Informazione
[ Un significativo comunicato del Partito Comunista di Slovenia sul
ruolo deleterio svolto dall'imperialismo germanico non solo ai danni
della economia slovena, ma ai danni di tutte le nazionalita' dello
spazio jugoslavo.
(Chi potesse tradurre questo testo in tempi brevi e' pregato di
inviarci subito la versione in lingua italiana - grazie!) ]
http://komunist.free.fr/arhiva/apr2004/kps_03.html
Arhiva : : April 2004.
Austro-German financial imperialism strongly endangering nations and
nationalities in the place of the SFRJ
Communist party of Slovenia expresses its concern about even greater
destruction of Slovenian economy, that was built up by Slovenian
natives with the help of all Yugoslav nations and nationalities and the
working class of the SFRJ as well as federal governmental financial and
political institutions of the SFRJ, and National Bank of Yugoslavia,
respectively.
Communist party of Slovenia points to the rising destruction of
factories as well as to crisis and chaos spreading, to great state
debts, which are officially 50-times higher than they were before 1989,
as well as to the overtaking of national firms by Austrian financial
capital in several hundred factories, and in five banks. As Federal
Republic of Germany became owner of Austrian banks, influence of German
financial imperialism was automatically transferred to Slovenia.
Slovenian factories and firms (2600 at the time of Marshall Tito) had
been constructed to bring about social development of the SFRJ, not for
reanimation of Austrian economy or for exploitation on the part of
Austro-German financial imperialism, therefore regular membership of
Slovenia in the European Union is unlawful and just a coat to hide
exploitation in Slovenia as well as in the Balkans.
In other regions too, where there the wild privatisation was practised,
and legalised robbery of the factories carried our, the destruction of
the nationalised folk's property to the benefit of Austro-German
financial capital took place. In the other republics their debts to
Germany are increasing to the height where there is no coverage in
state reserves not even for bank interests.
Regarding Slovenia, its only possibility to cooperate in the Union is
in the same form as SFRJ had done with EWG (European economic
community). Its full membership means an attack on the whole region of
the SFRJ and a complete destroyal and colonisation of Slovenian
economy, finances and the state, nation and nationalities.
Regarding the NATO, the Balkans nations have firstly think of
themselves, that means that no membership is allowed for any form of
cooperation taht differs the one of the SFRJ time. The endeavours of
the Haag group of the investigated persons from Slovenia, to come
closer to NATO in exchange of prevention of charges in the Haag!
Slovenia has already been a member of Partnerstvo za mir, and a
regular NATO membership would not be in conformity neither with
Slovenian Constitution nor with a conference on Yugoslavia-SFRJ, and
not with AVNOJ decisions, and other international conferences.
The Haag Court investigated the former President of Slovenia and some
other persons, who participated in criminal activities.
Besides economic destruction in Slovenia and catastrophy like growing
debts, several time greater than ever in the history before, the wild
privatisation is strongly felt � that is a legalised robbery of 2600
factories, parallel with factories destruction and debts without
guarantee, an economic and land colonisation will follow upon demand of
creditors, the life standard is falling daily, slowly but persistently
the situation is worsening.
It had started with violation of the SFRJ Constitution, and dismantling
of socialism, followed by the establishment of wild privatisation and
wild bourgeois states with fascist elements. And after dismantling of
socialist system, material robbery followed and after it non-material
robbery, that is no respect for people, workers, communists, atheists,
national masses, dishonoured and deprived of justice.
Starting withArticle 238 of the Constitution stating that no one in the
place of the SFRJ or in any part of the SFRJ can sign any capitulation.
After dismantling of socialism, introduction of wild privatisation,
and robbery of the factories and firms, science was ruined, scientific
invention given to Germany for evaluation. After destroyal of several
hundred firms the massive state debts started.
In the interest of capitalist pressure groups � some factories were
blown up by dynamite. Slovenian media and press centres have launched
warnings about series of heavy pressure groups from violation of
Constitution to the destruction of irms, under high penalties �
imprisonments, the individuals causing constant criminal acts, bringing
them according to legal measures, several 20 years of imprisonment or
correspondingly, dealth penalties.
In the meda amd pther organisations there are strives to put in the
court nost only the Haaginvestigated persons but also other destroyers
and the actors of heavier criminal acts. Complaintsin Austria and
Germany, about their activities in the Balkans were not responded.
Even pressure upon Slovenian regions in Austria are becoming stronger,
the import of the right extremists from the Danube basin to K�rnten and
Steiermark additionally. It violates the 5th Article of Austrian
neutrality contract. Austria has obstructed its own neutrality by
entering membership of the EU.The signature to participate in military
units will upgrade this obstruction.
Because of the attacks of imperialist pressure greoups, aimed to
Slovenia, Croatia, Serbian nation and national masses respectively, the
whole Balkans, progressive organiations and associations demand
immediate cooperation and common coordination among nations nd
nationalities to defend interests of their own as well a s future
generations in th place of the SFRJ.
24.12.2003 and 07.01.2004
Central committee of the CPS
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
ruolo deleterio svolto dall'imperialismo germanico non solo ai danni
della economia slovena, ma ai danni di tutte le nazionalita' dello
spazio jugoslavo.
(Chi potesse tradurre questo testo in tempi brevi e' pregato di
inviarci subito la versione in lingua italiana - grazie!) ]
http://komunist.free.fr/arhiva/apr2004/kps_03.html
Arhiva : : April 2004.
Austro-German financial imperialism strongly endangering nations and
nationalities in the place of the SFRJ
Communist party of Slovenia expresses its concern about even greater
destruction of Slovenian economy, that was built up by Slovenian
natives with the help of all Yugoslav nations and nationalities and the
working class of the SFRJ as well as federal governmental financial and
political institutions of the SFRJ, and National Bank of Yugoslavia,
respectively.
Communist party of Slovenia points to the rising destruction of
factories as well as to crisis and chaos spreading, to great state
debts, which are officially 50-times higher than they were before 1989,
as well as to the overtaking of national firms by Austrian financial
capital in several hundred factories, and in five banks. As Federal
Republic of Germany became owner of Austrian banks, influence of German
financial imperialism was automatically transferred to Slovenia.
Slovenian factories and firms (2600 at the time of Marshall Tito) had
been constructed to bring about social development of the SFRJ, not for
reanimation of Austrian economy or for exploitation on the part of
Austro-German financial imperialism, therefore regular membership of
Slovenia in the European Union is unlawful and just a coat to hide
exploitation in Slovenia as well as in the Balkans.
In other regions too, where there the wild privatisation was practised,
and legalised robbery of the factories carried our, the destruction of
the nationalised folk's property to the benefit of Austro-German
financial capital took place. In the other republics their debts to
Germany are increasing to the height where there is no coverage in
state reserves not even for bank interests.
Regarding Slovenia, its only possibility to cooperate in the Union is
in the same form as SFRJ had done with EWG (European economic
community). Its full membership means an attack on the whole region of
the SFRJ and a complete destroyal and colonisation of Slovenian
economy, finances and the state, nation and nationalities.
Regarding the NATO, the Balkans nations have firstly think of
themselves, that means that no membership is allowed for any form of
cooperation taht differs the one of the SFRJ time. The endeavours of
the Haag group of the investigated persons from Slovenia, to come
closer to NATO in exchange of prevention of charges in the Haag!
Slovenia has already been a member of Partnerstvo za mir, and a
regular NATO membership would not be in conformity neither with
Slovenian Constitution nor with a conference on Yugoslavia-SFRJ, and
not with AVNOJ decisions, and other international conferences.
The Haag Court investigated the former President of Slovenia and some
other persons, who participated in criminal activities.
Besides economic destruction in Slovenia and catastrophy like growing
debts, several time greater than ever in the history before, the wild
privatisation is strongly felt � that is a legalised robbery of 2600
factories, parallel with factories destruction and debts without
guarantee, an economic and land colonisation will follow upon demand of
creditors, the life standard is falling daily, slowly but persistently
the situation is worsening.
It had started with violation of the SFRJ Constitution, and dismantling
of socialism, followed by the establishment of wild privatisation and
wild bourgeois states with fascist elements. And after dismantling of
socialist system, material robbery followed and after it non-material
robbery, that is no respect for people, workers, communists, atheists,
national masses, dishonoured and deprived of justice.
Starting withArticle 238 of the Constitution stating that no one in the
place of the SFRJ or in any part of the SFRJ can sign any capitulation.
After dismantling of socialism, introduction of wild privatisation,
and robbery of the factories and firms, science was ruined, scientific
invention given to Germany for evaluation. After destroyal of several
hundred firms the massive state debts started.
In the interest of capitalist pressure groups � some factories were
blown up by dynamite. Slovenian media and press centres have launched
warnings about series of heavy pressure groups from violation of
Constitution to the destruction of irms, under high penalties �
imprisonments, the individuals causing constant criminal acts, bringing
them according to legal measures, several 20 years of imprisonment or
correspondingly, dealth penalties.
In the meda amd pther organisations there are strives to put in the
court nost only the Haaginvestigated persons but also other destroyers
and the actors of heavier criminal acts. Complaintsin Austria and
Germany, about their activities in the Balkans were not responded.
Even pressure upon Slovenian regions in Austria are becoming stronger,
the import of the right extremists from the Danube basin to K�rnten and
Steiermark additionally. It violates the 5th Article of Austrian
neutrality contract. Austria has obstructed its own neutrality by
entering membership of the EU.The signature to participate in military
units will upgrade this obstruction.
