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www.rondavid.net (© Ron David) ARABSONG: Celebrations of Life A journal of truth, humor and occasional beauty dedicated to the principle that every human life --black, white, arab, jew, american, non-american-- is equally valuable. Barbara Nimri Aziz |
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B.N. Aziz--Bulletins from Iraq (For the sake of clarity, I have printed all of the following bulletins from the beginning, instead of picking them up where they left off on the front page.) (© Barbara Nimri Aziz)
Baghdad #1 Date: Sun., 23 Feb 2003 18:54 from Barbara Nimri Aziz, Greetings from Baghdad!! This is sort of a family greeting card after 5 days here in Iraq, at an international conference in solidarity, then will turn to my journalistic work, reporting back to NY listeners through WBAI. Things are friendly, creepy, sleepless, historical, normal with the shadow of catastrophe too close. Everyone is speculating; we aren’t. Iraqis totally helpless, watching the world play with their fate, arousing millions, yet subject to the schemes of the American junta. I remind myself that no one really knows what will happen. So there is plenty of speculation. Those of you who know me, know that I do not indulge in this. I do not even know how I myself will react if bombings begin. Will I run with others, towards any border, curse my foolishness, search out a safe hiding place among the network offices I detest, or.... I still have some hope, nevertheless, that there will not be another war on top of the war of sanctions. Meanwhile there are pleasant moments with old friends, simple pleasures recalling past foibles, personalities, agendas, families together. February is a delightful month for the weather. the heat will begin soon enough. In these initial days, I am presently struggling to set up reliable, regular communications with my office (www.WBAI.org) in NY, to make radio reports to listeners, and to see what email systems work. Radio reports cannot be scheduled long in advance so I can't tell you when to tune in. Thus far, phone is still most reliable. If any of you need or wish to reach me, I am at a small hotel, Al-Fanar Hotel, Rm. 304. The staff all know me. Allow 8 hrs difference. Have them page me or Leave a message. I am out from 9 am to 11 pm (Baghdad time) most days. Phone 011-9641-717-2833. It would be nice to have an occasional call from the folks back home. It is not as expensive as you might imagine from US/Can. Try it. This hotel is the center for many humanitarians and other activists standing in solidarity with Iraq, human shields, etc. --a motley crew, and freelance writers/film-makers. IF I hear from you, I will reply, otherwise BZZZZZ. If bombs start, likely all email, and other communications systems will be wiped out. so don't be too disturbed if you don't hear from us, you can't get through. I say US because there are millions of us. Yes, war is problematic. We will take it day by day.
Al-Fanar Hotel, Rm. 304, a small hotel, the staff all know me. Allow 8 hrs difference. Have them page me or Leave a message. I am out from 9 am to 11 pm (Baghdad time) most days. Phone 011-9641-717-2833. Note from Ron D: the time difference is 8 hrs later than Eastern Standard time. It took me over 30 minutes of Busy signals and pressing the "Re-Dial" button to get through, so please be patient. Barbara Aziz is a resource that we should all nurture.
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Baghdad #2
Date:
from Barbara Nimri Aziz, It's getting closer!!! What, we don't know. A NUCLEAR BLAST THAT DECIMATES US into mute dust? A LOCAL REVOLUTION THAT TURNS US INTO ABSOLUTE SNIVELING, COWARDS, crying I'M AN AMERICAN, a French, a British BYSTANDER--a good Christian? Not Shia, not Sunni? never met whomever Aziz, never heard of a Baathist!! I was on my way to Kuwait and somehow missed the turn. Al-Fanar Hotel is a modest $22 a night (with breakfast) on the corner of Abu Noiwas St overlooking the Tigris and in the shadow of two grand hotels: Palestine Meridien (where this internet cafe is located) and The Sheraton, both almost empty except for weekend newlyweds of modest means and foreigners sending emails. Families of honeymooners give couple two nights of luxury and privacy--a tradition. But a tough time to get married. I imagine most of these have already been delayed months. How long do we wait? they say. Let's go for it!
The Al-Fanar Hotel is crowded (no vacancy) with 60 internationals--mostly young, some associated with an Iraq peace team, some freelance writers/film-makers, one medical doctor. Most occupants have little money, use local taxis--1/2 dollar to cross town, $50 to Basra city in south and back, poor men waiting all day with their rusty, rickety cars outside the front door. Al-Fanar is a little shabby, and noisy with traffic passing all day and night. but clean and reliable re phone messages. Not too many intrusive agents around. On the surface it looks more like a cheap hotel frequented by hikers in Kathmandu before they depart on serene mountain trails. This morning I toured the "bunker" which I have just learned about. Ismael, asst manager tells me they have 2 months of all the supplies we need. In the basement I saw a wall of cabins--our rooms, chairs and mattresses and beds piled up for use, the alternative water storage tanks (6 months) the generator (electricity will be the first to go out) . He showed me the escape routes and the new 45'- deep well they recently dug. The tour was conducted with such a lovely smile and pride that they would take care of me that I felt I had to assure Ismael that I was staying, ready to pay for a month in advance. If we have this, does the upscale, pompous mass media inhabited Al-Rachid hotel offer anything better? I am not interested in asking. I get bouts of nervousness but not panic. following the experience of 22 million Iraqis I think am getting adjusted, although I have to say I am not completely fearless and still uncertain of my reaction when and IF it hits. The Iraqis have 6 months of this psychological war ahead of me, 12 years of sanctions, and their land, and their investments and dreams for themselves, their school exams and father-in-laws, and parents to think about.
