Sabbitical

I am on sabbatical for research. Thanks everyone who's contacted me and offered up your thoughts, feedback and encouragement. I should begin posting again in April 2008.
~Karen

Iraqi Refugees Live in Lebanon’s Shadows

by Karen Button

In the crowded Christian neighborhood of Sad el-Bouchrieh Amer chain-smokes cigarettes in the small one-bedroom apartment where his family of five now live. His wife, Nadwal, and their three sons listen silently while he recounts their harrowing escape from Iraq to Lebanon. “We were fortunate even to have arrived here,” he says, though the life is far from easy. Once a shop owner, Amer now feels lucky just to have a delivery job in a country where he is not legally allowed to work. He earns $10 USD a day.

As Christians living in Basra, life before the US-invasion was not easy, says Amer. After the invasion, it became a hell.

“Under Saddam, we lived downtrodden. But circumstances after the invasion became unbearable. Sadr’s forces took over the city and immediately the threats began.”

Amer owned a liquor store that quickly became a target of Moqtada Sadr’s Mehdi forces. One day, the militia drove by shooting into his store and a customer was killed. Amer quickly sold everything and closed the store. He then found a job with an Italian NGO that was providing aid to refugees who’d fled Saudi Arabia and Iran, where he worked for nearly three years.

But the intimidation continued. Threatening letters were dropped at the door of the Christian family, accusing them of being “dirty non-believers.” Nadwal took to wearing the hijab in public, removing it when she would enter the church. Then, Amer began to be warned about working with foreigners. After sending messages to his cell and calling him at home, the militia began following Amer until the day they caught up with him.

“I was giving a ride to some friends and my youngest son was with me in the car. We were followed and suddenly they began shooting at the car. I yelled for my son to get down on the floor. One of my friends was shot in the shoulder and I was shot here,” he says, pulling up his shirt to reveal a long, thick scar on his chest. “Then, they shot the gas tank and the car was in flames!”

Fortunately, a British patrol was nearby and heard the gunshots. When they showed up, the militia members fled.

“My son’s legs were completely burned. We were taken to the hospital, but we couldn’t even get complete medical care. There was a shortage of drugs and the hospital had been taken over, pictures of Saddam replaced by Sadr. I didn’t feel safe there because they can follow you even into the hospital and shoot you in your bed. No one can stop them!”

They were taken to a friend’s medical clinic where the bullet lodged in Amer’s chest was finally extracted and his son’s burns treated. Terrified, the family fled their house that night, accepting the protection of a Muslim friend. The friend helped find a new car and the family fled for Mosul, where they had relatives, two days later.

“I was nine months pregnant,” Nadwal adds quietly. “I gave birth in Mosul, but the baby was completely deformed and died immediately…” she trails off with tears in her eyes.

On top of this, Nadwal’s relatives urged them to leave, frightened themselves. Christians have been targeted and persecuted by militias in Iraq, driving most to flee. “They told us they couldn’t even protect themselves. But, we had no documents and didn’t know what to do. We were so scared and so stressed,” Amer continues.

After staying just 3 days, with Nadwal, Amer, and their son still recovering, the family of 5 decided to flee to Lebanon, where Amer had a cousin. With their life savings of $4,000 on them, they left early one December morning with a smuggler who promised to get them into Syria for $200 each.

After successfully entering Syria, the family nearly at the Lebanese border when they were stopped and arrested by the mukhabarat (intelligence). “They beat me and my [eldest] son very badly. I begged them to just hit me because this boy had never been touched in his life, but they didn’t listen,” Amer says sadly. “When I told them I had stitches in my chest, they hit me there, too. This was all in front of my family. I’ve never been so humiliated before.”

Amer and Nadwal had both hidden their remaining money on their bodies, which the police quickly found when searching Amer.

“I was so scared they would search me too,” Nadwal adds. “This was all our savings.”

“I was about to collapse from the beatings when they found the money,” Amer continues. “At that point, they stopped the beating and forced me to sign papers that we would return to Iraq. They told me to forget about the money, to leave and talk to no one. They said if they caught us at the border again, ‘I knew what would happen’. I was covered in blood with cotton in my nose when we arrived in Damascus.”

Still without documents, the family’s last hope was with another smuggler who promised to get them into Lebanon. After paying $150 per person, they were driven to the base of a mountain where, after an arduous 7-hour uphill trek in the mud, they had safely crossed.

The family arrived to the cousin’s house exhausted and still recovering from wounds and childbirth. But, they had arrived.

Now, a year and a half later, they have registered with UNHCR and are hoping for resettlement. Meanwhile, none of the children are attending school. The two eldest boys, a 16- and 14-year old, both work to help support the family. The youngest, still traumatized by the shooting incident in which he was burned, refuses to go, unwilling to be separated from his family.

“Thankfully, we are all still together and we’re still alive, because many Iraqis don’t even have that,” says Amer. “But, I had to quit school in order to support my family. Now,” he says sadly, “this is happening with my eldest son and he was the smartest kid in his school before.”

For the first time, Saymon, the eldest speaks up from across the room. “We’ve suffered everywhere, in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon. I feel that I’ve never seen a good day, and I wish for more.”

Shaking his head, Amer adds, “I can’t believe I used to help the refugees and now we are refugees ourselves.”

While the family hopes for resettlement elsewhere, they live in Beirut very cautiously. Like other Iraqis in Lebanon, they live mostly under cover for fear of being arrested and deported.

Lebanon, like Syria and Jordan, is not signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which gives recognition and legal status to those seeking a safe haven. Christians especially have fled to Lebanon, where they are 15 percent of the Iraqi population compared to just three percent in Iraq.

Iraqis can still sometimes obtain a one-month tourist visa either at the border or from the Lebanese Embassy in Baghdad, but it cannot be extended. Most are smuggled across the border, which Lebanon recently reinforced with a 7,000-troop presence. As a result, the majority of Iraqi refugees are in Lebanon illegally, where they are referred to as “illegal migrants”. If they are caught, they are jailed, then sent back to Iraq.

Fearful of being stopped at military checkpoints, numerous since last year’s war, or randomly by police, who then send them to jail where they await deportation, most Iraqis are living in the shadows.

