UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT CRISIS
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Reports from Baghdad

Sura is an Iraqi university student living in Baghdad with her family. She was formerly working for the Non-Aligned Student and Youth Organisation, an international youth organization of the Non-Aligned Movement. Her reports are printed in the Socialist Labour Party Youth's magazine Spark. In the interests of widening the range of voices heard from Iraq we have also offered to publish them on this site.

 

 

15 April 2004

Hello everyone,

Yesterday we got papers that guys were distributing to people in the streets and giving it to shops owners. What was written on these papers is "Dear sisters and brothers, please do not go out of your houses from 15 April till 23 April, do not go shopping, do not send your children to schools or to universities, do not open the shops or the gas stations, do not go to work at all, because the fire of the resistance will move from Falluja and Khalidyia to Baghdad also, therefore and for your own safety we advise you not to go out in this period, and now we did what we have to do and informed you and after all it is up to you."

Today in the morning there were great sounds of missiles, then in the news they said that they shot missiles on the coalition's bases in Baghdad. Sometimes we only hear the sounds but we don't know exactly where? coz they prevent the media from getting any information about them. Reporters can get information only if they were near to the place of the event or from witnesses who were near the place at the time of the explosion so they need great luck to obtain the information. Only 15% of the information are available for the media.

At 10 pm yesterday the US troops surrounded the area in front of us and entered the houses to search for weapons. They made the family get out of the house and wait outside. Yesterday one of the families has 3 kids sleeping, the mom asked them to leave them inside and the others will go outside, but they refused and told her take them all out immediately (these days the weather is nice but before they were leaving the families with their children freezing outside coz they didn't even let them put anything on). If they don't open the door in a few seconds they smash the door of the house by a special kind of bomb, sometimes people are sleeping coz it is after midnight and they don't know that they will be searched, so they take time to open the door, but the US soldiers bomb the door.

After they finished yesterday we asked people we whom we know there, two of them have been robbed by the soldiers. In one of those houses the family had $125 on the TV. A US solider took it in front of them and put it in his pocket, the family couldn't say anything. This amount of money is nothing compared with the salary that any US solider gets, but I think that this solider is cheaper than this very little amount of money coz he has already accepted to take salary for killing people and destroying everything, therefore he is able to steal less than this and able to do anything, don't you agree with me?!

The other soldier was in the room of a girl, he saw a gold bracelet on a table in the room, he took it, and we found the poor girl crying coz it was a gift from her dead father to her. But what can she do? She can do nothing!

Also I have to tell you two important events happened yesterday. One about a father in Al Falluja; his daughter was killed in their house and his brother was injured, they shot them while they were sitting in their house. When they asked him (we saw this in the news) about what happened he said "they killed my daughter here, and I miss her so much, she died with all the good people who were killed in Iraq. We have to free Iraq and we'll do this for her, for Falluja and for all the good people in Iraq", he was crying strongly when he was saying these words.

The other event was in Baghdad; a taxi driver was putting a picture of Al Sadr on his car, the Americans stopped him and told him remove it now, he refused to do this. They took him out of the car and started to hit him till he died!!! about 8 soldiers against 1 civilian person, hitting him till death because of a picture!!!! there was a very old woman standing there she was crying and shouting "if you only give me a weapon I want to kill them".

Faithfully

Sura

[This last story was also reported by The Australian, 14 April­ - ed.]

14 April 2004

Hello everyone,

In this report I'll continue talking about the situation here.

Let's start with Al Falluja. People who came from there told us that about 800 died there most of them women and children, they shot at civilian areas with F16 fighter jets, and they closed the hospitals there in order to prevent them from getting medical treatment. People cannot help those injured in the streets so many are left till they die there.

In the first day people went to bury the dead persons in the burying ground, they shot them there and killed them all. After this they started to bury people in a stadium nearby, then they buried in the gardens of their houses. They brought medical stuff from each other to help them but of course most of them died coz they need major medical operations.

When families wanted to come to Baghdad for the sake of their children they shot them on their way to Baghdad. Families here opened their houses for those who could manage to arrive to Baghdad from Falluja.