Meanwhile there is plenty to occupy me, pleasant meetings, a glorious city, fine weather, good restaurants offering grilled meat, vegetables, etc for modest sums-- for us. Meeting new people all the time: Rashidah, an Algerian poet, translator, writer, living here for a year, translating Iraqi novels and other materials into French. A young (37) writer/philosopher--Iraqi--who tries to act as if he is a wise 70+ partly because of his years in a mental hospital for alcohol addiction. (I wasn't born yesterday son, I tried to tell him in Tibetan when he began explaining to me about the impermanence of the body, attachments in this life etc). But I did listen when he recorded the two months during the 1991bombing when the mental hospital he was a patient in, was bombed (400 dead out of the 1,400 population of patients) , and corpses piled up, refrigeration off, mad people off medication running in all directions, not quite knowing what was going on, with the hospital releasing some patients they felt could manage into the streets because there was no food to feed any of the patients. That was 1991, my friends. Those stories have still not been told. But this gentleman, now a writer, and still addicted, has published a 60 page book with some details. That hospital, Al-Rashaahd Psychiatric Hospital, 50 miles N of Baghdad didn't receive any attention in 1991. And the entire country is still under strict UN sanctions!! Just imagine. No you can't. This is the meanness, cruelty and immorality of the US government. They know too well what they have done. Last night, Thursday, I watched the interview aired on Iraqi TV with Pres Saddam interviewed by a wimpy, ill-prepared, unwise, Dan Rather of CBS. More on that next time. In sum, and contrary to what I expected, I thought the Iraqi leader did very very well, and Rather looked rather dumb. Bzzz ===
Baghdad #3 Date: Sun, Mar. 2, 2003 18:43:32 from Barbara Nimri Aziz, Three days in 12 1/2 years of crippling embargo make little difference in the normal course of things. But for Iraqis and those of us here visiting Iraq at such a junction, it's three days closer to a war of horrific yet unknown proportions, of total defenselessness, a war others will view in the comfort of their offices and homes, with their families, perhaps a little like a long anticipated pest eradication campaign. Certainly not a game. Not a match. Although perhaps a spectacle. We still expect an American assault on Iraq. Even though we eagerly watch the political developments on the world stage, we know the Americans can and will do whatever they want. The wait, with flickers of drama, not hope, while others trying to resist the US. Those who can have set aside provisions and can wells. Everyone wakes to the international news, seeing ourselves somewhere (although not visible) in the scenario. We are pleased that the Turkish parliament has voted against giving the government the go ahead to authorize the arrival and setup of tens of thousands of US troops and arms on the border with North Iraq. But we catch ourselves with the knowledge that in the next two days, before the revote, the US will bribe Turkey with another $6, 8, 10 billion in aid or debt relief. And the vote with reverse. What can we do? We go for dinner; we note the cool, unseasonable weather, we talk about the sanctions, a terminal illness, the Austrian embassy deciding to close; we flirt and look for love. I chat with foreigners, all peace activists here to stand in solidarity, trying to get practical advice, but not succumb to the careless rumors they circulate. I watch buses arrive, with Human new contingents of Human Shields from Europe and the Arab nations. A group of 30, mainly from India and Japan have just arrived. Perhaps as many as 800-1000 young people are assembling in Iraq to offer to stay at various electric, water, hospital sites. Some engage in prank like activists for media attention which I fully approve of. Surely it is clear after 12 years that logic and truth dies not wake up people. The European resisters and protesters must continue, and step up their actions, their numbers, their voices. Surely the western concept of democracy is at stake here. Did you see the interview with Saddam Hussein by CBS' Dan Rather. It televised here the day after US audiences saw it. Rather looked liked a schoolboy, offering simplistic, ill- prepared presumptuous questions, fixing on Bin Laden and weaponry. Does that mean he was truly representing the American people. IN my view the Iraqi leader looked far more intelligent that his questioner, answered with respect and elaborated far more than I thought was necessary. He seemed reasonable, well informed, and genuine in his call for a dialogue and co-operation. When I heard that Saddam had offered the interview I was skeptical and thought surely he would be entrapped, that it would be edited in such a way to put a bad light on him. I thought it could only make more difficulties for Iraq. But Iraqi friends and I all agreed that on the whole, at least as presented here, straight, unedited, and without preamble, that it was a good presentation from Iraq's side. But as one Iraqi observer noted, "there was no dialogue between the two men." Yes, I fear that is the bottom line. Does that mean there is no dialogue between the two nations. We really do speak different languages; we dialogue differently; we listen differently. Meanwhile, inside all the fear of anticipation, I assure you the sanctions go on. The breast cancer mounts, the malnutrition spread, the poverty grows with farmers selling their lands to city speculators with tractors and seed and meanwhile become shareholder laborers. City boys leave school to work in the street. Families desperate to take a child outside for treatment stop any foreigner in the street. High schoolers and college students (rich and poor) are