Because of the attacks of imperialist pressure greoups, aimed to
Slovenia, Croatia, Serbian nation and national masses respectively, the
whole Balkans, progressive organiations and associations demand
immediate cooperation and common coordination among nations nd
nationalities to defend interests of their own as well a s future
generations in th place of the SFRJ.
24.12.2003 and 07.01.2004
Central committee of the CPS
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
Da Mauro Gemma riceviamo e giriamo:
1. APARTHEID IN LETTONIA: LA MINORANZA RUSSA SI MOBILITA PER I SUOI
DIRITTI
* L�EUROPA AIUTERA� LA COMUNITA� RUSSA DELLA LETTONIA? di Jana Amelina,
IA �Rosbalt�, Mosca
* LETTONIA: SCIOPERO DEGLI STUDENTI DELLE SCUOLE RUSSE - www.leviy.ru,
15 aprile 2004
2. LA COMMISSIONE PER I DIRITTI UMANI DELL�ONU CONDANNA ESTONIA E
LETTONIA PER LA RIABILITAZIONE DEL PASSATO NAZISTA
=== 1 ===
APARTHEID IN LETTONIA: LA MINORANZA RUSSA SI MOBILITA PER I SUOI
DIRITTI.
Ma in questo caso, Prodi e la Commissione Europea fanno finta di non
vedere
---
L�EUROPA AIUTERA� LA COMUNITA� RUSSA DELLA LETTONIA?
di Jana Amelina, IA �Rosbalt�, Mosca
www.atvr.ru , 13 aprile 2004
Il �Seima� (parlamento) della Lettonia, in terza, definitiva stesura,
ha approvato gli emendamenti alla legge sull�istruzione. Il comma 3 del
punto 9 della legge recita: dal 1 settembre 2004 �negli istituti
scolastici statali e municipali, in cui sono previsti programmi di
istruzione delle minoranze nazionali, a partire dalla 10� classe le
lezioni verranno impartite nella lingua statale (lettone) in armonia
con il modello statale di istruzione media generale�.
In accordo con tale modello, nella lingua statale verranno insegnate
non meno del 60% delle materie. Il tempo restante verr� dedicato
all�insegnamento nelle lingue delle minoranze nazionali di materie
collegate alla lingua, all�identit� e alla cultura. Queste ultime
verranno concordate dalla scuola stessa con il Ministero
dell�istruzione e della scienza. �Il varo di questa legge rappresenta
un serio passo nella direzione dello sradicamento dell�istruzione media
in lingua russa�, - si afferma in un comunicato emesso lo stesso giorno
dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri della Federazione Russa. �Esso
condurr� inevitabilmente ad un peggioramento della situazione, a un
deciso abbassamento della qualit� dell�istruzione dei russofoni che
frequentano le scuole lettoni, all�emergere di nuove differenze sociali
e discriminazioni nei diritti�.
Come informa la �Business&Balta� di Riga, i rappresentanti
dell�opposizione parlamentare di sinistra hanno proposto di insegnare
nelle scuole delle minoranze nazionali non meno di tre materie, insieme
al lettone e alla letteratura. A parere del deputato del gruppo �Per i
diritti dell�uomo nella Lettonia unita� (� il nome della coalizione, in
cui erano presenti anche i comunisti del Partito Socialista di
Lettonia) Jakov Pliner, questa � l�unica possibilit� di evitare
l�abbandono delle scuole a settembre.
Ma i partiti di destra, respingendo ogni proposta, che introducesse
cambiamenti nella riforma oppure un attenuazione del meccanismo che
costringe le scuole russe all�uso della lingua lettone, e accusando
l�opposizione di sinistra di �ignoranza�, di estremismo e di
�complicit� con i colonizzatori�, hanno mantenuto la stesura iniziale.
Non � servita neppure la grandiosa manifestazione, realizzata dalle
organizzazioni russe della Lettonia di fronte al palazzo del �Seima�, a
cui hanno partecipato, secondo dati di diverse fonti, da 5.000 a 15.000
studenti e genitori russi. Naturalmente, non si � tenuto in
considerazione neppure il parere della Duma di Stato russa. Per gli
emendamenti discriminatori hanno votato a favore 71 deputati, contro 25.
La decisione dei deputati lettoni riguarda circa 120.000 studenti delle
scuole russe, che rappresentano circa un terzo di tutti gli studenti
della Lettonia. In tutto parla russo circa il 40% degli abitanti del
paese. Il presidente dell�Associazione Lettone delle scuole ad
insegnamento russo Igor Pimenov ha fatto appello al presidente della
Repubblica Lettone Vaira Vike Freiberga, perch� rinvii la legge al
parlamento per un ulteriore esame. Egli gli ha anche proposto di
intervenire con un�iniziativa di �moratoria sulla riforma del 2004� e
di iniziare una discussione a livello nazionale sui problemi
dell�istruzione, ma senza ottenere finora una risposta. I deputati del
gruppo �Per i diritti dell�uomo nella Lettonia unita� e il Partito
socialista di Lettonia hanno avanzato una richiesta di sfiducia nei
confronti di uno degli autori degli emendamenti, il ministro
dell�istruzione e dell�educazione Karlis Shadurskis. Lo stesso giorno
tutto il governo si dimetteva, anche se per altre cause�
Ma le scuole russe, se si pu� usare tale espressione, �potevano versare
ancora pi� sangue�. Il progetto di legge, adottato dal �Seima� in
seconda lettura, prevedeva un taglio ancora pi� drastico delle materie
di insegnamento nelle lingue delle minoranze nazionali. Come si fa
notare nel comunicato emesso dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri russo, i
legislatori lettoni si sono mossi su uno schema prefissato. Nel corso
della preparazione dei progetti di legge particolarmente significativi
per la parte della societ� che parla la lingua russa, �essi all�inizio
reagiscono alle proteste con un peggioramento nella redazione del
documento, rendendolo decisamente �impresentabile�, per poi tornare
sulla variante iniziale, presentando la cosa come un passo incontro
alle esigenze dell�opinione pubblica russofona e delle organizzazioni
internazionali�. �Speriamo che questo trucco non confonda gli
osservatori in Europa e negli USA�, - si sottolinea nel documento. �La
variante di compromesso assunta � il risultato del lavoro del Ministero
degli Affari Esteri russo, delle reazioni della comunit� russofona
della Lettonia e dell�opinione pubblica russa�, - ha dichiarato a
�Rosbalt� il consigliere del secondo dipartimento europeo del Ministero
degli Affari Esteri della Federazione Russa Andrey Skachkov.
Come ha dichiarato in un�intervista alla stazione radio �Golos Rossij�
(Voce della Russia) il vice-speaker della Duma di Stato Dmitrij Rogozin
(attuale leader di �Rodina�), i nazional-sciovinisti lettoni di fatto
intendono rifarsi sui ragazzi dei rancori, legati al periodo
dell�esistenza della Repubblica Socialista Sovietica Lettone, riducendo
al minimo la quantit� delle materie impartite in lingua russa. Lo stato
lettone si sviluppa sulla base del nazismo nel campo dell�istruzione.
Ci� � in contraddizione con le tradizioni di difesa delle lingue delle
minoranze nazionali nei paesi dell�Unione Europea�. Il deputato �
convinto che i problemi della minoranza russa in Lettonia possono
essere risolti solo con la partecipazione dell�Unione Europea, di cui
presto la Lettonia sar� membro. �L�Unione Europea oggi ha il dovere di
intervenire, esprimendo la propria contrariet� per ci� che sta
accadendo in Lettonia, oppure deve frenare il processo di accoglimento
della repubblica nell�UE�, - aveva detto in precedenza in una
conferenza-stampa Dmitrij Rogozin.
Ma i diplomatici russi prevedono che molti ostacoli si frapporranno a
che ci� avvenga. � Gi� fin da ora sarebbe auspicabile far uscire dal
punto morto in cui si trova la questione del rispetto dei diritti umani
della comunit� russofona della Lettonia�, - commenta cos� la situazione
Andrey Skachkov. �Dopo l�ingresso del paese nell�Unione Europea, ci
dicono i baltici, la Russia dovr� cercare una soluzione con Bruxelles.
Inoltre, la reazione dei paesi dell�UE a ci� che sta succedendo con
l�istruzione russa in Lettonia al momento � sconosciuta. Vorremmo che
si dimostrasse pi� adeguata: l�OSCE e il Consiglio d�Europa reagiscono
a tali avvenimenti in modo significativamente pi� duro. Si dice che la
Lettonia e l�Estonia corrispondono ai criteri formali di ammissione
all�Unione Europea, con riferimento esclusivo alle problematiche
economiche. Per questa ragione il Ministero degli Affari Esteri della
Russia pone in modo particolarmente fermo la questione del rispetto dei
diritti umani della popolazione russofona della Lettonia�.
Cos�, la ratifica della convenzione del Consiglio d�Europa in materia
di difesa delle minoranze nazionali, e degli altri documenti
internazionali, che intervengono in loro difesa � una questione
lasciata esclusivamente alla buona volont�. I meccanismi, in grado di
obbligare un membro dell�Europa unita ad adempiere agli impegni assunti
in tale ambito, semplicemente mancano.
In relazione al varo degli emendamenti discriminatori il gruppo del
Partito Comunista della Federazione Russa (PCFR) alla Duma di Stato ha
diffuso una dichiarazione con un appello ad adottare contro la
Lettonia, �che viola pesantemente le norme del diritto internazionale
nell�ambito dei diritti dell�uomo�, sanzioni economiche e a ritirare
l�ambasciatore russo da Riga. Ad avviso dei comunisti, il presidente
della Russia dovrebbe assumere �immediate efficaci misure per
l�abolizione del sistema dell�apartheid in Lettonia�.