Amer says he and his family all stick close to home and rarely leave their neighborhood. “If I’m stopped at a checkpoint, they’ll arrest me. It happens all the time, and to people that I’ve known.” Even on their street they don’t always feel safe. “There are frequent fights here and one night the police filled the streets when I was on my way home. I was alone and just hid until they finally left. I arrived home hours late and my family had no idea where I was.”

“I was terrified he’d been arrested,” says Nadwal. “Sometimes when there’s fighting in the streets we just lock ourselves in the house to be safe because we’re here illegally. We arrived here safely, alhamdullallah, but we live in a prison.”

Cluster Bombs Southern Lebanon’s Only Harvest this Year

by Karen Button

Aita al-Shaab, Southern Lebanon—Beautiful rolling hills, verdant and fertile, are dotted with olive groves and family tobacco farms in this small village on the border between Lebanon and Israel.

It was here that Hizballah captured the two Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers that kicked off last year’s July-August war. And it was here that some of the fiercest street battles raged as remaining locals joined Hizballah to fight Israeli troops. Most of the buildings still standing are scarred with pockmarks; Aita al-Shaab’s old city is remains mostly flattened, bulldozed by Israeli troops.

As dawn breaks over a ridge separating the 2km distance between Lebanon and Israel, UNIFIL (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) outposts glint in the early morning sun. This morning the busy sounds of reconstruction, funded primarily by Qatar, but also by Hizballah (Iran is funding road construction in the region), begins early as migrant Syrian construction workers emerge from the partially destroyed buildings where they’ve encamped.

But in the valleys below the city, rich, red dirt lies fallow even though Aita al-Shaab is an agricultural village. Fields above the town go ungrazed. Since last summer, after Israel dropped about one million cluster bombs in southern Lebanon alone—up to 40 percent of which the United Nations Mine Action Clearing Center (MACC) estimates lie unexploded--most farmers and shepherds have been too afraid to go onto their lands.

Israel has been heavily criticized for dropping 90 percent of the 2-3 million cluster bombs used throughout Lebanon during the last 72 hours of the war, after a cease-fire was agreed upon.

MACC is heading up clearing, but has a long way to go.

Thus far, 60 teams from UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon) and private companies have cleared about 10 percent (110,000) of the unexploded munitions. Focus has been on population centers, but fields, forests, and grasslands are much harder to clear. The Israeli government has refused to turn over maps where cluster bombs were dropped, making clearing more time-consuming…and dangerous. Teams are also clearing 400,000 land mines; some are leftovers from previous wars, MACC reports, and some were planted last summer by Israeli troops.


Cluster bomb attacks part of larger plan?

Many I spoke with, like eco-system management and food sovereignty expert Rami Zurayk, believe that the Israeli government’s bombardment is a deliberate attempt to separate people from their lands.

“What’s kept people in southern Lebanon for the past 60 years of neo-liberal policy,” he explains, referring to the time period since creation of the State of Israel, “is their profound attachment to the land. I believe it is Israel’s long-term strategy to create the conditions for displacement, just as they have done in Palestine.”

Nearby Beint Jbeil, also intensely bombed last summer, is a case in point says Amer Sadadin of Samidoun, a volunteer network that delivered aid to southern villages after the war. Prior to 1948, Beint Jbeil was the region’s largest city with 54,000 residents, he says, but from years of occupation the majority fled elsewhere.

“Beint Jbeil now has only 4,000 people. In the ‘70s many of these villages were destroyed and people moved to cities like Sour (Tyre). Israel is killing life in the villages,” asserts Sadadin.

“The fact that the [Israeli government’s] cleansing operation of South Lebanon is being carried out under the cover of the ‘war on terrorism’ allows the international community to turn a blind eye to it,” Zurayk maintains.

Comparatively, little reconstruction is taking place in Beint Jbeil; much of the city still lies in a ruin of twisted metal and piles of rubble. The Lebanese government is pushing residents in Beint Jbeil and elsewhere to rebuild with modernized buildings and wider roads, something many local residents refuse.

“The problem is people are being encouraged to bulldoze and build bigger,” says Sadadin. “It’s a problem when money comes in with these pre-conditions. Old cities are a maze of history, each stone represents a memory, a relationship to historical continuity. This is exactly what we’re trying to preserve.”

Samidoun is now in Aita al-Shaab with volunteer architects who are helping residents rebuild their original homes, while restoring the old city.


Farmers separated from their lands

Aita al-Shaab, as other agricultural villages in southern Lebanon, is suffering huge economic losses from their inability to farm.

Hadjia Habiba has 8,000 square meters of land that have been passed down through generations. Her lands are in parcels scattered on the outskirts of the village. Now in her seventies, Hadjia Habiba has farmed all her life and, like many here, she is economically dependent on her fields.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agriculture makes up at least 70 percent of the economy in southern Lebanon.

Residents in Aita al-Shaab say their economy is 80-90 percent dependent on agriculture, primarily tobacco and olives.

Some of Hadjia Habiba’s lands are in Kallit Warda, where the Israeli soldiers were taken; the area still guarded by Israeli troops and she hasn’t been allowed there since last summer.

“I didn’t harvest this year at all,” she laments. With hundreds of thousands of bomblets littering the fields, no one dared enter and the crops all rotted. Normally, farmers would be planting at this time, instead the fields are quiet.

“We’re still waiting for people to check for cluster bombs, which means I also can’t plant, so there won’t be any harvest this year again either. I live from the tobacco harvest 100 percent. My husband died, so this is how I’ve raised my children.”

Shaking her head, Hadjia Habiba says she doesn't know what she is going to do for income.

Millions of dollars in loans have been given to Aita al-Shaab’s tobacco farmers, the only crop the government helps subsidize. About 80 percent of the farmlands here are used for tobacco since it is also the only crop that guarantees an income.

People here expressed anger and frustration with the government for its lack of support. “There’s no compensation from the government for our loss this year!” exclaims Hadjia Sara, another tobacco farmer who worries what will happen when she and others are unable to pay their loans. “Next year, we will have double the payments, plus interest. If we can’t pay, they could take our lands. What is the government doing?”

Farmers estimated only 25-30 percent of Aita al-Shaab’s farmlands are being planted this year, and out of those, only about 25 percent of what is normally planted.