failing at a high rate. They cannot concentrate. they cannot afford, they cannot hope. People trying to get out of the battle zone, are turned back at the Iraqi-Jordan border. The Baghdad International School Primary section has 35 students left out of a normal enrollment of 250. The children of diplomats and UN staff have all left--fled. Two classes I visited this morning each had one child in attendance--what a privilege to have all the teacher's attention. Their friends have abandoned them--for safety. Try to imagine this healthy child, as sad and uncomprehending as the wasted body in the hospital. The halls of the primary school are silent. Busses leave the school at 3 with one or two children aboard. Tomorrow is the first of the month of Maharram, the first of the Muslim New Year. An official holiday in Iraq. For Shia the next 10 days are an especially holy time, and many hundreds of thousands will converge at Kerbala and Najaf, Humza and other places across the country to mark the martyrdom of Imam Ali. It is a traditionally sad time. No weddings take placer in Maharram. So the past few days have seen many wedding parties, a decorated car, followed by 1-3 busses of family well wishers, drumming, dancing, escorting the couple. It is 6pm and I hear the drums in the streets. Yes, people make great efforts... to live. These are Iraqis. This is Iraq. From Baghdad, Barbara Nimri Aziz, phone anytime, 9641-717-2833. Don't listen to the rumors, get out into the streets... and pray for all our people. Bzzzzz
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Baghdad #4 Date: Tues., Mar. 4, 2003 from Barbara Nimri Aziz, One day closer. To what? It is good to see foreigners continuing to arrive in Iraq, from Egyptian poets to Rev. Herb Doughtry, musicians and south Korean activists, and Serbian anti-globalization workers. They come to see for themselves, to meet officials, even to beg Iraq to maker still more concessions to please US war mongers, some come to pray, some to show ultimate objection to the US. All stand in solidarity to one degree or another. But let’s face it. It’s sometimes boring waiting for this war. The imagination runs wild at such periods, fed by the slightest bit of military info, or by another outrageous statement from US leaders. To pass the time, and feel close to something inside Iraq, or inside the current of this historical second—just as exasperated media networks and other international journalists, these visitors continually circulate bits of useless information, much of it unchecked rumors, much of it untrue. To what purpose? To unnerve, to unsettle, and eventually to feel, through unknown minute channels, the accumulation of bits that may somehow igniter and inflame a revolt., or the exodus of westerners, or, or, or. I was in Syria in the spring of 1991 while the war here was underway in Iraq, and there I saw how rumors fly, how no one uses normal discretion and cross checks. “WSe will advance with the Kurds from Syria, through the north and march into Iraq; west Baghdad has fallen, Mosul is surrounded, Nassriyeh is in revolt. It is a matter of days.” I felt then as I do now that this is a strategy of the US enemy, to destabilize. Out of 100 or 1000 such rumors, one will intersect with another at the right time and explode. It’s perpetuated through a system of logic that I cannot comprehend and enter as a strategy, but I recognize it well. Young, inexperienced journalists become hapless agents. What can I tell them? If, I met one who cares to have advice from this veteran. This, I now realize is the significance of veteran. I mildly suggest they check sources again, or to hold the rumor a day before passing it along. If they do they lose their place in the club. Better to pass things around. These rumors thrive on the listless, competitive nature of these sociable, young people. And you never know. It’s also their means of dialoguing with each other. They have no sustained contact with Iraqis. They spend most of their time waiting for the next press conference, or a white house release. So they fill the time with gossip. Yes, it bothers me. I can do no more than caution. Meanwhile there is the “news” generated from outside by mass media—western media. I find it unnerving. What do Iraqis feel? How can a shopkeeper, a teacher, an import agent, a clerk, a professor, a truck driver, or a construction engineer, a housekeeper, bear it? The US says it will bomb Monday. Do will believe it, and then what? USA tanks are lined up along the Jordan frontier. How many? When will they begin to move in our direction? A daughter in Emirates phones phones her mother to leave the Iraqi capital; a father in Jordan arrives to take his son out of Baghdad college. A neighbor in Beirut brings a message to a grandmother in Baghdad begging here to return with him to Lebanon.—just for a few days. This has been going on for months. Months. I am amazed how the Iraqi government departments can still function at all, to arrange programs, to receive delegations, to take visitors on tours of hospitals and schools, to sponsor panels, and collect data about the war, to bring new evidenced to show the injustices against them, the soaring rate of cancer, and to serve the UNMOVIC masters, to listen to visitors’ views and assessments, to plan women’s day celebrations, and prepare historical films, to provide pilgrims’ needs for the holy month of Moharram, to lay down a new highway, and re4search plant diseases. Maybe below the surface there is panic. But from my long experience with Iraqis they have always been extraordinarily energetic, eager to dialogue with visitors, seeking excellence in any work or art. They dynamism matches only that of Japanese and Americans. The Iraqis I meet have become blasé about the rumors that so disturb the visitors; they are deeply affected and physically exhausted, even