Ma fare affidamento su ci�, come sul fatto che �i nostri MIG stazionano
a Riga� appare poco realistico.
I diplomatici mettono in relazione le caute speranze di un
miglioramento della situazione dei russofoni in Lettonia con le
avvenute dimissioni del governo della repubblica, nel giorno del varo
del progetto di legge. �In Lettonia ci sono forze sane� �, afferma con
convinzione Andrey Skachkov. �Tra esse possiamo annoverare, in
particolare, il Partito della Concordia del Popolo e �Per i diritti
dell�uomo nella Lettonia Unita�. Se i loro rappresentanti dovessero
entrare in un nuovo gabinetto, sarebbero senz�altro possibili
cambiamenti in meglio�.
Finora, come si fa notare nella dichiarazione del Ministero degli
Affari Esteri, la controparte russa ha fatto appello alle autorit�
della Lettonia perch� impediscano un clima di scontro nella societ� e
prestino ascolto alle giuste richieste dei cittadini di lingua russa
del paese. �Il primo passo in tale direzione deve essere rappresentato
dall�inizio di un dialogo costruttivo con la comunit� di lingua russa e
dall�elaborazione di una variante della riforma scolastica, che
favorisca una completa istruzione per la nuova generazione di cittadini
di lingua russa del paese, che garantisca loro la fiducia nel futuro e
che dimostri concretamente l�attaccamento della Lettonia ai valori
democratici, fissati dai documenti dell�ONU, del Consiglio d�Europa e
dell�OSCE�, - si afferma nel documento.
Ma verremo ascoltati?���������
---
�
LETTONIA: SCIOPERO DEGLI STUDENTI DELLE SCUOLE RUSSE
www.leviy.ru, 15 aprile 2004
�
Oggi in Lettonia ha inizio lo sciopero generale degli studenti delle
scuole russe, per il diritto all�insegnamento nella lingua madre.
La decisione della proclamazione dello sciopero � stata presa il 6
marzo a Riga dal �Congresso lettone dei difensori della scuole russe�.
All�azione prendono parte gli studenti di tutte le 64 scuole russe di
Riga e della maggioranza delle scuole russe di Ventspils, Daugavspils,
Jelgava, Liepaja e di altre citt� della Lettonia, secondo quanto hanno
dichiarato a RIA �Novosti� i dirigenti del movimento.
In tutto, allo sciopero parteciperanno non meno di 50.000 persone
(studenti, genitori ed insegnanti), ha dichiarato Jurij
Petropavlovskij, uno dei dirigenti, in un�intervista a RIA �Novosti�.
Nei manifesti di convocazione dello sciopero si afferma che l�azione
avr� inizio nella mattinata del 15 aprile, con il raduno dei
partecipanti di fronte al monumento dedicato al poeta lettone Rainis
nel parco �Esplanada�, collocato nel centro della citt�.
Alle 11,00 i membri della delegazione trattante, eletta dal �Congresso
dei difensori delle scuole russe�, si diriger� al Palazzo del Governo
della Lettonia, per consegnare al primo ministro Indulis Emsis la
petizione dal titolo �Questa riforma non � necessaria�.
Nel documento si formula la richiesta di una moratoria riguardo alla
messa in pratica della legge sull�istruzione, che prevede, in
particolare, che dal 1 settembre 2004, nelle scuole medie delle
minoranze nazionali, la maggior parte delle materie venga insegnata non
nella lingua madre, ma in lettone.
Il 16 aprile, secondo giorno di sciopero, i partecipanti si raduneranno
di fronte al palazzo del tribunale, dove si sta svolgendo il
dibattimento sulla causa presentata contro il deputato della Duma di
Riga Aleksandr Gilman. Egli � stato accusato di violazione della
legislazione lettone, in occasione della convocazione delle
manifestazioni degli studenti delle scuole russe, svoltesi a Riga il 5
e l�11 febbraio.
Nel pomeriggio, nella Piazza della Casa dei Congressi, si svolger� il
meeting dal titolo �Lezione all�aperto di lingua e cultura russa per il
governo�.
�
Traduzione dal russo di Mauro Gemma�������
=== 2 ===
LA COMMISSIONE PER I DIRITTI UMANI DELL�ONU CONDANNA ESTONIA E LETTONIA
PER LA RIABILITAZIONE DEL PASSATO NAZISTA
www.strana.ru , 16 aprile 2004
�
Nel sito russo �Strana.ru� (vicino all�amministrazione presidenziale) �
apparsa la notizia relativa al varo da parte della �Commissione ONU per
i diritti dell�uomo� di una risoluzione �antifascista� presentata
congiuntamente da Russia e Bielorussia di condanna della riabilitazione
del passato nazista in atto in Lettonia ed Estonia, alla vigilia
dell�ingresso dei due stati baltici nell�Unione Europea.
�
(�)
Esemplare � stata l�approvazione (da parte della Commissione per i
diritti umani dell�ONU) di una risoluzione antifascista che colpisce
direttamente la politica di Lettonia ed Estonia, che il 1 maggio
faranno il loro ingresso nell�UE. La risoluzione ha ottenuto il voto di
36 paesi. La Commissione ha espresso �profonda preoccupazione per la
glorificazione degli ex appartenenti alle �Waffen SS�, per
l�inaugurazione di monumenti e memoriali ad essi dedicati, ed anche per
lo svolgimento di dimostrazioni pubbliche degli ex SS. Alla vigilia del
59� anniversario della vittoria sul fascismo i membri della Commissione
hanno stabilito che simili azioni e organizzazioni �insultano la
memoria delle innumerevoli vittime delle organizzazioni SS e avvelenano
la coscienza delle giovani generazioni� e sono incompatibili con gli
impegni assunti dagli stati-membri dell�ONU.
La risoluzione fa appello ai membri dell�ONU perch� ostacolino la
diffusione in tutto il mondo di simili movimenti, gruppi e partiti
politici. Per quanto riguarda la Lettonia e l�Estonia, in cui sono
ancora presenti le �legioni Waffen SS�, �moderne forme di razzismo� e
dove discriminazioni vengono praticate nei confronti della popolazione
di lingua russa, la vittoria, dal punto di vista di Mosca, � da
ritenersi significativa sul piano della precisazione delle priorit�
nella lotta per i diritti dell�uomo. Come � noto, in questi paesi
agiscono apertamente organizzazioni neonaziste condannate nella
risoluzione, vengono inaugurati monumenti agli �eroi� del Reich e, in
Lettonia, ogni anno, nel �Giorno dell�indipendenza�, si svolgono cortei
della cosiddetta �legione lettone delle Waffen SS�.
L�approvazione, alla vigilia dell�allargamento dell�Unione Europea, di
una risoluzione che apre gli occhi sulla violazione dei diritti
dell�uomo nelle repubbliche baltiche, rappresenta un avvenimento
esemplare. Si potr� cos� far intendere a Riga e a Tallin che, entrando
nella comunit� europea, dovranno rinunciare alle loro concezioni
nazionalistiche. Ma, se si considera l�approccio dell�Unione Europea al
problema ceceno, allora appare comprensibile perch� a Bruxelles
chiudano gli occhi su quanto sta avvenendo in Lettonia ed Estonia. La
Russia si � dunque dotata, con la risoluzione che condanna il fascismo,
di un solido argomento.
�
Traduzione dal russo di Mauro Gemma��
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
1. APARTHEID IN LETTONIA: LA MINORANZA RUSSA SI MOBILITA PER I SUOI
DIRITTI
* L�EUROPA AIUTERA� LA COMUNITA� RUSSA DELLA LETTONIA? di Jana Amelina,
IA �Rosbalt�, Mosca
* LETTONIA: SCIOPERO DEGLI STUDENTI DELLE SCUOLE RUSSE - www.leviy.ru,
15 aprile 2004
2. LA COMMISSIONE PER I DIRITTI UMANI DELL�ONU CONDANNA ESTONIA E
LETTONIA PER LA RIABILITAZIONE DEL PASSATO NAZISTA
=== 1 ===
APARTHEID IN LETTONIA: LA MINORANZA RUSSA SI MOBILITA PER I SUOI
DIRITTI.
Ma in questo caso, Prodi e la Commissione Europea fanno finta di non
vedere
---
L�EUROPA AIUTERA� LA COMUNITA� RUSSA DELLA LETTONIA?
di Jana Amelina, IA �Rosbalt�, Mosca
www.atvr.ru , 13 aprile 2004
Il �Seima� (parlamento) della Lettonia, in terza, definitiva stesura,
ha approvato gli emendamenti alla legge sull�istruzione. Il comma 3 del
punto 9 della legge recita: dal 1 settembre 2004 �negli istituti
scolastici statali e municipali, in cui sono previsti programmi di
istruzione delle minoranze nazionali, a partire dalla 10� classe le
lezioni verranno impartite nella lingua statale (lettone) in armonia
con il modello statale di istruzione media generale�.