About $280 million from agriculture and fisheries were lost as a result of last summer’s aggressions. Southern Lebanon and southern Beirut, the areas hardest hit by air strikes, are home to the some of the country’s poorest. Its majority are Shi’a.

The FAO plans to set up a farming assistance office in the south, but needs an additional $17 million in order to provide direct aid like replacement of livestock killed.

But, it’s not just economics that have hurt farming communities like this one, the social fabric has also been damaged. “Everyone helps to harvest each other’s lands, take the tobacco to the drying rooms, and then harvest the next field, ” says Hadjia Zahra. “It was a collective effort, part of our village life. Now, we sit in our homes and don’t go out. Only half the people have returned. We are still in a state of mourning.”

Of the 800-900 homes destroyed, about half have been rebuilt. The 7,000 or so people who’ve returned are crowded together, living with their families until their homes are completed.

The killing continues

Meanwhile, since the bombing stopped last August, some 200 people have been injured and another 30 killed from cluster bombs. Many referred to them as “anti-children” mines because their bright colors attract youngsters, who don’t understand their danger.

In September, three children from Aita al-Shaab were severely injured when a cluster bomb went off. Um Hassan's son was one of them.

“Two of the little village girls had gone back to their home and they found a dead fighter inside, still covered in blood,” says Um Hassan. “Cluster bombs had been planted around his body as a booby trap. Thinking they were toys, the girls picked one up and went into the street to play. My son saw them and recognized the bomb from the [educational] posters. When he told them to throw it away, they panicked and threw it at his feet where it exploded.”

All the children were badly injured, but Um Hassan’s son was the worst. Just 10 years old, his abdomen was completely ripped open, his intestines spilling out. He spent the next several months undergoing four operations. Hassan is finally back to attending school, says Um Hassan, but his condition is still fragile; remaining shrapnel in his stomach makes her son vulnerable to infection.

Another woman spoke of a nearby villager who was killed when harvesting his olives. “He pulled on the branches and a cluster bomb fell on his head,” she says sadly.

Fortunately, these have been the only accidents here, but they are reminders of the dangers that await farmers and their children on uncleared lands.

While the MACC forces are working hard to remove remaining cluster bombs, they say farmlands and forested areas are the most difficult to clear. Bomblets hide in tall grasses and in branches of trees and wash down hills after rains to re-contaminate areas already cleared.

“This has a big psychological effect,” says Sadadin. “Some friends and I went for walk when the spring flowers came, but there was a constant fear inside.”

“Children here are thinking about the war more than the classroom,” said another villager. “Israel wants peace, but they want us to pay for it.”


Resistance takes many forms

Yet, despite the constant fears of unexploded ordnance and another Israeli attack, residents are resolute about staying in Aita al-Shaab.

Aita –al-Shaab is infamous for holding off Israeli forces last summer during three separate attacks, and people are proud of this fact. They say their resolve is even firmer than before. But for the people here, resistance is far more than just fighting.

Having watched other villages evacuated over the decades, residents say they will not abandon Aita al-Shaab.

“They tried to destroy us,” exclaims Hadjia Zahra, of the Israeli forces, “but we’re not leaving! Some of us came back when the Israelis were still here. This war, people ran away, next time we’ll stay!”

When I asked one olive farmer if she is scared to harvest, she shakes her head determinedly and says no. “I’ve learned how to identify them, so I’m not afraid. And if I’m killed, then I will just join the martyrs already in heaven,” she says, referring to those who died defending the village. Defying her fears of the cluster bombs is this woman’s form of resistance.

“The memory of occupation is strong here,” says Sadadin. “Weapons are one tool, but resistance is also something social. Just staying on your land is a form of resistance and people here understand that.”

Iraq: A Blueprint for Peace

by Karen Button

Beirut - “The US talks about withdrawal after bringing Iraqi security forces up to speed, yet has paid militias, allowed mercenaries, and, with few exceptions, ignored the blatant abuses and torture committed by Iraqi forces. They have ignored rampant corruption within all ministries, the most egregious resulting in a medical crisis and a judicial joke. They have also committed their own atrocities, ensuring that the new Iraq is riddled with violence, fear, and contempt for the occupying forces.”

Thus starts a new peace plan entitled Planning Iraq’s Future: A detailed project to rebuild post-liberation Iraq. The 250-page book was written over the past two years by 108 Iraqis that consciously included Sunni and Shi’a Muslims, Assyrian Christians, Arabs, Kurds, Turkmen, and other minorities. Two-thirds of the Iraqis still reside inside the country, the other third, outside.

Unlike some other plans, like that put forward in January by Ali Allawi, former Iraqi Defense Minister and current advisor to Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, none of the Iraqis who worked on this plan have ties to the current government.

That’s important, maintain authors of the new initiative. Precisely because the new Iraqi government is backed by occupation forces means it will never hold legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqi citizens and always be a target by resistance forces, says Dr. Khair El-Din Haseeb, Director General of Beirut’s Center for Arab Unity Studies, the Arab world’s most prominent think-tank and sponsor of the project.

The imperative for Iraqis to re-gain control of their country is what fueled the broad-based plan, says Haseeb, who also edited the book. The project, “is a ‘Road Map’ for the liberation of Iraq; a blueprint to a new, liberated, independent, sovereign and democratic Iraq,” he writes in the introduction.

“This plan proposes a direction for the future of Iraq,” explained co-author Dr. AbdulKarim Hani, while in Damascus. “We’ve been asked many times what is the political program of the resistance. Well, this is it.”

Signatories on the plan represent thousands of Iraqis, the authors say, because many of them speak for larger groups. Hani, for example, is with the Iraqi National Foundation Congress (INFC), a broad coalition of Iraqi political, intellectual, religious, and ethnic forces formed in 2004 to defuse sectarian and ethnic divisions.

“This occupation came out of13 years of the worst sanctions the world has seen. Now, we have had four years of even worse suffering. These are the conditions under which this document was written,” explains Hani, who himself finally fled Iraq for Cairo a year and a half ago.

“I don’t like being called a refugee and Iraqis shouldn’t have to be. Yet there are millions who’ve had to leave their homes. To call it a ‘problem’ is too minor; I call it a catastrophe. Every person I’ve met hasn’t left Iraq for pleasure, it’s because they had to. This means, very obviously, the occupation in Iraq has failed! It is imperative for the Iraqi people to have our voice.”