ill, from the psychological war. But they have also had time to adjust, and to begin medical treatment for stress, hypertension, etc. The adjustment is only superficial, I hasten to add. Thus panic is not apparent. And what about their loyalty to their leader? I have to say that as the threat of war grows, I detect more patriotism among Iraqis than I have ever seen, a more genuine patriotism that is unconnected at its base with any individual. I detect more determination to resist when the time comes, more disgust with American leaders and strategists, and western styled democracies, more affirmation that they have been right all along now that the entire world is opposing the US plan for Iraq. At the same time that Iraqis see this world support, I guess that they also feel they can rely on no one. In the end, they will stand alone. A few—very few Iraqis I speak to—still feel a massive attack will be averted. How, they cannot imagine. I cannot imagine. Each one in our own way prepares, packing one’s paintings, glassware, wardrobe, moving one’s precious personal documents and heirlooms, composing songs, recalling songs of one’s childhood, postponing a marriage, moving a marriage date ahead, planning a child, postponing children, moving exam dates ahead, hoarding, delaying a trip to the countryside, phoning one’s father every day. As for me, a visitor, it’s a little different. To stay or to go. If I stay in Iraq, in solidarity, I will doubtless be unable to phone any reports to WBAI Radio, or even across the city to a friend living in Mansour or Adawiyah neighborhoods. Unless I can make a dash to stay with a friend, I may be confined to my hotel with other foreigners and their annoying rumors.—immobilized. How would we be able to know what is happening even within the city, not to mention across the nation? I shall go mad, unable to read. Electricity will be cut by the first wave of bombs. The city, may be completely ablaze. Revolts may begin. How can one even go into the street to help an injured person? To donate blood? To buy a fresh orange? So what’s the use of staying on? This is why the networks excel and dominate at times like this. They are corporate institutions. But when will the onslaught begin, damn it? Sounds panicky, doesn’t it? (I am reporting this without shame, because it is reality.) Any moment, the city could ignite from the rumors and nervousness alone. We know this, and we say it to one another. Is this what the US generals are waiting for? Nevertheless, be assured there are many moments of good humor, relishing the details of our company together, dwelling on the joys of past gatherings, the daily minute achievements of a 7 month old granddaughter, crazy escapades, lovers, grand moments in history, the film “Chocolata,” recently screened on local TV. Alas I am delighted and eager to be departing for the hills of the north. Pray for all our peoples. Bnimri
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Baghdad #5 Date: Sun, Mar. 9, 2003 10:56 from Barbara Nimri Aziz, To view earlier reports from Baghdad, go to www.rondavid.net, "Baghdad Bulletins", or email ronbalzac@yahoo.com , and much more on Ron David's dynamo page. March 8, 2003 International Women's Day! So what? It's still war mode, for Iraqi women as well as their sons, their fathers, their brothers and babies. In Mosul, 400 km north of the capital, it is a glorious spring day. Night rains nourished the gardens on the banks of the blue Tigris, and soaked the wide open hills of sprouting green wheat. Serene. Spectacular. Comforting. Some families are finishing new houses in suburban locales while others hoe vegetable gardens. Food is security. Nurseries sell infant trees-- plum, pomegranate, lemon and apricot-- for the new homes. Emerging blossoms we see here and there behind walled yards in the old neighborhoods are apricot trees. Tender and white. Friday. Rest day. Family day whether we are Christian, Muslim, Turkman, Kurd, Arab, Sunni. By 1 pm, cars and minibuses filled with families and friends head out to lay on the green hills around the city. Mothers spread plastic sheets over soft, sprouting wheat while fathers set up the barbecue and boys rush with their football towards a flat ground. Car doors and trunks are opened wide to the spring air In the city, soda vendors wait by their battered cooler of 7 UP and Pepsi. They set out clusters of chairs along the miles of corniche overlooking the Tigris. Allah Ma-ask, Ya Dejli. Allah, Ma-ask. Brothers and sisters sit laughing, looking at the blue sky. A few day trippers head further north to Nimrod, to run their hands over the 3,600 year old cuneiform sentences that tell stories and record their ancestors. The relief of the cuneiformed words is fine and the edges so sharp, as if drilled only yesterday by a computerized machine, too precise for any modern hand.
Ah, Iraq. How we love Iraq.
What is more vulnerable, I ask, as I scan the streets of Mosul city? A truckload of black soldier's boots, whose cartons have split open, three soldiers perched on top, holding the load steady as the truck turns a corner? A stack of 20 new plastic chairs set out for sale?
A 9 year old
girl with eyeglasses wearing a yellow sweat suit, walking at dusk? The glass windows of the university campus? Maher Feisel who defended his MA thesis in French Literature yesterday? (At the age of 11, in the 1991 war, he dreamed in French stories.) What will be crushed first? The man polishing his new, orange Nissan taxi? or those soldiers digging pits in the open fields of wheat? Palestine or Iraq?
At dusk families return home from their picnics to listen to the news. All fall silent. The UN security council is in session, on the "question" of Iraq. We hear what Hans Blix and Mohammed Al-Baradie report. It does not quell the terror we feel in our hearts every moment under our spring Iraqi sky.