In accordo con tale modello, nella lingua statale verranno insegnate
non meno del 60% delle materie. Il tempo restante verr� dedicato
all�insegnamento nelle lingue delle minoranze nazionali di materie
collegate alla lingua, all�identit� e alla cultura. Queste ultime
verranno concordate dalla scuola stessa con il Ministero
dell�istruzione e della scienza. �Il varo di questa legge rappresenta
un serio passo nella direzione dello sradicamento dell�istruzione media
in lingua russa�, - si afferma in un comunicato emesso lo stesso giorno
dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri della Federazione Russa. �Esso
condurr� inevitabilmente ad un peggioramento della situazione, a un
deciso abbassamento della qualit� dell�istruzione dei russofoni che
frequentano le scuole lettoni, all�emergere di nuove differenze sociali
e discriminazioni nei diritti�.
Come informa la �Business&Balta� di Riga, i rappresentanti
dell�opposizione parlamentare di sinistra hanno proposto di insegnare
nelle scuole delle minoranze nazionali non meno di tre materie, insieme
al lettone e alla letteratura. A parere del deputato del gruppo �Per i
diritti dell�uomo nella Lettonia unita� (� il nome della coalizione, in
cui erano presenti anche i comunisti del Partito Socialista di
Lettonia) Jakov Pliner, questa � l�unica possibilit� di evitare
l�abbandono delle scuole a settembre.
Ma i partiti di destra, respingendo ogni proposta, che introducesse
cambiamenti nella riforma oppure un attenuazione del meccanismo che
costringe le scuole russe all�uso della lingua lettone, e accusando
l�opposizione di sinistra di �ignoranza�, di estremismo e di
�complicit� con i colonizzatori�, hanno mantenuto la stesura iniziale.
Non � servita neppure la grandiosa manifestazione, realizzata dalle
organizzazioni russe della Lettonia di fronte al palazzo del �Seima�, a
cui hanno partecipato, secondo dati di diverse fonti, da 5.000 a 15.000
studenti e genitori russi. Naturalmente, non si � tenuto in
considerazione neppure il parere della Duma di Stato russa. Per gli
emendamenti discriminatori hanno votato a favore 71 deputati, contro 25.
La decisione dei deputati lettoni riguarda circa 120.000 studenti delle
scuole russe, che rappresentano circa un terzo di tutti gli studenti
della Lettonia. In tutto parla russo circa il 40% degli abitanti del
paese. Il presidente dell�Associazione Lettone delle scuole ad
insegnamento russo Igor Pimenov ha fatto appello al presidente della
Repubblica Lettone Vaira Vike Freiberga, perch� rinvii la legge al
parlamento per un ulteriore esame. Egli gli ha anche proposto di
intervenire con un�iniziativa di �moratoria sulla riforma del 2004� e
di iniziare una discussione a livello nazionale sui problemi
dell�istruzione, ma senza ottenere finora una risposta. I deputati del
gruppo �Per i diritti dell�uomo nella Lettonia unita� e il Partito
socialista di Lettonia hanno avanzato una richiesta di sfiducia nei
confronti di uno degli autori degli emendamenti, il ministro
dell�istruzione e dell�educazione Karlis Shadurskis. Lo stesso giorno
tutto il governo si dimetteva, anche se per altre cause�
Ma le scuole russe, se si pu� usare tale espressione, �potevano versare
ancora pi� sangue�. Il progetto di legge, adottato dal �Seima� in
seconda lettura, prevedeva un taglio ancora pi� drastico delle materie
di insegnamento nelle lingue delle minoranze nazionali. Come si fa
notare nel comunicato emesso dal Ministero degli Affari Esteri russo, i
legislatori lettoni si sono mossi su uno schema prefissato. Nel corso
della preparazione dei progetti di legge particolarmente significativi
per la parte della societ� che parla la lingua russa, �essi all�inizio
reagiscono alle proteste con un peggioramento nella redazione del
documento, rendendolo decisamente �impresentabile�, per poi tornare
sulla variante iniziale, presentando la cosa come un passo incontro
alle esigenze dell�opinione pubblica russofona e delle organizzazioni
internazionali�. �Speriamo che questo trucco non confonda gli
osservatori in Europa e negli USA�, - si sottolinea nel documento. �La
variante di compromesso assunta � il risultato del lavoro del Ministero
degli Affari Esteri russo, delle reazioni della comunit� russofona
della Lettonia e dell�opinione pubblica russa�, - ha dichiarato a
�Rosbalt� il consigliere del secondo dipartimento europeo del Ministero
degli Affari Esteri della Federazione Russa Andrey Skachkov.
Come ha dichiarato in un�intervista alla stazione radio �Golos Rossij�
(Voce della Russia) il vice-speaker della Duma di Stato Dmitrij Rogozin
(attuale leader di �Rodina�), i nazional-sciovinisti lettoni di fatto
intendono rifarsi sui ragazzi dei rancori, legati al periodo
dell�esistenza della Repubblica Socialista Sovietica Lettone, riducendo
al minimo la quantit� delle materie impartite in lingua russa. Lo stato
lettone si sviluppa sulla base del nazismo nel campo dell�istruzione.
Ci� � in contraddizione con le tradizioni di difesa delle lingue delle
minoranze nazionali nei paesi dell�Unione Europea�. Il deputato �
convinto che i problemi della minoranza russa in Lettonia possono
essere risolti solo con la partecipazione dell�Unione Europea, di cui
presto la Lettonia sar� membro. �L�Unione Europea oggi ha il dovere di
intervenire, esprimendo la propria contrariet� per ci� che sta
accadendo in Lettonia, oppure deve frenare il processo di accoglimento
della repubblica nell�UE�, - aveva detto in precedenza in una
conferenza-stampa Dmitrij Rogozin.
Ma i diplomatici russi prevedono che molti ostacoli si frapporranno a
che ci� avvenga. � Gi� fin da ora sarebbe auspicabile far uscire dal
punto morto in cui si trova la questione del rispetto dei diritti umani
della comunit� russofona della Lettonia�, - commenta cos� la situazione
Andrey Skachkov. �Dopo l�ingresso del paese nell�Unione Europea, ci
dicono i baltici, la Russia dovr� cercare una soluzione con Bruxelles.
Inoltre, la reazione dei paesi dell�UE a ci� che sta succedendo con
l�istruzione russa in Lettonia al momento � sconosciuta. Vorremmo che
si dimostrasse pi� adeguata: l�OSCE e il Consiglio d�Europa reagiscono
a tali avvenimenti in modo significativamente pi� duro. Si dice che la
Lettonia e l�Estonia corrispondono ai criteri formali di ammissione
all�Unione Europea, con riferimento esclusivo alle problematiche
economiche. Per questa ragione il Ministero degli Affari Esteri della
Russia pone in modo particolarmente fermo la questione del rispetto dei
diritti umani della popolazione russofona della Lettonia�.
Cos�, la ratifica della convenzione del Consiglio d�Europa in materia
di difesa delle minoranze nazionali, e degli altri documenti
internazionali, che intervengono in loro difesa � una questione
lasciata esclusivamente alla buona volont�. I meccanismi, in grado di
obbligare un membro dell�Europa unita ad adempiere agli impegni assunti
in tale ambito, semplicemente mancano.
In relazione al varo degli emendamenti discriminatori il gruppo del
Partito Comunista della Federazione Russa (PCFR) alla Duma di Stato ha
diffuso una dichiarazione con un appello ad adottare contro la
Lettonia, �che viola pesantemente le norme del diritto internazionale
nell�ambito dei diritti dell�uomo�, sanzioni economiche e a ritirare
l�ambasciatore russo da Riga. Ad avviso dei comunisti, il presidente
della Russia dovrebbe assumere �immediate efficaci misure per
l�abolizione del sistema dell�apartheid in Lettonia�.
Ma fare affidamento su ci�, come sul fatto che �i nostri MIG stazionano
a Riga� appare poco realistico.
I diplomatici mettono in relazione le caute speranze di un
miglioramento della situazione dei russofoni in Lettonia con le
avvenute dimissioni del governo della repubblica, nel giorno del varo
del progetto di legge. �In Lettonia ci sono forze sane� �, afferma con
convinzione Andrey Skachkov. �Tra esse possiamo annoverare, in
particolare, il Partito della Concordia del Popolo e �Per i diritti
dell�uomo nella Lettonia Unita�. Se i loro rappresentanti dovessero
entrare in un nuovo gabinetto, sarebbero senz�altro possibili
cambiamenti in meglio�.
Finora, come si fa notare nella dichiarazione del Ministero degli
Affari Esteri, la controparte russa ha fatto appello alle autorit�
della Lettonia perch� impediscano un clima di scontro nella societ� e
prestino ascolto alle giuste richieste dei cittadini di lingua russa
del paese. �Il primo passo in tale direzione deve essere rappresentato
dall�inizio di un dialogo costruttivo con la comunit� di lingua russa e
dall�elaborazione di una variante della riforma scolastica, che
favorisca una completa istruzione per la nuova generazione di cittadini
di lingua russa del paese, che garantisca loro la fiducia nel futuro e
che dimostri concretamente l�attaccamento della Lettonia ai valori
democratici, fissati dai documenti dell�ONU, del Consiglio d�Europa e
dell�OSCE�, - si afferma nel documento.
Ma verremo ascoltati?���������
---
�
LETTONIA: SCIOPERO DEGLI STUDENTI DELLE SCUOLE RUSSE
www.leviy.ru, 15 aprile 2004
�
Oggi in Lettonia ha inizio lo sciopero generale degli studenti delle
scuole russe, per il diritto all�insegnamento nella lingua madre.
La decisione della proclamazione dello sciopero � stata presa il 6
marzo a Riga dal �Congresso lettone dei difensori della scuole russe�.
