[Media-watch] Jo Wilding: "The news from Iraq" [and the kidnapping of James Brandon] - 13/08/2004

[Julie-ann Davies]

>From Jo Wilding
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:13:25 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [wildfirejo] August 13th - The News From Iraq
From: Jo <gurneyernie at yahoo.co.uk>

August 13th
The News From Iraq

It repeats itself: the main hospital has been closed
down by US troops and is being used for military
operations, ambulances are being prevented, again by
US troops, from moving around the town, which is being
pounded from the air while the US and the Iraqi
militias, disparate armed groups, fight in the streets
and US soldiers drive around with loudspeakers,
ordering civilians to leave or be killed.

It could be Falluja in April; this time it's Najaf. I
hear that Kut has been bombed, the hospitals reporting
massive casualties which the US says were fighters,
the locals say were mostly civilians. I hear nothing
about Nasariya, Samawa, although I know that when
Najaf kicks off, my friends in the other southern
towns just have to lock their doors and wait.

Then the kidnappings. I hate it when my mates become
the news. This morning the radio woke me up with the
news that James has been kidnapped in Basra. Armed men
went to the hotel, went through the books to find out
his room number, shot him, dragged him out and have
threatened to kill him if the US doesn't withdraw from
Najaf in 24 hours.

Of course they know, all too well, that the US command
doesn't care about life - they wouldn't have been
attacking civilians in Iraq for the last 14 years and
a week if they cared about life. Of course, James is
only one in a ceaseless flood of civilians caught up
in the violence of this occupation, the invasion and
the sanctions; he's only one of dozens that I know
personally, but there's something about hearing your
mate's voice on the radio, hearing the terror in his
voice, when the last time you heard it was over a
narghila in your apartment in Baghdad, hearing the
media commentators pontificating about him in the past
tense, remembering what it felt like for me when I had
four other people with me and when our captors were so
gentle and polite.

The latest news is that the kidnappers have released
him at the request of Moqtada Al-Sadr. He thanked them
or their kind treatment of him once they found out he
was a journalist and criticised the occupiers for
creating the situation in the first place. It
emphasises again that, even when loyal to the same
cleric, all groups are not under any unified command.
The Iraqi resistance is mainly a conglomeration of
different armed groups acting independently, most - no
doubt - with their own hierarchy and with some of the
same aims, but emphatically without any centralised
control structure.

Bombings and hijackings along the roads from Baghdad
to the south are common now for Iraqis and foreigners
alike and kidnapping risk is seen as too high for any
of the NGOs' foreign staff to work in the south. About
20-25 ex-pat NGO workers are still in Baghdad, keeping
a low profile, travelling only in unmarked vehicles
but managing to keep their projects going.

A friend explained that, "Everyone in the towns knows
us so rumour spreads quickly when a foreigner is back.
The locals who know us see it as a sign of hope and
that things are getting better but the militia see it as an easy target."

She says lots of the NGOs have pulled out completely
because they don't trust their local staff. "Donors
are desperate to find people who can still operate
projects by remote (not from within Iraq). They are
sending emails asking for new proposals all the time.
In some ways this is good but seems completely out of
sync with the needs and the lack of money in Africa
for example who has many more starving dying children
than here.

"It also makes you wonder about the donors motives
when they are desperate to give away money but not
before we sign a waiver of any liability to them for
staff injured in the field. Complicated stuff. Highly
political even if we try hard to be neutral.

"Since being here three months ago Baghdad seems a bit
quieter because many of the shops have been closed and
many of the houses have huge walls built around them
for protection. Businesses are still open and there
are plenty of traffic jams (more due to road blocks
and re-routing of traffic away from target buildings)
but still life as normal, or as normal as the Iraqis
are used to for the last 25 years.

"The streets are definitely cleaner though and a lot
of work and purchasing of resources has finally
happened for the ministries and government departments
- more since the hand over two months ago than in the
six months before that it seems. People are saying
that civil servants' wages have gone up but then the
food rations are reducing so again the poor miss out
on both counts.

"As a foreigner I get a different reception to three
months ago. People are welcoming and nice when they
know who I am and what I do but very sceptical and
distant on first appearances. My interpreter spoke of
abuse he has received while working with foreigners,
from Iraqis asking 'how he can work with those
Americans to ruin our country'.

"It seems that the difference between Coalition Forces
and NGOs is not at all known by the majority of
people. I must say that my utmost respect goes to
those staff who continue to work for NGOs and
especially to the Iraqi police who are the biggest
targets of all, but still go to work each day and
stand in the firing line with very little protection.
They are the committed new Iraqi generation in my
eyes."

Military and political interference with aid and
humanitarian efforts have caused huge problems for
NGOs in Iraq and Afghanistan and has been responsible
for the deaths of several aid workers. Medicins Sans
Frontieres pulled out of Afghanistan recently after
the US military issued letters to the local population
saying they would be denied humanitarian aid if they
didn't comply with military demands. Apart from being
illegal it reinforces the idea that NGOs are working
for and part of the military and the occupation. The
mercenary 'security' companies make it worse by
calling themselves NGOs when they're doing military
missions.

It repeats itself: as the invasion ended and the
occupation began, the president of Medicins Sans
Frontieres USA testified to the House of
whichever-it-was on the disastrous consequences of
that same deliberate linkage in Afghanistan, while my
friend Ibrahim and his MSF colleague Francois were
being held prisoner by the old Iraqi government.

It repeats itself: the new leader, Ayad Allawi has
closed down Al Jazeera's Baghdad office to see whether
they can be bullied into compliance before full
expulsion. He's reinstated the death penalty for
sedition as well as murder. The Sydney Morning Herald
carried credible reports of Allawi personally shooting
dead unarmed suspects in custody. Last year's
anti-Saddam freedom fighters are this year's
'insurgents', whatever insurging involves, and the
US's appointees, Salim and Ahmed Chalabi, among many
others, turn out to be corrupt.

Allawi is not seen as a strong leader, does not have
broad support and is not able to unite Iraqis. The
apparent unity of opposition to the occupation which
has arisen in the last half year or so obscures
differences which some commentators think are likely
to be manifested after elections when all the main
groups are, inevitably, disappointed with their
respective shares of power.

It repeats itself, only bigger: the devastation faced
by Iraqis is reflected in the sickness of returning
troops. Of one unit returning from Iraq, almost half
have already got malignant tumours, double the
already-appalling figures for returnees from the 1991
Gulf War..