Barbara Nimri Aziz, Mosul, Iraq. Any spring day 2003 Phone anytime. WBAI producers, call ahead to alert me of what time you want a hook up. 9641-717-2833, room 304.
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Baghdad #6 Date: Mon, Mar. 10, 2003 from Barbara Nimri Aziz, Today, Monday on WBAI with Hugh Hamilton, live discussion from Baghdad 3:20 pm NY time, www.wbai.org on the web. See www.rondavid.net for a powerful web page, our politics and all my Baghdad Bulletins posted on center column, scroll down.
Another bad omen. The Iraqi dinar has fallen 600 in value-- 20% since my arrival. Another day closer! And as we move towards the edge of this abyss, do we really see any more clearly what kind of war this will be, by whose bullet we will perish? Or do we know how any one of us can respond? Doubtless fuelled by Pentagon leaks (?) and western press reports, it looks really scary from here. I don't know about you, but I feel like running. We are moving from a state of quiet terror to panic. One doesn't have to sneak up to a military site to see that primitive preparations are underway to withstand, or stand against. Whatever. Pits being dug by soldiers even on the sidewalks of the city. Recruits lining up at army centers, parading in motley attire on TV. There's no shopping, except for food and bottled water. Yet shopkeepers sit idle, behind wide glass windows, their stock gathering dust, waiting. Mercifully, somewhere in all this, Iraqis have time for art. Sunday night Baghdad's Alwiya club hosted readings of poetry by an assemblage of Arab poets in the country: Algerian, Palestinian, Moroccan, Syria, Lebanese, Egyptian. An audience of 70; in the old days it would have been 200. Next day, Beit Al Hikmet (House of Wisdom) sponsored a forum on globalization theory and practice. Seminars and lectures go on at tearful universities.
The superb National Museum has closed its doors. Some university students from outside the city have gone home. Iran has closed its border to Iranian pilgrims who for all these years have been welcomed to their holy religious places in Iraq.
We travelled to and from Mosul and Baghdad by car, four hours along a fine four lane highway, bypassing Tikrit and Kirkuk cities, through the valley of Mesopotamia. Along the route, villages and towns populated by Iraqi children, women and men, a radio and TV set in every home, a large refinery, sheep farms. Every street light, every lorry, every car, bus, pickup truck, every path across a field, every TV antenna represents an Iraqi family terrorized by the US threat, by the inability to defend. Every waiter who serves us coffee, every guard at the checkpoints, every boy in his horse pulling a tank of oil, every vegetable vendor, every soul here is quietly asking: "Why does America want to destroy our land? Why? Why? Why us? "We know it is not our leader, our human rights record, our claims on Kuwait, our measly arsenal bought from American, British and German companies in the 80s. Not even American greed for our oil is an explanation we can comprehend."
Mosul is in the north, declared a no-fly area (for Iraqis) by the US bully. Yet, it's a free target range for British and US planes. So the maunders enter and overfly the green spring fields and the city of 2.4 million. They storm over the five universities, over the now abandoned National Agricultural Institute, over the fat flocks of sheep, over primary schools and olive groves, over the military training camp, the presidential palace, the kindergartens, over three hospitals, over marketplaces, granaries, and chicken farms. They bomb at liberty, unchallenged. Last Tuesday, the American bombers continued pounding for two hours in the evening. Yes, they killed. But more than that, they terrorized. Increasingly Iraqis realize that a psychological terror war is being waged against them to destabilize in advance of a military assault.
In the early 90s, four years before the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding over UN resolution 986 which allowed Iraq to sell oil, and its revenue used to purchase food from outside, food was scarce. Fertilizer plants had been bombed, and seed was precious. Although far below capacity and insufficient to feed the starving, without pesticides and herbicides farmers still produced some desperately needed wheat. Just as it ripened, days before harvest, the marauders ripped through the northern skies and dropped firebombs as they passed over the ripe wheat. (You may not have heard but this was reported at the time by the FAO of the UN and by some journalists.) I had thought it ended after the food for oil resolution was implemented. Now, I learn from inhabitants of Mosul that the arson of these fields continues. But only during the harvest time, once the crop is ripe. These kinds of terrorist acts have become so routine that they are not newsworthy, like contaminated and expired medicines now being shipped in under the UN agreement. Iraq has no right to any contract terms that would protect itself against contractors who supply faulty, expired or useless equipment and food.
The fragmented nature of this report is part of the atmosphere I am embedded in. Should one go back to 1991 injustices? Shall I list the rumors-- about long-term network journalists shifting to another hotel because the al-Rasheed is targeted by the Americans, about freelancers calculating whether to find a small hotel near the networks' satellite positions? About the entire civil population being prohibited from moving in the streets once the war begins, about families furnishing themselves with light arms? About evacuations? There must be a degree of chaos at higher govt levels, all part of the cocktail being prepared when the spark ignites. Mighty Allah, these people are strong. I admire them, all the strength they have to fight on, to stand tall. Allah yam-ak, Ya Digleh, Allah Yam-ak. I'll be frank. I really don't want to stay here. No email; no phone to WBAI, no walks in the evening, not even to take up a nursing post at a hospital.