All�azione prendono parte gli studenti di tutte le 64 scuole russe di
Riga e della maggioranza delle scuole russe di Ventspils, Daugavspils,
Jelgava, Liepaja e di altre citt� della Lettonia, secondo quanto hanno
dichiarato a RIA �Novosti� i dirigenti del movimento.
In tutto, allo sciopero parteciperanno non meno di 50.000 persone
(studenti, genitori ed insegnanti), ha dichiarato Jurij
Petropavlovskij, uno dei dirigenti, in un�intervista a RIA �Novosti�.
Nei manifesti di convocazione dello sciopero si afferma che l�azione
avr� inizio nella mattinata del 15 aprile, con il raduno dei
partecipanti di fronte al monumento dedicato al poeta lettone Rainis
nel parco �Esplanada�, collocato nel centro della citt�.
Alle 11,00 i membri della delegazione trattante, eletta dal �Congresso
dei difensori delle scuole russe�, si diriger� al Palazzo del Governo
della Lettonia, per consegnare al primo ministro Indulis Emsis la
petizione dal titolo �Questa riforma non � necessaria�.
Nel documento si formula la richiesta di una moratoria riguardo alla
messa in pratica della legge sull�istruzione, che prevede, in
particolare, che dal 1 settembre 2004, nelle scuole medie delle
minoranze nazionali, la maggior parte delle materie venga insegnata non
nella lingua madre, ma in lettone.
Il 16 aprile, secondo giorno di sciopero, i partecipanti si raduneranno
di fronte al palazzo del tribunale, dove si sta svolgendo il
dibattimento sulla causa presentata contro il deputato della Duma di
Riga Aleksandr Gilman. Egli � stato accusato di violazione della
legislazione lettone, in occasione della convocazione delle
manifestazioni degli studenti delle scuole russe, svoltesi a Riga il 5
e l�11 febbraio.
Nel pomeriggio, nella Piazza della Casa dei Congressi, si svolger� il
meeting dal titolo �Lezione all�aperto di lingua e cultura russa per il
governo�.
�
Traduzione dal russo di Mauro Gemma�������
=== 2 ===
LA COMMISSIONE PER I DIRITTI UMANI DELL�ONU CONDANNA ESTONIA E LETTONIA
PER LA RIABILITAZIONE DEL PASSATO NAZISTA
www.strana.ru , 16 aprile 2004
�
Nel sito russo �Strana.ru� (vicino all�amministrazione presidenziale) �
apparsa la notizia relativa al varo da parte della �Commissione ONU per
i diritti dell�uomo� di una risoluzione �antifascista� presentata
congiuntamente da Russia e Bielorussia di condanna della riabilitazione
del passato nazista in atto in Lettonia ed Estonia, alla vigilia
dell�ingresso dei due stati baltici nell�Unione Europea.
�
(�)
Esemplare � stata l�approvazione (da parte della Commissione per i
diritti umani dell�ONU) di una risoluzione antifascista che colpisce
direttamente la politica di Lettonia ed Estonia, che il 1 maggio
faranno il loro ingresso nell�UE. La risoluzione ha ottenuto il voto di
36 paesi. La Commissione ha espresso �profonda preoccupazione per la
glorificazione degli ex appartenenti alle �Waffen SS�, per
l�inaugurazione di monumenti e memoriali ad essi dedicati, ed anche per
lo svolgimento di dimostrazioni pubbliche degli ex SS. Alla vigilia del
59� anniversario della vittoria sul fascismo i membri della Commissione
hanno stabilito che simili azioni e organizzazioni �insultano la
memoria delle innumerevoli vittime delle organizzazioni SS e avvelenano
la coscienza delle giovani generazioni� e sono incompatibili con gli
impegni assunti dagli stati-membri dell�ONU.
La risoluzione fa appello ai membri dell�ONU perch� ostacolino la
diffusione in tutto il mondo di simili movimenti, gruppi e partiti
politici. Per quanto riguarda la Lettonia e l�Estonia, in cui sono
ancora presenti le �legioni Waffen SS�, �moderne forme di razzismo� e
dove discriminazioni vengono praticate nei confronti della popolazione
di lingua russa, la vittoria, dal punto di vista di Mosca, � da
ritenersi significativa sul piano della precisazione delle priorit�
nella lotta per i diritti dell�uomo. Come � noto, in questi paesi
agiscono apertamente organizzazioni neonaziste condannate nella
risoluzione, vengono inaugurati monumenti agli �eroi� del Reich e, in
Lettonia, ogni anno, nel �Giorno dell�indipendenza�, si svolgono cortei
della cosiddetta �legione lettone delle Waffen SS�.
L�approvazione, alla vigilia dell�allargamento dell�Unione Europea, di
una risoluzione che apre gli occhi sulla violazione dei diritti
dell�uomo nelle repubbliche baltiche, rappresenta un avvenimento
esemplare. Si potr� cos� far intendere a Riga e a Tallin che, entrando
nella comunit� europea, dovranno rinunciare alle loro concezioni
nazionalistiche. Ma, se si considera l�approccio dell�Unione Europea al
problema ceceno, allora appare comprensibile perch� a Bruxelles
chiudano gli occhi su quanto sta avvenendo in Lettonia ed Estonia. La
Russia si � dunque dotata, con la risoluzione che condanna il fascismo,
di un solido argomento.
�
Traduzione dal russo di Mauro Gemma��
[Sono state eliminare la parti non di testo del messaggio]
[ Da piu' di una settimana, le truppe statunitensi di occupazione
hanno preso d'assedio la citta' di Falluja. Mentre l'opinione pubblica
occidentale viene distratta da rapimenti di "civili", ai quali viene
dato il massimo risalto mediatico, i morti tra la popolazione locale
sono migliaia. I cecchini USA sparano tranquillamente anche sulle madri
di famiglia, sulle ambulanze, negli ospedali, sicuri di non dover
rispondere a nessuno... ]
Eyewitness Report from Falluja
US snipers in Falluja shoot unarmed man in the back, old woman with
white flag, children fleeing their homes and the ambulance that we were
going in to fetch a woman in premature labour.
by Jo Wilding
April 13th, 2004
Trucks, oil tankers, tanks are burning on the highway east to Falluja.
A stream of boys and men goes to and from a lorry that’s not burnt,
stripping it bare. We turn onto the back roads through Abu Ghraib, Nuha
and Ahrar singing in Arabic, past the vehicles full of people and a few
possessions, heading the other way, past the improvised refreshment
posts along the way where boys throw food through the windows into the
bus for us and for the people inside still inside Falluja.
The bus is following a car with the nephew of a local sheikh and a
guide who has contacts with the Mujahedin and has cleared this with
them. The reason I’m on the bus is that a journalist I knew turned up
at my door at about 11 at night telling me things were desperate in
Falluja, he’d been bringing out children with their limbs blown off,
the US soldiers were going around telling people to leave by dusk or be
killed, but then when people fled with whatever they could carry, they
were being stopped at the US military checkpoint on the edge of town
and not let out, trapped, watching the sun go down.
He said aid vehicles and the media were being turned away. He said
there was some medical aid that needed to go in and there was a better
chance of it getting there with foreigners, westerners, to get through
the american checkpoints. The rest of the way was secured with the
armed groups who control the roads we’d travel on. We’d take in the
medical supplies, see what else we could do to help and then use the
bus to bring out people who needed to leave.
I’ll spare you the whole decision making process, all the questions we
all asked ourselves and each other, and you can spare me the
accusations of madness, but what it came down to was this: if I don’t
do it, who will?
Either way, we arrive in one piece.
We pile the stuff in the corridor and the boxes are torn open
straightaway, the blankets most welcomed. It’s not a hospital at all
but a clinic, a private doctor’s surgery treating people free since air
strikes destroyed the town’s main hospital. Another has been improvised
in a car garage. There’s no anaesthetic. The blood bags are in a drinks
fridge and the doctors warm them up under the hot tap in an unhygienic
toilet.
Screaming women come in, praying, slapping their chests and faces.
Ummi, my mother, one cries. I hold her until Maki, a consultant and
acting director of the clinic, brings me to the bed where a child of
about ten is lying with a bullet wound to the head. A smaller child is
being treated for a similar injury in the next bed. A US sniper hit
them and their grandmother as they left their home to flee Falluja.
The lights go out, the fan stops and in the sudden quiet someone holds
up the flame of a cigarette lighter for the doctor to carry on
operating by. The electricity to the town has been cut off for days and
when the generator runs out of petrol they just have to manage till it
comes back on. Dave quickly donates his torch. The children are not
going to live.
“Come,” says Maki and ushers me alone into a room where an old woman
has just had an abdominal bullet wound stitched up. Another in her leg
is being dressed, the bed under her foot soaked with blood, a white
flag still clutched in her hand and the same story: I was leaving my
home to go to Baghdad when I was hit by a US sniper. Some of the town
is held by US marines, other parts by the local fighters. Their homes
are in the US controlled area and they are adamant that the snipers
were US marines.
Snipers are causing not just carnage but also the paralysis of the
ambulance and evacuation services. The biggest hospital after the main
one was bombed is in US territory and cut off from the clinic by
snipers. The ambulance has been repaired four times after bullet
damage. Bodies are lying in the streets because no one can go to
collect them without being shot.
Some said we were mad to come to Iraq; quite a few said we were
completely insane to come to Falluja and now there are people telling
me that getting in the back of the pick up to go past the snipers and
get sick and injured people is the craziest thing they’ve ever seen. I
know, though, that if we don’t, no one will.
