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Part Six--International NGOs: International Activists
in Iraq
Despite the grim reality, many people from around
the world are coming to Iraq to support the peace and justice movement.
Global Exchange, Voices in the Wilderness, Amnesty International,
Code Pink, and many other peace activists from Japan, Korea, Germany,
Italy, and France are here showing solidarity with the people of
Iraq.
Since mid-April when the major assaults in Iraq
ended, thousands of foreign humanitarian workers and human rights
activists from around the world have come to Iraq to work with the
United Nations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human
right groups. They've come with the intention of helping the people
of Iraq, all of this outside the scope of U.S. occupational forces
and its U.S.-run Coalition Provisional Authorities (CPA) (the U.S.
occupiers' shadow government in Iraq set up after the invasion).
Unlike during Saddam's regime, when every foreigner
needed to fill out complicated paperwork to come to Iraq, and their
activities were limited and monitored by the government, in post-war
occupied Iraq, there's no immigration authority nor government bureaucracy
to register, monitor or coordinate the works of all international
agencies.
As a result no one really knows how many international
organizations are in Iraq. Baghdad is now the "wild, wild west"
of international and Iraqi organizations. It's easy to come to Baghdad
now and anyone can do it. A group can just get an apartment or hotel
room and set up their own office without going through any paperwork.
Everyday there're new groups popping up and in many cases, no one
really knows who they are. They range from faith-based organizations
to media activists; medical aids groups to human rights monitors.
Some groups are multi-million dollar operations with hundreds of
staff members, while others are just mom-and-pop joints with only
one person in Baghdad.
The human rights operations in Iraq are just another
example of the successes and failures of international organizations
in developing countries.
Medea Benjamin from San Francisco's Global Exchange
and United for Peace and Justice, has brought several delegations
to Iraq since the end of the war to open a Occupation Watch center,
an international human rights office in Baghdad to monitor human
rights abuses by U.S. occupying forces in Iraq. "It has been
a amazing experience here, and [you] get opinions from such a cross-section
of Iraqis," she says.
Compared with newcomers like: Occupation Watch,
Voices in the Wilderness is considered to be one of the oldest foreign
human rights groups in Iraq. Ramzi Kysia, from Washington DC, a
third-generation Lebanese-American, has spent one of the past two
years in Iraq for Voices in the Wilderness. He was here during the
first two weeks of the war, and expelled from Iraq by Saddam's government.
After the fall of the regime, he immediately came back to Baghdad.
At the peak, they had 33 people in Iraq during the war from across
the world. As time passed, volunteers left and new replacements
arrived.
Voices in the Wilderness set up an independent
media center in downtown Baghdad. They're working with a group of
university & high school students, and people in their 40s,
to start an independent newspaper called Al-Muajaha ( The Iraqi
Witness, http://www.almuajaha.com
). Currently, they desperately need financial donations to run the
newspaper, and a full-time staff with journalism background who
can speak English and Arabic to run the Baghdad Independent Media
Center.
Voices in the Wilderness has been coming to Iraq
for the past eight years and has brought about 500 people from across
the world for the peace missions. "Iraqis are the most generous,
the most hospitable of all the Arabs. People here are unbelievably
kind to you. They take you their homes. They welcome you as members
of their families. They will give everything that they own."
Ramzi says, "I think the occupation has made [everyone] increasingly
violent and hostile."
Echo Ramzi's concern, Caoimhe "Cuiva"
Butterly, one of the Voice's peace volunteer from Ireland, says
"I think it is really necessary not only...witness the truth
and reality [in occupied Iraq] to the outside world." She says
the war had created such deep divide between middle east and the
west that "it's very necessary [for us] to be present here
to represent an alternative faces of the west [to the Iraqis]"
She concluded. Cuiva is a very brave women, she made a very challenging
statements against the Iraqi Interim Council during their opening
ceremony on July 13.
Ewa Jasiewicz, another Voice's peace volunteer,
is a naturalized British citizen originally from Poland, she spent
much of her past year in Palestine. She has been in Iraq since May,
and planning on staying until next year. She's currently helping
the homeless Iraqi-Palestinians at the Palestine refugee camp in
Baghdad.
After the war, over 1,000 Iraqi-Palestinians were
evicted from their Baghdad apartments and forced to stay in the
refugee camp because there is no Iraqi government to pay their rent
subsidy. Ewa, Cuiva and other international peace workers from the
Voice had setup a solidarity tent at the camp to help the refugees.
While the Palestinians in the camp generally welcome the international
activists, they also think they are ineffective in helping them.
Ewa admits there are problems in the international
aid groups in Iraq. While she supports more human rights groups
coming to Iraq, she says, "There's a lot of bullshit coming
up. Everyone's got their own NGO, and everyone wants to set up their
own NGO [in Iraq]."
Another problem Ewa admits must be confronted is
mistrust from Iraqis. She says at the beginning when she arrived,
people were very suspicious, on guard with her, and they were wondering
why they're coming. In some cases, Iraqis were very hostile toward
them, particularly men, she says "because of the representation
of western women in every American daytime TV show or film as flirty,
half-naked bodies; female peace activists from the west aren't viewed
as volunteers in solidarity [in Iraq]."
What is the future of the international peace movement
in Iraq? Ewa says listening to them is very important. "You
know, everyone wants to know why you are here. Everybody wants to
know why your government [U.S. and U.K] is responsible for this
[invasion], and picks you as the representative of your governmental
policy, or projects upon you a kind of revenge or frustration or
anger they feel against the policy of your government, or tells
you what your government has done to them for many years, which
you have listen to, you know. You've got to absorb all their anger
because it's the first time lots of [Iraqi] people [have] had [this
chance]," she concludes.
Thousands said it, with faith, with flattery,
in opportunism - And the people who didn't say it were humiliated.
Who can disbelieve in Saddam?
Today, we are still hearing it, Without outlawing
abomination, Or commanding to the right path - Without our trying
to do anything.
Dear God, when will we be liberated? From our fears,
our anguish - When? When Will we find peace? (Excerpt from poem
"Saddam Will Return" by Saif Al-Haddad)
Sincerely
Lee Siu Hin
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