christian congregation in Baghdad. In
talking about the conditions after the war, he said
that under Saddam Hussein, Christians and churches
felt safe, and protected by law. Now there is chaos
and insecurity. ""Sometimes we wish Saddam Hussein
came back,"" he added, ""because there are so
many
problems now.""
Later Jack and Gish attended the NGO Coordination
Committee in Iraq meeting, where, along with other
agenda, a U.N. official reported that violent attacks
on expatriates in Iraq had increased in number and
sophistication, and they were now calling it "low
intensity warfare."
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