Numerous plans for Iraqi’s future have also been written by other groups opposed to the occupation. Some, like that written by the Association of Muslim Scholars, a powerful Sunni clerics’ organisation, have been submitted to the United Nations. A high-level meeting, planned for next month, will bring together “non-aligned” (those opposed to occupation) representatives from all the different Iraqi projects and form a single agenda.

“In that plan we will also include draft laws to address sectarianism and education,” explains Haseeb. “Among the groups there are contacts with [armed] resistance groups, so we have their agreement as well.”

“We are forming a very broad unified resistance front that represents the will of the Iraqi people,” says Hana Ibrahim, co-author and director of the Baghdad-based NGO Women’s Will. “We are growing very large, so maybe we won’t agree on every detail, but we don’t need to. We can put these aside for now to agree on the most important points, ending the occupation of our country. What’s important a unified resistance front.”

“At that point,” Haseeb reveals, “we can include people both inside and outside of Iraq and we will work together, not just the elite, but at the grassroots. We will have a dedicated website where people and organisations from around the world can register their support.”

The distinction between Iraq’s resistance and other armed groups is critical, contends Haseeb, yet a serious lack of analysis exists in the majority of Western media. Mostly, he says, all armed groups are wrongly lumped together under the umbrella of “insurgent.”

“The [armed] resistance does not attack innocent people and condemns all violence directed at civilians. Their targets are the occupation forces. The Iraqi resistance, whether armed or political, is legally-sanctioned under international law.” This point, Haseeb argues, is frequently missing in most media and completey ignored by the Bush Adminstration.

“We understand there’s been a vacuum of political resistance,” he acknowledges, “and this [plan] will fill that vacuum.”

The main points in Planning Iraq’s Future includes:

• Unequivocal 6-month US and other foreign troop withdrawal, to include all military bases;
• Iraqi National Resistance will declare a ceasefire, while keeping their arms, until the final withdrawal, after which all militias and resistance will be dissolved;
• Annulment of the current political process;
• Installation of interim Prime Minister nominated by non-occupation-aligned political and resistance groups, under UN auspices, for two years;
• Temporary peace-keeping forces installed, with consultation of the United Nations, from Arab nations that did not cooperate with US/UK invasion;
• Laws convening parliamentary elections would be enacted and elections held within two years;
• Army and other security forces not allowed in the political process;
• Non-aligned persons nominated to supervise transparent elections, with oversight by selected internationals (former South African president Nelson Mandela and former US president Jimmy Carter are both named);
• Members of the interim government would not be allowed to participate in new elections;
• Reformation of Iraqi Army (not a return of the former).

Importantly, the initiative also proposes a draft constitution, written by 200 academics, which maintains national unity, addresses oil rights, and guarantees civil and social rights. The rights of women are explicitly included.

“The plan is not perfect when it comes to women’s rights, but it is much, much better than what we have now. It gives us back what we had before,” says Ibrahim from Women’s Will. “And, we must first end the occupation to end the violence. It really doesn’t matter how many rights women do or don’t have if we can’t even walk down the streets in safety or attend school.”

A plan for Iraq is important, Haseeb says, because, “the political process [in Iraq] is crumbling. We have coalitions of [local] governments rather than a central one and the ministers are all living in the Green Zone, meaning they have no access to the ministries they are supposed to run. We know the Ministry of Interior has been penetrated by militias—at least by 80 percent, the Army by at least 50 percent. That means the Americans cannot hand over security to the Iraqi forces as planned.

“They [the Americans] argue without the US Army the civil war will grow. This is nonsense! Even the Pentagon says that resistance attacks have increased by 68 percent and this is against the US military. If the US withdraws, violence would obviously decrease. It’s simple math.”

In March Haseeb sent the plan to members of the British Parliament and the US Congress, among others. “We received acknowledgement from 24 members of the House of Commons showing interest, but so far there’s been nothing from the US Congress.

“I personally prefer to work out a plan for withdrawal with the American forces in Iraq, but with the grave mistakes they’ve made in the past, we can’t count on their rationality.

“Any extension or increase in Iraq will be at the cost of American and Iraqi lives. We need to make Mr. Bush understand this. Despite his security plan, at the end of this month it will be the highest number of casualties yet.”

April has been the deadliest month this year with 100 Americans and 12 British killed. The US military does not record Iraqi civilian deaths and the Iraqi government refuses to release civilian death counts. Estimates put the number of Iraqis killed in April well over 1,000.

“I’m more hopeful than at any time before that the Americans will withdraw,” concludes Haseeb. “They have three choices, go big, go slow, or go home.”

Escaping Baghdad for Damascus: Last Hope for Iraqi Refugees

by Karen Button

Damascus--At the Al-Tanaf border crossing into Syria long lines of trucks, buses and American-made SUVs loaded with luggage sit idle while their passengers fill the customs offices waiting for permission to cross the frontier. Hundreds of Iraqis mill about the windy desert outpost waiting hours for their documents to be processed so they can enter one of the last countries to offer them safety from Iraq’s escalating violence.

The mood at the border is one of great weariness, mixed with sadness and plenty of resentment. “Why did you come to destroy my country?” demanded one man angrily. “I had to leave everything behind! Why don't the Americans just leave us!”

Many of the women here are wearing a black abaya, signaling they are in mourning. Um Abdullah pulls hers closer against the cold as she sits on the concrete steps in front of the building with her daughter and grandchildren waiting for her name to be called. “My two sons were killed in Baghdad,” she says shaking her head sorrowfully. “The other one who is in Syria begged us to leave. We didn’t want to go. It’s our home, but what can we do? Syria is our last hope.” Her daughter says she was a teacher in the capital city, but refuses to say anything else. “She is too afraid,” observes Um Abdullah.

Like most other Iraqis here, Um Abdullah paid her driver $400 for a seat in one of the six-passenger vehicles that brought her to Al-Tanaf. The 550km road between Baghdad and Damascus is fraught with danger; most drive only in daylight for fear of being looted, kidnapped or killed.