He’s holding a white flag with a red crescent on; I don’t know his
name. The men we pass wave us on when the driver explains where we’re
going. The silence is ferocious in the no man’s land between the pick
up at the edge of the Mujahedin territory, which has just gone from our
sight around the last corner and the marines’ line beyond the next
wall; no birds, no music, no indication that anyone is still living
until a gate opens opposite and a woman comes out, points.
We edge along to the hole in the wall where we can see the car, spent
mortar shells around it. The feet are visible, crossed, in the gutter.
I think he’s dead already. The snipers are visible too, two of them on
the corner of the building. As yet I think they can’t see us so we need
to let them know we’re there.
“Hello,” I bellow at the top of my voice. “Can you hear me?” They must.
They ’re about 30 metres from us, maybe less, and it’s so still you
could hear the flies buzzing at fifty paces. I repeat myself a few
times, still without reply, so decide to explain myself a bit more.
“We are a medical team. We want to remove this wounded man. Is it OK
for us to come out and get him? Can you give us a signal that it’s OK?”
I’m sure they can hear me but they’re still not responding. Maybe they
didn’ t understand it all, so I say the same again. Dave yells too in
his US accent. I yell again. Finally I think I hear a shout back. Not
sure, I call again.
“Hello.”
“Yeah.”
“Can we come out and get him?”
“Yeah,”
Slowly, our hands up, we go out. The black cloud that rises to greet us
carries with it a hot, sour smell. Solidified, his legs are heavy. I
leave them to Rana and Dave, our guide lifting under his hips. The
Kalashnikov is attached by sticky blood to is hair and hand and we
don’t want it with us so I put my foot on it as I pick up his shoulders
and his blood falls out through the hole in his back. We heave him into
the pick up as best we can and try to outrun the flies.
I suppose he was wearing flip flops because he’s barefoot now, no more
than 20 years old, in imitation Nike pants and a blue and black striped
football shirt with a big 28 on the back. As the orderlies form the
clinic pull the young fighter off the pick up, yellow fluid pours from
his mouth and they flip him over, face up, the way into the clinic
clearing in front of them, straight up the ramp into the makeshift
morgue.
We wash the blood off our hands and get in the ambulance. There are
people trapped in the other hospital who need to go to Baghdad. Siren
screaming, lights flashing, we huddle on the floor of the ambulance,
passports and ID cards held out the windows. We pack it with people,
one with his chest taped together and a drip, one on a stretcher, legs
jerking violently so I have to hold them down as we wheel him out,
lifting him over steps.
The hospital is better able to treat them than the clinic but hasn’t
got enough of anything to sort them out properly and the only way to
get them to Baghdad on our bus, which means they have to go to the
clinic. We’re crammed on the floor of the ambulance in case it’s shot
at. Nisareen, a woman doctor about my age, can’t stop a few tears once
we’re out.
The doctor rushes out to meet me: “Can you go to fetch a lady, she is
pregnant and she is delivering the baby too soon?”
Azzam is driving, Ahmed in the middle directing him and me by the
window, the visible foreigner, the passport. Something scatters across
my hand, simultaneous with the crashing of a bullet through the
ambulance, some plastic part dislodged, flying through the window.
We stop, turn off the siren, keep the blue light flashing, wait, eyes
on the silhouettes of men in US marine uniforms on the corners of the
buildings.
Several shots come. We duck, get as low as possible and I can see tiny
red lights whipping past the window, past my head. Some, it’s hard to
tell, are hitting the ambulance I start singing. What else do you do
when someone’s shooting at you? A tyre bursts with an enormous noise
and a jerk of the vehicle.
I’m outraged. We’re trying to get to a woman who’s giving birth without
any medical attention, without electricity, in a city under siege, in a
clearly marked ambulance, and you’re shooting at us. How dare you?
How dare you?
Azzam grabs the gear stick and gets the ambulance into reverse, another
tyre bursting as we go over the ridge in the centre of the road , the
sots still coming as we flee around the corner. I carry on singing. The
wheels are scraping, burst rubber burning on the road.
The men run for a stretcher as we arrive and I shake my head. They spot
the new bullet holes and run to see if we’re OK. Is there any other way
to get to her, I want to know. La, maaku tarieq. There is no other way.
They say we did the right thing. They say they’ve fixed the ambulance
four times already and they’ll fix it again but the radiator’s gone and
the wheels are buckled and se’s still at home in the dark giving birth
alone. I let her down.
We can’t go out again. For one thing there’s no ambulance and besides
it’s dark now and that means our foreign faces can’t protect the people
who go out with us or the people we pick up. Maki is the acting
director of the place. He says he hated Saddam but now he hates the
Americans more.
We take off the blue gowns as the sky starts exploding somewhere beyond
the building opposite. Minutes later a car roars up to the clinic. I
can hear him screaming before I can see that there’s no skin left on
his body. He’s burnt from head to foot. For sure there’s nothing they
can do. He’ll die of dehydration within a few days.
Another man is pulled from the car onto a stretcher. Cluster bombs,
they say, although it’s not clear whether they mean one or both of
them. We set off walking to Mr Yasser’s house, waiting at each corner
for someone to check the street before we cross. A ball of fire falls
from a plane, splits into smaller balls of bright white lights. I think
they’re cluster bombs, because cluster bombs are in the front of my
mind, but they vanish, just magnesium flares, incredibly bright but
short-lived, giving a flash picture of the town from above.
Yasser asks us all to introduce ourselves. I tell him I’m training to
be a lawyer. One of the other men asks whether I know about
international law. They want to know about the law on war crimes, what
a war crime is. I tell them I know some of the Geneva Conventions, that
I’ll bring some information next time I come and we can get someone to
explain it in Arabic.
We bring up the matter of Nayoko. This group of fighters has nothing to
do with the ones who are holding the Japanese hostages, but while
they’re thanking us for what we did this evening, we talk about the
things Nayoko did for the street kids, how much they loved her. They
can’t promise anything but that they’ll try and find out where she is
and try to persuade the group to let her and the others go. I don’t
suppose it will make any difference. They’re busy fighting a war in
Falluja. They’re unconnected with the other group. But it can’t hurt to
try.
The planes are above us all night so that as I doze I forget I’m not on
a long distance flight, the constant bass note of an unmanned
reconnaissance drone overlaid with the frantic thrash of jets and the
dull beat of helicopters and interrupted by the explosions.
In the morning I make balloon dogs, giraffes and elephants for the
little one, Abdullah, Aboudi, who’s clearly distressed by the noise of
the aircraft and explosions. I blow bubbles which he follows with his
eyes. Finally, finally, I score a smile. The twins, thirteen years old,
laugh too, one of them an ambulance driver, both said to be handy with
a Kalashnikov.
The doctors look haggard in the morning. None has slept more than a
couple of hours a night for a week. One as had only eight hours of
sleep in the last seven days, missing the funerals of his brother and
aunt because he was needed at the hospital.
“The dead we cannot help,” Jassim said. “I must worry about the
injured.”
We go again, Dave, Rana and me, this time in a pick up. There are some
sick people close to the marines’ line who need evacuating. No one
dares come out of their house because the marines are on top of the
buildings shooting at anything that moves. Saad fetches us a white flag
and tells us not to worry, he’s checked and secured the road, no
Mujahedin will fire at us, that peace is upon us, this eleven year old
child, his face covered with a keffiyeh, but for is bright brown eyes,
his AK47 almost as tall as he is.
We shout again to the soldiers, hold up the flag with a red crescent
sprayed onto it. Two come down from the building, cover this side and
Rana mutters, “Allahu akbar. Please nobody take a shot at them.”
We jump down and tell them we need to get some sick people from the
houses and they want Rana to go and bring out the family from the house
whose roof they’re on. Thirteen women and children are still inside, in
one room, without food and water for the last 24 hours.
“We’re going to be going through soon clearing the houses,” the senior
one says.
“What does that mean, clearing the houses?”
“Going into every one searching for weapons.” He’s checking his watch,
can’t tell me what will start when, of course, but there’s going to be
air strikes in support. “If you’re going to do tis you gotta do it
soon.”
First we go down the street we were sent to. There’s a man, face down,
in a white dishdasha, a small round red stain on his back. We run to
him. Again the flies ave got there first. Dave is at his shoulders, I’m
by his knees and as we reach to roll him onto the stretcher Dave’s hand
goes through his chest, through the cavity left by the bullet that
entered so neatly through his back and blew his heart out.
There’s no weapon in his hand. Only when we arrive, his sons come out,
crying, shouting. He was unarmed, they scream. He was unarmed. He just
went out the gate and they shot him. None of them have dared come out
since. No one had dared come to get his body, horrified, terrified,
forced to violate the traditions of treating the body immediately. They
couldn’t have known we were coming so it’s inconceivable tat anyone
came out and retrieved a weapon but left the body.
He was unarmed, 55 years old, shot in the back.
We cover his face, carry him to the pick up. There’s nothing to cover
his body with. The sick woman is helped out of the house, the little
girls around her hugging cloth bags to their bodies, whispering, “Baba.
Baba.” Daddy. Shaking, they let us go first, hands up, around the
corner, then we usher them to the cab of the pick up, shielding their
heads so they can’t see him, the cuddly fat man stiff in the back.
The people seem to pour out of the houses now in the hope we can escort
them safely out of the line of fire, kids, women, men, anxiously asking
us whether they can all go, or only the women and children. We go to
ask. The young marine tells us that men of fighting age can’t leave.