Here's a rumor for you. UN weapons inspectors earn $20,000 a month. Yes, a month. UN salaries moreover, are tax free, and staff are provided free housing, transport, health, etc. etc, etc. All from Iraq's oil income. Yes, before all food and medical contracts, water purification and electrical repairs equipment, the UN takes almost 50% for its needs. Iraqis have a right to demand answers and just treatment. We all wait for the UN meeting tomorrow, with a possible vote against the US, followed by??? Go into the streets; there is still time. Pray for all our peoples. Bzzzzz
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Baghdad #7 Date: Tues., Mar. 11, 2003, 12:32 from Barbara Nimri Aziz, Well some things are not rumors. Mohassen and her children are back in Baghdad. We will have a party for her. They returned, by force (i.e., involuntarily) from the Jordan border yesterday morning. Just Imagine. Imagine years of determination to stay in your country, despite everything. Imagine, your loving husband working The Arab Emirates, phoning you regularly to join him, to send the girls to him, just to visit. Imagine declaring to all friends, "as an Iraqi, I will not leave my homeland. This is my country. I love my country. I will not allow the Americans to take it from us, from my father, from my president, from any Iraqi." Imagine being well off, having all the facilities and comforts (well never all, but we won't go into that now), even during the hard hard, sanctions. Imagine years of helpless watching your friends die before you, give up before you, depart before you, suffer from cancers, from heart failure. Imagine now--calling your dearest friends with whom you stood for 12 years, saying goodbye. Imagine leaving your brothers, leaving your friends to this terror of war. Imagine packing up the house, hiding jewelry, packing paintings and wardrobe, taking valuables to your sister's house. Imagine deciding with the children what to pack in the car. Imagine arrangements with your employer to hold your job, with your gardener to guard the house. Imagine ordering the taxi to the border, leaving your own car at your brother's, locking the gate. Imagine arguing with your weeping children about what they can and cannot take, about one more goodbye phone call to their school friend, "please Mama." Imagine the heaped car arriving at the Iraqi border after the 6 hour drive across the desert, the procedures, the questions. Imagine finally, after 2 hours, the children either groggy with sleep or cranky, clearing the Iraqi border, turning your back to the great arch above the gate at Trebil, with the portrait of your president, crossing towards the next gate, with the portrait of its American king. Imagine then the Jordanian customs officers saying "No. You can't come in." Imagine another three hours, arguing, phoning your husband in Emirates, weeping, phoning friends inside Jordan, find someone in some office to give us clearance. Imagine the 6 hour drive back to Baghdad. Actually, next day Mohaseen is relieved. She had been telling her husband for years that she would stay, whatever. Tomorrow she will phone him to ask him to join her in Iraq.' Just imagine our lives. News notes: bottled water is becoming scarce, expensive, if you can find it in the city. I have decided to leave for Syria or Jordan myself, on Monday or Sunday. Imagine sitting here waiting for a war that will either not occur, or if it does, will confine me to my room, under curfew like millions of others, internet cut, phone cut. The Iraqi dinar is up yesterday against the US dollar. Another senior US diplomat has resigned!! The US State Dept. will be unable to survive this storm. These diplomats are finally feeling the pulse of the world. The art galleries on Abu Niwas Street are still open every evening. The Iraq Theater Company will stage the play Gilgamesh here in the capital next week. I hope it opens before I leave. I don't want to miss it. Baghdad summer has just begun. Tomorrow Thursday is Ashura, the day of the martyrdom of Imam Ali Hussein. A holiday, a time to remember the sacrifice of Ali Hussein. Two days holiday, except for those officials and other dedicated Iraqis receiving delegations, taking care of the foreign human shields, still arriving, today from Bangladesh, Sudan, Morocco. Allah Yam-ak Yah Digleh, Allah Yam-ak. Pray for all our peoples. Bnimri
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Baghdad #8 Date: Fri., Mar. 14, 2003, 20:35 from Barbara Nimri Aziz, All Baghdad Bulletins are posted on www.rondavid.net Such a lovely bright early summer day, how can there possibly be war looming so close? How can there be thousands of tanks ringing Iraq? How can there be ships loaded with deadly missiles aimed at Abu Nawas Street and Candle Restaurant and the air force club and the medical college? How can there be cellars filled with food rations for 5 months and water bottles and medical aid kits, and batteries, and latrine pits in the gardens? Imagine a school busload of 40 six year old children--little girls. None sit demurely in their assigned places, but stand in the isles, climb over one another to sit in pairs, little bright faces pressed to the windows. From my taxi, halted beside the bus at a traffic light, I watch them point and chatter and turn this way and that. You know them. After #7 journal "Imagine....", I thought "I should try to imagine a happy scenario: the end of sanctions, the retreat of the armies and the warships." Try with me to imagine an Iraqi Airways commercial plane arriving in Toronto, carrying scientists to a conference, another leaving for Tokyo on a regular 5xweekly flight, to bring Japanese tourists to Babylon and Nineveh. Try to imagine the hospitals gleaming and orderly, a nurse seated at her computer locating the friend you are visiting. Imagine hundreds of students from Leeds and San Diego, Seattle and Chicago and Marseilles, enrolled in Arab language classes at Mustansuriaya University, in archaeology and anthropology classes at Mosul and Hilla. Try to imagine the Iraqi national museum open, with long lines of visitors waiting to be guides through the rooms of treasures that Iraqi has preserved for us. Imagine a guide book to Iraq. Try to imagine Abu Farid's stationery store out of stock of his 3 million color postcards. Imagine Munir receiving an email of his acceptance in atomic physics at U. Texas. Imagine Lamis' family driving to Sulaymaniya in the north for a week stay booked beforehand at there government managed cottages in the forest. Try to imagine Abu Omar passing like any other businessmen through London customs, joining his partners at a club in Piccadilly, returning home after 3 days. Imagine using your ATM card to withdraw $250 at the hotel in Basra, using your credit card to pay your hotel bill at Al-Fanar. Imagine an Iraqi filmmaker winning a prize at the Edinburgh festival. Try to imagine a united land, with a new parliament and new faces, boys growing up without military service. Imagine a busy highway between the city and Baghdad Airport, health centers in every neighborhood and every village. Try. It seems so so distant a scenario. But try.