Hamid, one of the drivers, jokes about highway security checkpoints. “What has the Iraqi Army done to protect the road? They now use the head of the gangs . We really thank them because now the gangs are using uniforms so it’s easy to tell who they are,” he says sarcastically. “They have been given a police car and a uniform, so of course they will abuse it. One with this habit won’t quit. I witness this daily! The Americans do nothing. I’ll tell you what happened to me .”

While transporting passengers to Syria recently, Hamid says, “I was stopped by security police who were driving a GMC with luggage on top for cover. They were demanding our money when the Americans passed by and witnessed what was happening. When they questioned them, the police apologized and said they were trying to loot us just to make the local mujahadin think they were with them. Then they showed their badges to the Americans and everyone left.”

Fear the unifying factor
The incident highlights deeper issues driving the Iraqi exodus. With security forces part of the problem in a country fragmented by violence, fear is the unifying factor for the tens of thousands of Iraqis who run from their homes each month.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) up to 50,000 Iraqis flee monthly, about 10,000 of them seeking refuge outside the country.

At least 4 million Iraqis are now displaced in what Refugees International has termed the “fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world.” At least1.9 million Iraqis have escaped to neighboring communities inside Iraq, the rest have fled the country altogether. The Iraqi exodus is the largest movement of people in the region since the 1948 creation of Israel displaced millions of Palestinians, according to the UN.

Accurate figures on the number who’ve escaped Iraq is impossible to determine since only a fraction actually register with the UNHCR. In Syria for example, where the refugee agency says 1.2 million Iraqis have sought safe haven, only 72,000 have thus far registered. The Syrian government puts the number at 1.5 million, while aid organization estimates say there are closer to 2 million. The UN refugee agency expects 200,000 more Iraqis to arrive Syria by the end of the year.

As many as 4 million Iraqis are thought to have fled to countries throughout the region. Besides Syria and Jordan—where the UN puts the number at 750,000 and unofficial numbers estimate 1 million—Iraqis have also sought refuge in Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, the Gulf States, and Iran. All but Syria have effectively shut their doors.

In response some 60 nations attended a UNHCR-sponsored conference in Geneva this week to address the humanitarian crisis engulfing the Middle East. The Iraqi government pledged $25 million to assist the refugee support offices, while those countries hosting Iraqis promised to continue providing asylum, reported the UNHCR, whose aim was to elevate international attention to the disaster.

But in Jordan and Syria, where resources are already beleaguered, the strain is growing. Escalating rental prices reflect housing shortages. In Jordan Iraqis now make up nearly one-fifth of the population and officials have randomly closed their borders since November, leaving Syria the only sure exit route.

“We do thank the Syrian government,” smiles 65-year old Um Abdullah wearily as her family finally receives their documents and she gets up to leave for an uncertain future in Damascus. As she walks away another wave of new arrivals trudge across the wind-blown lot toward the customs building, clutching their travel documents in the waning light. They fill out pink entry forms, hand them over to officals, then are told to wait outside until another official calls their name from a small side window where hundreds of others also wait. And so the process continues, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, wave after wave of Iraqis seeking asylum.

Several hundred Palestinians from Iraq are not so fortunate. Some 350 are stuck in the Al-Tanaf camp just across the border in the so-called No Man’s Land, Syria refusing their entry. Another 300 are stranded in the Al-Hol camp just this side of Syria’s northern border with Iraq. Syria has been heavily criticized for allowing Iraqi nationals refuge while denying Palestinians targeted by sectarian Shi’a militias in Baghdad. Over half of the 30,000 Palestinians once in Baghdad have fled.

Seeking help not easy
Outside the sprawling month-old UNHCR facility in Damascus’s Douma district, close to two thousand Iraqis are lined up to gain an appointment for registration with the agency. Most began arriving at 6am, some slept overnight on the dusty pavement, blackened ground marking where last night’s warming fires burned.

Iraqis coming to Syria have escalated in recent months. According to Laurens Jolle, UNHCR representative for Syria, about 30,000 Iraqis arrive Syria monthly. “There are up to 4,000 people a day at the border and these numbers are increasing. One day in February 8,000 came to our offices. But, the exact number is not important,” he insists. “The real issue is for the international community to acknowledge and address the problem. Six months ago we had a huge number and there was little concern. Now, at least, there is some attention to the situation.”

In response to the humanitarian crisis, the UN allocated an additional $60 million to address the problem. But UNHCR Syria, which serves the largest number of displaced Iraqis in the region, received only $14 million, a little over $1 per person.

Another aid worker who spoke on condition of anonymity put it this way, “I believe there was a reticence and delay by authorities, even by the UNHCR, to acknowledge the situation. Nobody really cares about the human rights in the Arab world. All we have to do is look at the Palestinians and the Lebanese.”

Arriving Iraqis are encouraged by UNHCR to register with them, entitling the family to free medical care, access to services through the few aid agencies such as Caritas, and identifies the particulars for their situation. “We identify those who are most vulnerable,” says Jolle. “Unaccompanied minors, victims of torture, female heads of households and the disabled are all prioritized for protection,” he says, which includes seeking a sponsor country for asylum. “The most important thing is that they stay here and not be forced to return.”

At the Douma facility a community service center was also opened for medical emergencies because so many Iraqis arrive either wounded or with serious conditions, such as heart problems or kidney failure. Besides medical staff, a psychologist is also on board.

“It is a draconian situation in Iraq. Most Iraqis arrive here very traumatized,” says UNHCR Media Officer Adham Mardini. “Sometimes the psychological issue is even more immediate than the medical one.

“The international community needs to be sensitized. There is a growing social problem here; there is poverty which can lead to prostitution, there are psychological problems, and some people are receiving threats from Iraq.

“There are 1.2 million Iraqis in need here. The UNHCR cannot deal with this alone. The problem is the occupation, not the Syrian government or the UNHCR,” Mardini asserts. “Syria needs $1 billion to contain the Iraqi crisis.”