What’s fighting age, I want to know. He contemplates. Anything under
forty five. No lower limit.
It appals me that all those men would be trapped in a city which is
about to be destroyed. Not all of them are fighters, not all are armed.
It’s going to happen out of the view of the world, out of sight of the
media, because most of the media in Falluja is embedded with the
marines or turned away at the outskirts. Before we can pass the message
on, two explosions scatter the crowd in the side street back into their
houses.
Rana’s with the marines evacuating the family from the house they’re
occupying. The pick up isn’t back yet. The families are hiding behind
their walls. We wait, because there’s nothing else we can do. We wait
in no man’s land. The marines, at least, are watching us through
binoculars; maybe the local fighters are too.
I’ve got a disappearing hanky in my pocket so while I’m sitting like a
lemon, nowhere to go, gunfire and explosions aplenty all around, I make
the hanky disappear, reappear, disappear. It’s always best, I think, to
seem completely unthreatening and completely unconcerned, so no one
worries about you enough to shoot. We can’t wait too long though.
Rana’s been gone ages. We have to go and get her to hurry. There’s a
young man in the group. She’s talked them into letting him leave too.
A man wants to use his police car to carry some of the people, a couple
of elderly ones who can’t walk far, the smallest children. It’s missing
a door. Who knows if he was really a police car or the car was
reappropriated and just ended up there? It didn’t matter if it got more
people out faster. They creep from their houses, huddle by the wall,
follow us out, their hands up too, and walk up the street clutching
babies, bags, each other.
The pick up gets back and we shovel as many onto it as we can as an
ambulance arrives from somewhere. A young man waves from the doorway of
what’s left of a house, his upper body bare, a blood soaked bandage
around his arm, probably a fighter but it makes no difference once
someone is wounded
and unarmed. Getting the dead isn’t essential. Like the doctor said,
the dead don’t need help, but if it’s easy enough then we will. Since
we’re already OK with the soldiers and the ambulance is here, we run
down to fetch them in. It’s important in Islam to bury the body
straightaway.
The ambulance follows us down. The soldiers start shouting in English
at us for it to stop, pointing guns. It’s moving fast. We’re all
yelling, signalling for it to stop but it seems to take forever for the
driver to hear and see us. It stops. It stops, before they open fire.
We haul them onto the stretchers and run, shove them in the back. Rana
squeezes in the front with the wounded man and Dave and I crouch in the
back beside the bodies. He says he had allergies as a kid and hasn’t
got much sense of smell. I wish, retrospectively, for childhood
allergies, and stick my head out the window.
The bus is going to leave, taking the injured people back to Baghdad,
the man with the burns, one of the women who was shot in the jaw and
shoulder by a sniper, several others. Rana says she’s staying to help.
Dave and I don’t hesitate: we’re staying too. “If I don’t do it, who
will?” has become an accidental motto and I’m acutely aware after the
last foray how many people, how many women and children, are still in
their houses either because they’ve got nowhere to go, because they’re
scared to go out of the door or because they’ve chosen to stay.
To begin with it’s agreed, then Azzam says we have to go. He hasn’t got
contacts with every armed group, only with some. There are different
issues to square with each one. We need to get these people back to
Baghdad as quickly as we can. If we’re kidnapped or killed it will
cause even more problems, so it’s better that we just get on the bus
and leave and come back with him as soon as possible.
It hurts to climb onto the bus when the doctor has just asked us to go
and evacuate some more people. I hate the fact that a qualified medic
can’t travel in the ambulance but I can, just because I look like the
sniper’s sister or one of his mates, but that’s the way it is today and
the way it was yesterday and I feel like a traitor for leaving, but I
can’t see where I’ve got a choice. It’s a war now and as alien as it is
to me to do what I’m told, for once I’ve got to.
Jassim is scared. He harangues Mohammed constantly, tries to pull him
out of the driver’s seat wile we’re moving. The woman with the gunshot
wound is on the back seat, the man with the burns in front of her,
being fanned with cardboard from the empty boxes, his intravenous drips
swinging from the rail along the ceiling of the bus. It’s hot. It must
be unbearable for him.
Saad comes onto the bus to wish us well for the journey. He shakes
Dave’s hand and then mine. I hold his in both of mine and tell him “Dir
balak,” take care, as if I could say anything more stupid to a pre-teen
Mujahedin with an AK47 in his other hand, and our eyes meet and stay
fixed, his full of fire and fear.
Can’t I take him away? Can’t I take him somewhere he can be a child?
Can’t I make him a balloon giraffe and give him some drawing pens and
tell him not to forget to brush his teeth? Can’t I find the person who
put the rifle in the hands of that little boy? Can’t I tell someone
about what that does to a child? Do I have to leave him here where
there are heavily armed men all around him and lots of them are not on
his side, however many sides there are in all of this? And of course I
do. I do have to leave him, like child soldiers everywhere.
The way back is tense, the bus almost getting stuck in a dip in the
sand, people escaping in anything, even piled on the trailer of a
tractor, lines of cars and pick ups and buses ferrying people to the
dubious sanctuary of Baghdad, lines of men in vehicles queuing to get
back into the city having got their families to safety, either to fight
or to help evacuate more people. The driver, Jassim, the father,
ignores Azzam and takes a different road so that suddenly we’re not
following the lead car and we’re on a road that’s controlled by a
different armed group than the ones which know us.
A crowd of men waves guns to stop the bus. Somehow they apparently
believe that there are American soldiers on the bus, as if they
wouldn’t be in tanks or helicopters, and there are men getting out of
their cars with shouts of “Sahafa Amreeki,” American journalists. The
passengers shout out of the windows, “Ana min Falluja,” I am from
Falluja. Gunmen run onto the bus and see that it’s true, there are sick
and injured and old people, Iraqis, and then relax, wave us on.
We stop in Abu Ghraib and swap seats, foreigners in the front, Iraqis
less visible, headscarves off so we look more western. The American
soldiers are so happy to see westerners they don’t mind too much about
the Iraqis with us, search the men and the bus, leave the women
unsearched because there are no women soldiers to search us. Mohammed
keeps asking me if things are going to be OK. “Al-melaach wiyana, “ I
tell him. The angels are with us. He laughs.
And then we’re in Baghdad, delivering them to the hospitals, Nuha in
tears as they take the burnt man off groaning and whimpering. She puts
her arms around me and asks me to be her friend. I make her feel less
isolated, she says, less alone.
And the satellite news says the cease-fire is holding and George Bush
says to the troops on Easter Sunday that, “I know what we’re doing in
Iraq is right.” Shooting unarmed men in the back outside their family
home is right. Shooting grandmothers with white flags is right?
Shooting at women and children who are fleeing their homes is right?
Firing at ambulances is right?
Well George, I know too now. I know what it looks like when you
brutalise people so much that they’ve nothing left to lose. I know what
it looks like when an operation is being done without anaesthetic
because the hospitals are destroyed or under sniper fire and the city’s
under siege and aid isn’t getting in properly. I know what it sounds
like too. I know what it looks like when tracer bullets are passing
your head, even though you’re in an ambulance. I know what it looks
like when a man’s chest is no longer inside him and what it smells like
and I know what it looks like when his wife and children pour out of
his house.
It’s a crime and it’s a disgrace to us all.
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=4105
Iraq Occupation Watch Center
hanno preso d'assedio la citta' di Falluja. Mentre l'opinione pubblica
occidentale viene distratta da rapimenti di "civili", ai quali viene
dato il massimo risalto mediatico, i morti tra la popolazione locale
sono migliaia. I cecchini USA sparano tranquillamente anche sulle madri
di famiglia, sulle ambulanze, negli ospedali, sicuri di non dover
rispondere a nessuno... ]
Eyewitness Report from Falluja
US snipers in Falluja shoot unarmed man in the back, old woman with
white flag, children fleeing their homes and the ambulance that we were
going in to fetch a woman in premature labour.
by Jo Wilding
April 13th, 2004
Trucks, oil tankers, tanks are burning on the highway east to Falluja.
A stream of boys and men goes to and from a lorry that’s not burnt,
stripping it bare. We turn onto the back roads through Abu Ghraib, Nuha
and Ahrar singing in Arabic, past the vehicles full of people and a few
possessions, heading the other way, past the improvised refreshment
posts along the way where boys throw food through the windows into the
bus for us and for the people inside still inside Falluja.
The bus is following a car with the nephew of a local sheikh and a
guide who has contacts with the Mujahedin and has cleared this with
them. The reason I’m on the bus is that a journalist I knew turned up
at my door at about 11 at night telling me things were desperate in
Falluja, he’d been bringing out children with their limbs blown off,
the US soldiers were going around telling people to leave by dusk or be
killed, but then when people fled with whatever they could carry, they
were being stopped at the US military checkpoint on the edge of town
and not let out, trapped, watching the sun go down.
He said aid vehicles and the media were being turned away. He said
there was some medical aid that needed to go in and there was a better
chance of it getting there with foreigners, westerners, to get through
the american checkpoints. The rest of the way was secured with the
armed groups who control the roads we’d travel on. We’d take in the
medical supplies, see what else we could do to help and then use the
bus to bring out people who needed to leave.
I’ll spare you the whole decision making process, all the questions we
all asked ourselves and each other, and you can spare me the
accusations of madness, but what it came down to was this: if I don’t
do it, who will?
Either way, we arrive in one piece.