Back to rumors. I have located at least one source of those rumors spreading through the journalist community:-- CBC TV. I was called by their office in Toronto yesterday, by their booker, who simply said "You are on our list of resources," to my question "How did you get my name and number?" He began by asking me for a commentary on the UN Security Council deliberations. Why me? I have enough experience not to be flattered by a request from a national network, not to rush to have this chance to tell the world the truth. I was not keen to drive across town to the satellite for a live feed, without pay. Besides, I point out "you have your staff here in Baghdad, why not ask them to find someone. Why did they not contact me themselves? OK Perhaps I can help you find an Iraqi. But today is Ashura and most people are with their families at home. We are interrupted by the CBC news editor who, I am told want me to comment about rumors circulating in Baghdad that journalists will be asked to leave on such and such date. With difficulty I return to the issue of an Iraqi commentator. "Call back in a hour, I may have a professor for you. Forty five minutes later, he calls and I try to give him the name, but CBC Toronto is more interested in what rumors I have heard about an attack at the Ministry of Info, about the US using bombs that knock out sat dishes, about media companies pulling out their staffs in Baghdad/Toronto CBC is asking me in Baghdad what I have heard about the decisions of media offices in NY, Atlanta, Washington London. Ask them. Ask the pentagon, the White House. "Well," he replies, "we heard from a cameraman of Al-Jazeera in Baghdad that blah, blah, blah. He could not give his source, but perhaps you, B N Aziz, can tell us if this rumor is true. " I told this young Canadian producer to "Fuck off. Obviously you have never been in a war situation before. You are in fact planting these rumors, being totally irresponsible, and wasting my time. Goodbye." Either he is a knowing agent, or he is being used by his company to plant rumors and add to the chaos. The worst is, the young producer is Arab Canadian. Recognize the strategy?
Here we are again, yet another day closer. The Iraqi dinar dropped to 2,450 today. A huge load of synthetic carpets is unloaded in the market, delivered via Turkey I think. About 30 feet wide, each roll 100 feet long. Somehow, Iraqis continue to build. Bulldozers are busy on the banks of the river, preparing new dykes. Saadoon street is being widened, and fresh concrete was poured along a mile stretch yesterday. The barber shops are busy on Friday afternoon. The Human Shields from Algeria, Turkey, Spain, Britain, Italy, are in place, with reinforcements still arriving. Pray for all our peoples. BNimri
Baghdad #9 Kerbala, Iraq--Date: Mon., Mar. 17, 2003 from Barbara Nimri Aziz, I never imagined that in 3 years, Kerbala Hospital would look as I saw it today. I could detect the change from a quarter mile away, noting from the road that the structure had been painted. As my car turns into the main gate of the hospital, I count 15 ambulances most new models. In the parking lot, large wooden crates are scattered awaiting attention. Some are 12 feet long, all house a new delivery from the Ministry of Health, Baghdad. I learn that these are components of a new elevator, to be installed in the 4-story hospital. Inside the lobby, I do not see long lines of men and women, carrying or supporting the ill. I do not smell the odor of inattention and decay. In 1991, when I first visited Kerbala General Hospital, after the US war, and the crushing of the local rebellion, there was not one ambulance left here. The elevator ceased operating in 1994. At that time, it was 6 bewildering, gloomy years before the hospital would receive medicines, or paper for case sheets, or mattress covers, or disinfectant, or a single computer, or lights for the operating room. Today, most of the 400 beds are still old, rusted and chipped and their cranks do not work smoothly. Yet, as the staff point out, these are at least functional and minor inconveniences, unimportant compared to the quality of treatment now available and the medical staff’s ability to advance themselves with reading and additional training. Medicines are in good supply, and new, advanced diagnostic equipment purchased through the MOU of UN Resolution 986 (food for oil) is in place. What a delight to visit the new cardiac and urology wards, both begun as new constructions from ground level in 1999. I saw them when the foundation was laid and the walls in place, in 2000. Today they are in operation, each with twelve beds, serving Iraqis on the same high level of the doctors, almost as smoothly as any professional medical center would expect. 