Underscoring Mardini’s comments, blowback from the US occupation occurred this week when several thousand Kurds arrived unexpectedly at the Douma office seeking registration. The refugee agency was caught completely unprepared without a Kurdish interpreter. With Kurdistan relatively calm, the few Kurds who’ve sought refuge have been mostly from Baghdad and speak Arabic. But, with Turkish troops recently massed along Iraq’s northern border, civilians fear an attack. Turkey has accused Iraq of allowing Kurdish guerilla groups seeking independent to launch attacks from Kurdistan. Last week the Turkish daily Today’s Zaman reported Turkish troops had already crossed Iraq’s border to destroy “terrorist” camps.

Meanwhile, outside the UNHCR Douma facility thousands continue to line the dusty street every Sunday and Monday, the only days when appointments for registration interviews are given. On this particular morning appointments were being set for October, the earliest date possible. By the afternoon, interviews were being set for mid-November. Two hundred fifty appointments had been scheduled.

Victim Recounts Iraqi Police Torture

by Karen Button

Damascus--Ala’a Emad Al-Dulaimi, a young man in his early twenties, sits in the living room of a friend’s house in a quiet Damascus neighborhood as he retells the nightmare of his arrest almost a year ago. The intensity of Al-Dulaimi’s experience is palpable, though his face remains dispassionate throughout most of the two hours it takes to detail the complicated maze of his encounter with Iraq’s corrupt justice system—one in which bribes and torture are so common even Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged them prior to his resignation.

In early 2005 Human Rights Watch reported that torture and abuse by Iraqi authorities were "routine and commonplace." The Al-Maliki government promised reforms, but in July last year the Los Angeles Times reported Iraqi Interior Ministry investigations revealed over 400 incidents of police misconduct, which included "the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings.” Most went unpunished.

In an apparent step towards addressing the problem, the Iraqi government in November filed charges for the first time against 57 members of the police force. They are charged with torturing hundreds of detainees at a prison in eastern Baghdad.

However, in more recent events, Mr. Al-Maliki dismissed an investigation in less than 24 hours after Iraqi security forces were accused of rape in February. Instead, the government then charged that the woman, Sabrine Al-Janabi, was a wanted criminal and issued an arrest warrant against her and would “reward” the officers. Al-Janabi was arrested in mid-March and there have been no reports of her since.

Also in March, when Iraqi Special Forces and British forces discoverd an Iraqi intelligence facility in Basra used to torture detainees and produce bomb-making equipment, Mr. Al-Maliki criticized the operation for lacking authority. Instead of investigating the alleged crimes, he ordered an investigation into the forces “who have carried out this illegal and irresponsible act.”

It was just last May that Al-Dulaimi was on his way to the College of Computer Sciences at Mustansariya University in Baghdad when his life took an irreversible turn, which halted his studies and nearly his life.

His story highlights the rampant corruption within Iraq’s security forces, but also its collusion between different governmental agencies.

Driving by taxi to his university on a Tuesday morning, Al-Dulaimi explains, “we traveled through the Adhamiya neighborhood and there had been some troubles. As a result, one side of the street was blocked, allowing only one lane of traffic. At that point, I saw a car approaching us head-on very fast. The taxi driver immediately stopped.” Concerned that his new taxi was about to be taken, the driver fired a shot in the air as a warning, says Al-Dulaimi.

“I had been studying and not really paying attention, so when I heard the gunshot I was shocked. Then I saw the other driver get out of his car with a gun and he fired a shot that went over our car. The taxi driver put it in reverse and tried to run away from the whole scene.”

Things happened quickly after that.

“The taxi driver was so afraid, and since there was heavy traffic he went down a side street. At this point security forces began to chase us,” Al-Dulaimi explains. “As it happened, the side street was also blocked, so it became a dead-end. We were trapped and security forces began firing heavily at us. Bullets penetrated the car. We both jumped out of the taxi with our hands up and froze.

“The ING (Iraqi National Guard) surrounded us and began beating us severely. They threw me to the ground and they hit the taxi driver in the head with a pistol. He was bleeding heavily when the police and the FPS (Facility Protection Services, in this case working as guards for the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs) also showed up. The three forces then began fighting each other for control of us. The police said: we were chasing them. The FPS said: no, they were attacking us because it happened in front of our ministry building.

“The police and the FPS eventually grabbed us and took us to the ministry with the ING still arguing.

“They put us in a small room where we were handcuffed and our ankles shackled. Ten people then came into the room and began shouting at us. ‘Why did you shoot the other car? What did you want from them? Where are you from? What political party are you from? Are you from some armed group?’

“That lasted about 15 minutes and then some others came, asking the same questions. But these men, if they didn’t like our answers, would hit us.”

Finally, Al-Dulaimi says, a man dressed in civilian clothes—a tracksuit and sweater—entered the room. The other men addressed him as Said. “His eyes were full of sparks. He sat down, took a pistol and put it on his knees and began shouting at me, ‘you will talk or I will break your knees!’ I became hysterical at this point and I began shouting back, ‘I’m a college student! I have nothing to hide!’”

Seemly convinced, Said left. Meanwhile, in an apparent attempt to regain control of Al-Dulaimi and the taxi driver, three men from the Iraqi National Guard arrived and took the two men to a vehicle waiting outside the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs.

“They pushed us into a pickup truck, with a machine gun mounted on top. The exit gates were closed and one of the soldiers began shooting and yelling, ‘open the gates!’ But Said came running out and slapped the soldier, yelling at him, ‘why are shooting, you could hurt someone!’ He yanked us out of the pickup and took us back into the room.

“Then the police came and put us in their car. This time, they put a bag over my head and blindfolded the taxi driver with his shirt. They took us to the Sleikh Police Station (in Adhamiya) and separated us in two cells. I still didn’t know what the charges against me were.

“At this point they began interrogating me in a room while I was blindfolded and handcuffed on the floor. ‘Tell us the truth! Why were you shooting!’ they would yell. I kept telling them I was just a student on my way to university. An officer named Captain Ala’a shouted that I was lying and he began beating me. He demanded to know what political party I belonged to, and if I was a terrorist from some group like Al-Qaida.

“This process lasted ten days. Each day they interrogated me twice and would beat me severely while I was blindfolded. Sometimes Captain Ala’a would provoke me, saying, ‘your partner told us what you’re really doing!’ At other times he was nice and would ask, ‘why are you ruining your future? All you need to do is tell us about your partner and we’ll let you go. Just testify on anything. You’re from Adhamihya where there’s so many against the Americans, just tell us something and we’ll let you go!’

