An accounting of the occupation and testimonies of individuals

The reality of occupation….

Four stories of occupation:

The Abdullah Children
The Abdullah Children each lost a leg when a US rocket smashed through the back of their pick-up truck last April. Their legs were so mangled that they had to be amputated. Sabrin, aged 14, her brother, Abbas, 10 and their four year old sister Ilaf were not able to get any kind of prosthetic legs and their father could only get crutches for 2 of the children. They live on a farm outside of Baghdad, near to where they were hit.

“Why did George Bush cut my leg off?” says Ilaf, “ I never did anything to him.” The doctors who treated them gave their names to various humanitarian organisations but 6 months later they hadn’t received any help.

Their father, Hamza is worried about their future. Only a few high profile cases have received help. No compensation is available to people like these. Iraq Body Count estimate that at least 20,000 civilians were injured during the invasion and in the first months of the occupation.

Baida Sadik
Baida Sadik was kidnapped last May when she left her home in Shaab City, Baghdad, for school. Her fellow students say they saw her being shoved into a car at gunpoint.

She was 16 years old and had wanted to return to school to continue her studies to become a nurse. Her brothers plastered her picture over the walls of hospitals, police stations and schools around the in their search for her. It is not known what happened to her.

Numerous women have been kidnapped, sold into prostitution, raped. If they return alive, many are killed by members of their own families in order to preserve the family’s honour. Sahar al Yassri, a lawyer representing rape victims said, “In Iraq, a woman who suffers rape or has been abducted becomes dead to society.” In January, the Iraqi Governing Council attempted to pass on order replacing the Personal Status Law of 1959 (which gave women equality in marriage and family matters), with religious laws, which would, for the majority of Iraqi women, remove that equality.

Abdul Rahman Abd Al-Khaliq

(photo by Jo Wilding)

“ I was arrested in August at 3am. They took 6 people from my house. My father and I were released after 103 days. My 4 brothers are still detained. They destroyed 2 doors and everything between the 2 doors. They took everything: computers, telephones, even the pictures on the walls. They stole 11 million dinars from my home.

“They just put me in one room and gave me ration food. I was wearing only shorts, because it was night when they came. I wasn’t wearing anything on my chest. I wasn’t even wearing shoes. They took me first to the republican palace in Karada and then here to Abu Ghraib. On the first day they kept a bag on my head and my hands tied the whole day. After that it was only when they moved us from one cell to another.

“They will keep you there for 3 months and after that they will decide if they will release you or not. I was questioned only on one day and the rest of three months I was just in a cell. We had 6 cars, that’s what they said, we were Fedayeen, they said, we tried to kill Paul Bremer.

”I said we are a rich family, and we are five brothers and my father. They told me no, there are a lot of people meeting in your home. I said of course. All the family gatherings happen in our home. He said no, you are trying to make a new party now, trying to resist us. I said I will kill myself if you don’t release me. I’m a student and I need to be in college. After that they brought a lot of pictures and started asking me, even about children, do you know this one, do you know that one?

“The Americans are just like Saddam because anyone who gives them information, they give him money, just like Saddam’s regime”

Baha Mousa
Baha Mousa died in British military custody in September 2003. He was working as a receptionist in a Basra hotel which was raided by British soldiers. Seven staff were forced to lie on the floor with their hands over their heads. Small weapons had been found in the hotel safe.

His father, a colonel in the Iraqi police, said, “Three days later I was looking at my son’s body. The British came to say he had died in custody. His nose was broken , there was blood above his mouth and I could see the bruising of his ribs and thighs. The skin was ripped off his wrists where the handcuffs had been.”

Another man had acute renal failure after being kicked in the kidneys. They were interrogated in a building that had been the secret service headquarters of Ba’athist Ali Majid. “They were kick boxing us in the chest and between the legs and in the back. We were crying and screaming.” They say they were not questioned about the weapons.

Two soldiers arrested after Baha’s deaths were released. Although an incomplete death certificate and inquiry did accept the nature of the wounds of which he had died, his father thinks Baha was killed because he had persuaded a British officer to arrest soldiers who were stealing money from the hotel safe. This aspect was not brought up in the inquiry. The family accepted some money as compensation but refused a final settlement in which the British would not accept responsibility. They are still hoping for their son’s death to be dealt with legally.

Baha Mousa left 2 small boys, Hassan, aged 5 and Hussein aged 3. They are orphans. His wife died of cancer 6 months before.

Occupation - Your lives and your suffering will never be counted.
Occupation - International Humanitarian Law plays no role.
Occupation - Your lives are just pieces in their game.
Occupation – stealing from the poor to give to the rich.
Occupation – one year on what have you gained?
Occupation – when will you finally escape it?
Occupation - how many lives is it worth?