After sending them blood, food and money from Baghdad, we put more in a big mosque here in Baghdad to send it in the next day, but the US troops went at 5 in the morning to the mosque and destroyed the supplies. People gathered and went to Falluja to take for them what they need but they are prevented on the borders to enter.

At the beginning, the US general (Mark Kimmit) said those are gangsters and we will kill them all. About al Sadr, he said that this is a terrorist and we have to kill him, then after one week we saw in the news that they send more troops to Falluja to help the marines there. We saw in the news the US army are retreating from (Nazal) an area in Al Falluja because of the very strong resistance. Then they sent persons to Falluja and then to Al Sadr to negotiate to stop fighting for a period of time!!!!

From the first day of the war till this moment we lost a lot and this is the only way we have now, it is really unfair for all those innocent people but we are sure that now they are getting what they really deserve.

Sura

8 April 2004

Dear friends,

How are you?

I have just came from a place in where thousands of people are going to give their blood needed by the people of Falluja. People everywhere in Baghdad are giving their blood, food and money to Falluja's people.

I think that you know a little about us from the news, the situation here is worse than it is on TV and news, the resistance is taking place everywhere in Iraq.

I live in Al Aathamyia, it is in the centre of Baghdad, I think you have heard about it also on TV. Yesterday was a bloody day. The houses were really shaking, and the sounds of explosions were great, it was stronger than it is in the war period. In the near streets we saw the fighters carrying the RPGs [Rocket Propelled Grenades] on their shoulders, and other kinds of weapons and running in the streets, taking a place to wait for the American troops to come, and in the same time all of them start to shoot. In the war we were afraid of these sounds, but not anymore. you hear the women telling their children, our souls are not more expensive than those fighters in the streets, they also have families and they want to live as you want, but they are trying to let Iraq and Iraqis to live a better life and to revenge for all of us.

They are all young men, you even find young men about 17-18 years old with the elder ones, bravery they have inside them can do many things.

About al Sadr; he is a young Shiite man, who is against the Americans and their behavior against Iraqi people. He has thousands of supporters here. At the beginning he was using peaceful methods in dealing with the occupation, but after one year from the war and after he used all possible peaceful ways, he reached the point where he has to fight them by the same way they treat Iraqis. First he asked them to free all the prisoners (there are about 10,000) and asked them also to leave Iraq, they ignored him completely, therefore he started what he did.

About what happened in Falluja when they burned the bodies of the American soldiers: most of the people here have the same opinions, and they said that it is not allowed at all in any religion and especially in Islam to do this to the dead bodies, but we can not blame them coz they are expressing their feelings towards them and they have the right! You saw how the Americans killed more than 200 in al Falluja in 2 days only. Because of 4 persons, only 4 persons were responsible for this operation but they killed hundreds of innocent people for this, most of them are women and children. They are surrounding the city and preventing food and water getting in.

I'll give you another example about the aggressive feelings they put inside people and the hate that they created between the different people around the world. In the past people were very sensitive towards others feelings and their problems, but now they are not. When the last events happened in Madrid, I told them they are poor civilians, they said no we are also civilians, let them know what others suffer!

Let me now tell you my own story with the Americans: there were two translators working with them, and they knew that I hate them, they saw a picture of Saddam Hussein with me as a screen saver on my phone, when one of them told the soldiers this, they came to me and said why do you have that? I said coz I love him, they said how come? I told them it is my opinion and it is a free country like you said, didn't you make it a free country? They said no, this is an extreme opinion. Then they said were you living good at that time? I said we were living in a Paradise - they started to shout and saying to each other to listen what is she saying. They told me stand here and they forced me to stand under the sun for 5 hours. I told them at least Saddam would never allow a young girl to stand under the sun for 5 hours. They got really mad, they said maybe we'll put you in prison and you'll never go out again. I asked them, only coz I said my opinion?! They said yes, then a civilian Canadian man came and he was angry at them, he told them this is her own opinion and her own thoughts. He said let her them for herself, and then they write down my name and full address and took my photo and said now go but next time will be the end for you!!

This is a brief, and if you have any question don't hesitate to ask me.

Yours

Sura

Sura can be reached via lalsalaam@hotmail.com.