“I became very desperate because during these ten days I was beaten in many different ways. I was hung from a ceiling fan with my hands tied behind me. They would tie each hand to the opposite foot (a position called the Scorpion) and hang me. Then they would beat the bottoms of my feet—they call this the al-falaka torture. At one point I became hysterical and began insulting Captain Ala’a. He asked, ‘are you trying to provoke me?’ And then he swung me from the fan, which cracked some bones.”

During this time, Al-Dulaimi says, the beatings were quite severe. “When I was taken to be interrogated I would walk, but when I came back they would have to carry me back in a blanket. The began a new style of the al-falaka and started beating me on my knees, elbows and back.”

After ten days, the jailers pulled Al-Dulaimi out of his cell and told him that Mohammed, the taxi driver, had confessed. “They told me, ‘your friend has testified against you and that you looted 30 cars, were ambushing the Americans, killing ING, and you belong to the resistance.’”

“Of course, I denied all these statements against me and they beat me for two solid days right in my cell. I was desperate and so tired I finally gave in and said I was ready to approve anything. ‘I have nothing to say, but if you have some statement, I’m ready to sign,’ I told them.

“I signed that I was involved in looting, kidnapping, planning to murder someone, and that I had joined the insurgency. These were the accusations I was forced to sign. And after I had signed, no one came to beat me anymore.

“At that point they put me with Mohammed, who was in a large cell with other prisoners and I learned what had really happened.”

Mohammed, who had never received medical care for his head would, was also severely beaten. When they put him on a balcony and threatened to push him off, Mohammed caved and said he would testify. Yet, instead of taking a statement, they put him back in his cell and took Al-Dulaimi instead.

“Finally, I was taken to a judge to approve the statement. Thinking I was safely outside the realm of the police, I denied all the statements. I told him, ‘I can undress and show you all the signs of torture, because they never hit me on my face. And, I asked the judge for a lawyer. ‘Don’t you have one,’ he asked. ‘No,’ I told him, ‘even my family doesn’t know where I am and if I’m dead or alive.’

“When I told the judge this, because it was 6pm on Friday, he told an officer to put me back in my cell to wait for a lawyer.

“The officer put me put me in a room I’d never seen before. Again I was blindfolded and handcuffed and three guys came in and began beating me severely. ‘What have you said in front of the judge?’ they demanded. ‘I said nothing,’ I pleaded. ‘Then why did Captain Ala’a say he wanted you semi-dead?’ they answered.

“They hit me on the face very hard and made my left ear so I couldn’t hear from it for a long time and when I washed for the prayers, the water would kill me.

“Captain Ala’a came back after I was beaten. ‘Did you get your discipline?’ he asked me. ‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘Will you approve the statement to the judge?’ When I answered yes again, they put me back in the cell.

“The next day I was put in front of a different judge. Again it was a holiday and after 6pm. This judge gave me an attorney who had been provided by the government.

“The judge asked if the statements were correct. I told him yes, because I was too afraid to say no. Unconvinced, the judge told me, ‘you’re twenty years old and a student. It doesn’t seem that you would be doing all these things.’ But I was so tired and in pain, so I just said, ‘yes, I did do all these things.’

“Then they put me back in the cell and left me alone.

“For the first three days, I begged an officer for a call to my parents, and finally I was allowed.”

Relieved to hear from their missing son, the family hired a private attorney, yet were still not allowed to see Al-Dulaimi for a month.

The government attorney took the case to an investigative judge, Mohammed Oudae Al-Dahab, but when judge’s reporter told the family he knew an attorney who was a relative of the judge and would have influence over the case, they decided to give it a try.

“I know how it sounds, but this attorney, Ahmed Faleh, was a partner in the judge’s office. I swear!”

Faleh then took Dulaimi’s papers to Al-Dahab and asked if the case was winnable before agreeing to take the case. When Al-Dahab said it was, the family agreed to hire Faleh for $10,000, giving him a retainer of $5,000. Al-Dulaimi says Faleh promised to return the money if the case didn’t win. “This was for myself and Mohammed, as our cases were together. He couldn’t afford an attorney and my family just wanted me released.

“My family then asked the judge for me to be taken to a medical committee to document the torture and the judge approved the request. The medical committee was amazed at my injuries. ‘Are these new?’ they asked me, and I told them, no, they were from May and I hadn’t yet recovered.”

The medical report, dated 5 July and signed by three doctors from the Baghdad Morgue Institute, states Al-Dulaimi had severe discoloration of the skin on his left arm, legs and back. The document states the injuries are commensurate with those made from “either a stick or a cable.”

When the case was finally brought before the court, the insurgency charge had been dropped, leaving three—kidnapping, looting, and planning a murder. “After the judge read the medical report,” Al-Dulaimi continues, “he announced, ‘if this is how the police are treating detainees, let me investigate them.’ He said he wanted to have a judicial discussion on the issue, and because of the medical report, the first three charges were dropped.

“The attorney then called my father and wanted more money. When my father met Faleh at his office he demanded $20,000. With the $5,000 he was already paid, he was really asking for $25,000. My father said we couldn’t afford it and asked him to leave the case. Faleh refused to give back the $5,000.

“At this point the judge began to hate us because he realized he wasn’t going to make any money. So, instead of releasing us we were told that our case should go before the Supreme Court and we were sent back to jail for another month and a half. The Supreme Court took each charge separately, which took time, but all three were dropped.”

Unbelievably though, the Supreme Court judge then began a new case against Al-Dulaimi and Mohammed for having a weapon without a permit and they were sent back to jail.

“When the first officer who had beaten me, Captain Ala’a, saw me back there he said he would bring the fourth charge—belonging to the insurgency—against me if I didn’t pay him $7,500. Fortunately, my family was able to pay it and all the charges were dropped.”

After nearly seven months and paying $12,500 in what amounts to extortion fees, Al-Dulaimi was finally released on the 25th of November. His university studies ruined and his life destroyed, Al-Dulaimi fled to Syria in January where he is now trying to enter college and forget what happened to him in the new Iraq.

When asked if he fears reprisals for naming those who committed the abuses against him Al-Dulaimi replies that his family, with whom he’s now separated because of the incident, are safe in an undisclosed location.