12 dialysis machines. Heart monitors at every bed in the cardiac ward. A monitoring station. New staff are hired to maintain the 12 dialysis machines. The hospital’s pride and joy is the CT scanner, with a full time radiologist in a completely reconditioned and refurbished room. Dr. Amal, the radiologist, was sent to Germany to undertake training from Seimmanâ’s-- the company supplying the machinery. Also new is a research library. Newly painted, it is bright, fresh, well stoked. Each administrative room has its own computer including the intake department where for 2 years the staff has also been entering all old and new hospital records into the data bank. Paper files with dog-eared case sheets sit like the haggard, wasted patients whose desperate histories they record, hang on the open rusting shelves beside the computer station. The young computer operators have returned from training in Baghdad. The research library has some current journals as well as CDs for most of the major journals doctors need. The computer holds a special place in the room. Since 2002, doctors can access almost all journals and research medical needs on internet that the ministry provides. A new neurosurgery unit is operating with the neurosurgeon performing as many as 60 operations a month. Dr. Mohammed Ali is finishing his shift. He is a renal specialist. When we last met in 1995 here in Kerbala, he was heading a team of 6 doctors, moving through the Kerbala bazaar buying cotton sheets, plastic mattress covers, light fixtures, and yes, paper. Dr. Ali is still a major force as a fundraiser for the hospital. Most of the improvements and the new buildings have been possible with donations from the Kerbala citizens. I have a long history with Kerbala. We passed hard times. We strained to keep hope. Today there is such progress to record. The doctors feel they can now serve their patients with their full capacity. Although, they can barely address the heightened needs, auto accidents, astronomical rises in rates of various cancers (not only in the south), quadruple heart [bypass] cases due to stress. So, how do you think these men and women felt today, wondering if any of this will be left after an air assault, after possible rebellions and counter-rebellions, possible civil war, and land invasions? The major question each one asks: how can we hold on to the hard won progress we have made? How can we cling to what we have rebuilt, as the ground beneath us shutters with the sound of a tremendous earthquake? Be sure, as this monster lumbers like a programmed missile towards them, medical staff and facilities are still not dealing with a situation that is anywhere near normal. Beds are unoccupied not because illness and need has declined but because if there is an attack, people are anxious, uncertain, reluctant to leave the pseudo security of a home to undertake hospital treatment. The community itself is so frightened. Imagine all this work, year by year, building, overcoming incredible odds, and now facing, at the very least power cut off, water shortage, electricity cut off. I am so proud of the staff I know, men and woman able to hold on, to bear the additional burdens, to find alternative sources of support for hospital care, to dream of expanding and implement their dream. In 1995, Dr. Omaya, the wife of my host at Kerbala, had a baby that died after a day. She herself almost perished. In 1998, she had breast cancer which was treated with surgery and radiation; but it infected her bones. They went to Jordan twice for treatment. Her prognosis is not good. The drugs she now needs are still unavailable in Iraq. She herself is no longer strong enough to practice medicine.
I walk away from the center pleased at witnessing this growth and testimony to human will and Iraqi excellence and skill. I wonder if I will be able to return, if I will be able to bear to search for them again.
News notes: The Iraqi dinar declines a further 5 %. A hard rain falls in the capital and across the north as the moon approached fullness. Thunder in the sky makes me nervous, although Iraqis know what a real bomber sounds like. A team of boys play football under a street lamp near Joumhurriya Bridge. Any family whose home is near a bridge, a Baath office, a telephone exchange or the house of a high party or military man, seeks out another residence. Journalists are panicking, unable to assess what is true, where to flee, how to remain free, how to secure their chance for the scoop of a lifetime, questioning whom to trust, unable to admit they are damned scared. Scott Taylor, a Canadian who said he is a journalist but who was a Canadian businessman the first time I met him here, has been expelled, suspected of being an Israeli agent. I don’t know about mossad but he was not a genuine journalist in my judgement. He just gave me bad vibes. At the very least, I said to myself and tried to warn a few freelance newcomers, he is planting rumors. Learning of his expulsion I feel affirmation that I am really a veteran. That’s all. Across the cities, families install double locks on their doors and iron grates over their windows against looters, and journalists huddle with their competitors, while troops fortify Baâth neighborhood stations with 5’ high walls of sandbags to mark an enclosed space to house the machine gun. When will it be installed? Towards who will it be aimed? One entire room in our small hotel is filled with one litter bottles of drinking water. I am departing in a few hours, after I return to Baghdad from Kerbala. I have had to tell dear friends of my departure. I cannot admit to myself that we may not meet again. When will my tears overcome me? Is a miracle possible?
Pray for all our peoples. BNimri
Baghdad #10 Date: Thurs., 20 March, 2003 from Barbara Nimri Aziz, Barbara's anguish in Bulletin #9 was palpable. I sent her an e-mail that said only "Are You OK?" ---Ron D
Am I OK, having left hundreds
of Iraqi friends to stand alone against those formidable killing forces?
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