“As for me,” he declares angrily, “no, I don’t care. After what they did to me, what else can they do? They destroyed everything!”

Kidnap Victim Finds Refuge in Syria

by Karen Button

Damascus--Mamoon Chalabi is one of hundreds of thousands who’ve narrowly escaped death in the lawlessness of Iraq—whether at the hands of American troops, Iraqi forces, government-backed death squads and other militias, armed groups or criminal gangs. Most who’ve been interviewed have harrowing tales to tell, either about themselves, a family member or friend. Chalabi’s is no exception.

It was a hot July evening in 2004 when Chalabi, an assistant to renowned Iraqi eye surgeon Dr. Abedin, was kidnapped by Iraqi police while leaving the Baghdad medical clinic.

“I was in my car and a police car stopped me. They asked me about my license and then they caught me and put me in their car. They were policemen, with the uniform of police and the car of police. They were really police! But you know, there is no law in Iraq. They can do anything.”

Chalabi was bundled into the police car, blindfolded and pinned to the floor of the vehicle as it sped away.

“They took me and sold me to a gang who put me in a room, an outside room, very near to a house. It was a home with a family, with a wife and kids, even. They put me on a chair and told me to phone my son, but he had closed his telephone. They hit me a lot then, and very terribly, on my head, my arms, my legs with planks of wood.”

Thinking the 68-year old man was also a doctor, the kidnappers demanded $750, 000, an impossible amount of money for the family. Even when they lowered the amount to $200,000, Chalabi knew his wife would never be able to collect that much cash.

After two days of severe beating, still blindfolded and terrified for his life, Chalabi decided there was no way he would live through the ordeal. “I said to my self, ‘this is the end’ and I decided to make the end by myself and not by the hand of the gang.”

When the kidnappers left that night to go drinking, Chalabi found himself alone. Able now to remove his blindfold, he wrapped it around his hand and smashed a nearby window. “It broke into many pieces. I took a piece that was like a knife, and I slashed my artery here,” he says, displaying a faint scar still visible on his wrist.

“I cut it on the left, twice, and I cut it here on the right too. Then I sat on the earth and waited for my death. I lost a lot of blood, more than 4 or 5 pints.”

But as Chalabi’s vision began to blur from blood loss, the gang suddenly returned. “They were shocked to find me like this. My artery is pushing blood like water, and there is a small lake around me.”

Taping his wrists, the kidnappers took Chalabi just meters from the Al Khindy Hospital where they dumped him. “Because I became useless, because I am going to die and I have nothing to pay to them, they left me.”

In the dark of night Chalabi was unable to call attention to himself. “There is no one who can see me and I can’t move. Believe me, I can’t move even a few centimeters.”

Staving off dogs during the night, at daybreak Chalabi found himself still alive and able to weakly call out when a young man passed by. Afraid himself, the man first notified police who then took the dying man to the hospital. “There, they put in a canella and gave me drips and blood. And, well, I saved myself.”

It took a month at home for Chalabi to regain his health, but then he went back to work. The kidnappers, still tracking him, called, expressing their surprise he had survived. “But I am not afraid because they know I have nothing. When they left me on the ground [by the hospital] they told me not to say it was the police, not to say anything. And when the police did the investigation, I didn’t give any information.”

Chalabi remained in Baghdad after the incident, hoping things would get better, but also needing to work. “Because I saw no reason for them to capture me another time, I went. You know, I have to work to live.” Others interviewed have expressed similar sentiments; while they may be safer outside Iraq, they also know they will suffer financially. For many, it takes a second or even third threat before making the difficult decision to leave everything behind.

“But the situation became very miserable, day by day,” Chalabi continues. “It became worse and worse and it began to change. Now, the kidnappers kill not even for the money, because there are no doctors, no merchants left in Iraq. Now, police just kidnap a lot of people and kill them. Sometimes they collect hundreds, like when they took the people from the Ministry of Higher Education.”

Chalabi is referring to an incident in November when scores of armed men gained entrance to the protected government building wearing the latest issue police uniforms. Between 100 and 150 men, both Sunni and Shi’ite alike, were abducted. Nine men, all Shi’ite, were immediately released; another 70, all bearing signs of torture, were released about a week later. According to the United Nations about 70, mostly Sunni, remain missing.

The incident highlights the shifts since 2004. Though criminal gangs still kidnap and demand ransom, the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) reports that most of today’s kidnappings are helping to fund sectarian armed groups and are on the rise. "Abductions have increased rapidly in the past months and have become a tool for armed groups to finance their activities, to intimidate and eliminate opponents, and to instill fear," the agency reported.

Though armed groups target civilians across the board—Sunni, Shi’ite, Christian, Palestinian—the biggest change in the past few years have been the rise of militias and death squads, some US-backed and many of which operate through the government apparatus. Both the Iranian-backed Badr militia and Muqtada al-Sadr’s Madhi militia are known to operate through the sectarian Ministry of Interior and routinely abduct, torture and execute civilians, most of which are Sunni.

“The daylight abduction and the use of apparently genuine government vehicles and uniforms raised questions about possible official involvement in the operation,” said UNAMI in reference to the Ministry of Higher Education episode.

Others are more explicit.

“The Ministry of Interior’s security forces are believed to be responsible for numerous sectarian killings, operating ‘death squads’ in Baghdad and other provinces,” said Human Rights Watch in a January report. The Ministry of Interior must “end its ties to armed militias, including the Mahdi Army and Badr Forces,”

“It’s not clear whether the ministry controls the militias or the militias control the ministry, but either way, they’re responsible for some of the worst abuses in Iraq today,” said Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson.

“This is why after two years I decided to leave, because I don’t know at what time they will capture me, not for money, but to kill me,” says Chalabi. “Enough was enough.”

Recalling his kidnapping is difficult for Chalabi, even two and half years later. Instead, Chalabi prefers to put the kidnapping behind him. “Just thanks to god, al-hamdullallah, I am better now and Syria has welcomed us.

“All of us in Iraq are in this [type of] situation. We escape and we go to the UN and try to get the refugee [status].

“I pray to go back to my home. I pray for God to calm my country, that everything will be settled. I have my own house there and I can live much better than in this situation. But now, no. My home? It is here.”