We pile the stuff in the corridor and the boxes are torn open
straightaway, the blankets most welcomed. It’s not a hospital at all
but a clinic, a private doctor’s surgery treating people free since air
strikes destroyed the town’s main hospital. Another has been improvised
in a car garage. There’s no anaesthetic. The blood bags are in a drinks
fridge and the doctors warm them up under the hot tap in an unhygienic
toilet.
Screaming women come in, praying, slapping their chests and faces.
Ummi, my mother, one cries. I hold her until Maki, a consultant and
acting director of the clinic, brings me to the bed where a child of
about ten is lying with a bullet wound to the head. A smaller child is
being treated for a similar injury in the next bed. A US sniper hit
them and their grandmother as they left their home to flee Falluja.
The lights go out, the fan stops and in the sudden quiet someone holds
up the flame of a cigarette lighter for the doctor to carry on
operating by. The electricity to the town has been cut off for days and
when the generator runs out of petrol they just have to manage till it
comes back on. Dave quickly donates his torch. The children are not
going to live.
“Come,” says Maki and ushers me alone into a room where an old woman
has just had an abdominal bullet wound stitched up. Another in her leg
is being dressed, the bed under her foot soaked with blood, a white
flag still clutched in her hand and the same story: I was leaving my
home to go to Baghdad when I was hit by a US sniper. Some of the town
is held by US marines, other parts by the local fighters. Their homes
are in the US controlled area and they are adamant that the snipers
were US marines.
Snipers are causing not just carnage but also the paralysis of the
ambulance and evacuation services. The biggest hospital after the main
one was bombed is in US territory and cut off from the clinic by
snipers. The ambulance has been repaired four times after bullet
damage. Bodies are lying in the streets because no one can go to
collect them without being shot.
Some said we were mad to come to Iraq; quite a few said we were
completely insane to come to Falluja and now there are people telling
me that getting in the back of the pick up to go past the snipers and
get sick and injured people is the craziest thing they’ve ever seen. I
know, though, that if we don’t, no one will.
He’s holding a white flag with a red crescent on; I don’t know his
name. The men we pass wave us on when the driver explains where we’re
going. The silence is ferocious in the no man’s land between the pick
up at the edge of the Mujahedin territory, which has just gone from our
sight around the last corner and the marines’ line beyond the next
wall; no birds, no music, no indication that anyone is still living
until a gate opens opposite and a woman comes out, points.
We edge along to the hole in the wall where we can see the car, spent
mortar shells around it. The feet are visible, crossed, in the gutter.
I think he’s dead already. The snipers are visible too, two of them on
the corner of the building. As yet I think they can’t see us so we need
to let them know we’re there.
“Hello,” I bellow at the top of my voice. “Can you hear me?” They must.
They ’re about 30 metres from us, maybe less, and it’s so still you
could hear the flies buzzing at fifty paces. I repeat myself a few
times, still without reply, so decide to explain myself a bit more.
“We are a medical team. We want to remove this wounded man. Is it OK
for us to come out and get him? Can you give us a signal that it’s OK?”
I’m sure they can hear me but they’re still not responding. Maybe they
didn’ t understand it all, so I say the same again. Dave yells too in
his US accent. I yell again. Finally I think I hear a shout back. Not
sure, I call again.
“Hello.”
“Yeah.”
“Can we come out and get him?”
“Yeah,”
Slowly, our hands up, we go out. The black cloud that rises to greet us
carries with it a hot, sour smell. Solidified, his legs are heavy. I
leave them to Rana and Dave, our guide lifting under his hips. The
Kalashnikov is attached by sticky blood to is hair and hand and we
don’t want it with us so I put my foot on it as I pick up his shoulders
and his blood falls out through the hole in his back. We heave him into
the pick up as best we can and try to outrun the flies.
I suppose he was wearing flip flops because he’s barefoot now, no more
than 20 years old, in imitation Nike pants and a blue and black striped
football shirt with a big 28 on the back. As the orderlies form the
clinic pull the young fighter off the pick up, yellow fluid pours from
his mouth and they flip him over, face up, the way into the clinic
clearing in front of them, straight up the ramp into the makeshift
morgue.
We wash the blood off our hands and get in the ambulance. There are
people trapped in the other hospital who need to go to Baghdad. Siren
screaming, lights flashing, we huddle on the floor of the ambulance,
passports and ID cards held out the windows. We pack it with people,
one with his chest taped together and a drip, one on a stretcher, legs
jerking violently so I have to hold them down as we wheel him out,
lifting him over steps.
The hospital is better able to treat them than the clinic but hasn’t
got enough of anything to sort them out properly and the only way to
get them to Baghdad on our bus, which means they have to go to the
clinic. We’re crammed on the floor of the ambulance in case it’s shot
at. Nisareen, a woman doctor about my age, can’t stop a few tears once
we’re out.
The doctor rushes out to meet me: “Can you go to fetch a lady, she is
pregnant and she is delivering the baby too soon?”
Azzam is driving, Ahmed in the middle directing him and me by the
window, the visible foreigner, the passport. Something scatters across
my hand, simultaneous with the crashing of a bullet through the
ambulance, some plastic part dislodged, flying through the window.
We stop, turn off the siren, keep the blue light flashing, wait, eyes
on the silhouettes of men in US marine uniforms on the corners of the
buildings.
Several shots come. We duck, get as low as possible and I can see tiny
red lights whipping past the window, past my head. Some, it’s hard to
tell, are hitting the ambulance I start singing. What else do you do
when someone’s shooting at you? A tyre bursts with an enormous noise
and a jerk of the vehicle.
I’m outraged. We’re trying to get to a woman who’s giving birth without
any medical attention, without electricity, in a city under siege, in a
clearly marked ambulance, and you’re shooting at us. How dare you?
How dare you?
Azzam grabs the gear stick and gets the ambulance into reverse, another
tyre bursting as we go over the ridge in the centre of the road , the
sots still coming as we flee around the corner. I carry on singing. The
wheels are scraping, burst rubber burning on the road.
The men run for a stretcher as we arrive and I shake my head. They spot
the new bullet holes and run to see if we’re OK. Is there any other way
to get to her, I want to know. La, maaku tarieq. There is no other way.
They say we did the right thing. They say they’ve fixed the ambulance
four times already and they’ll fix it again but the radiator’s gone and
the wheels are buckled and se’s still at home in the dark giving birth
alone. I let her down.
We can’t go out again. For one thing there’s no ambulance and besides
it’s dark now and that means our foreign faces can’t protect the people
who go out with us or the people we pick up. Maki is the acting
director of the place. He says he hated Saddam but now he hates the
Americans more.
We take off the blue gowns as the sky starts exploding somewhere beyond
the building opposite. Minutes later a car roars up to the clinic. I
can hear him screaming before I can see that there’s no skin left on
his body. He’s burnt from head to foot. For sure there’s nothing they
can do. He’ll die of dehydration within a few days.
Another man is pulled from the car onto a stretcher. Cluster bombs,
they say, although it’s not clear whether they mean one or both of
them. We set off walking to Mr Yasser’s house, waiting at each corner
for someone to check the street before we cross. A ball of fire falls
from a plane, splits into smaller balls of bright white lights. I think
they’re cluster bombs, because cluster bombs are in the front of my
mind, but they vanish, just magnesium flares, incredibly bright but
short-lived, giving a flash picture of the town from above.
Yasser asks us all to introduce ourselves. I tell him I’m training to
be a lawyer. One of the other men asks whether I know about
international law. They want to know about the law on war crimes, what
a war crime is. I tell them I know some of the Geneva Conventions, that
I’ll bring some information next time I come and we can get someone to
explain it in Arabic.
We bring up the matter of Nayoko. This group of fighters has nothing to
do with the ones who are holding the Japanese hostages, but while
they’re thanking us for what we did this evening, we talk about the
things Nayoko did for the street kids, how much they loved her. They
can’t promise anything but that they’ll try and find out where she is
and try to persuade the group to let her and the others go. I don’t
suppose it will make any difference. They’re busy fighting a war in
Falluja. They’re unconnected with the other group. But it can’t hurt to
try.
The planes are above us all night so that as I doze I forget I’m not on
a long distance flight, the constant bass note of an unmanned
reconnaissance drone overlaid with the frantic thrash of jets and the
dull beat of helicopters and interrupted by the explosions.
In the morning I make balloon dogs, giraffes and elephants for the
little one, Abdullah, Aboudi, who’s clearly distressed by the noise of
the aircraft and explosions. I blow bubbles which he follows with his
eyes. Finally, finally, I score a smile. The twins, thirteen years old,
laugh too, one of them an ambulance driver, both said to be handy with
a Kalashnikov.
The doctors look haggard in the morning. None has slept more than a
couple of hours a night for a week. One as had only eight hours of
sleep in the last seven days, missing the funerals of his brother and
aunt because he was needed at the hospital.
“The dead we cannot help,” Jassim said. “I must worry about the
injured.”
We go again, Dave, Rana and me, this time in a pick up. There are some
sick people close to the marines’ line who need evacuating. No one
dares come out of their house because the marines are on top of the
buildings shooting at anything that moves. Saad fetches us a white flag
and tells us not to worry, he’s checked and secured the road, no
Mujahedin will fire at us, that peace is upon us, this eleven year old
child, his face covered with a keffiyeh, but for is bright brown eyes,
his AK47 almost as tall as he is.
We shout again to the soldiers, hold up the flag with a red crescent
sprayed onto it. Two come down from the building, cover this side and
Rana mutters, “Allahu akbar. Please nobody take a shot at them.”
We jump down and tell them we need to get some sick people from the
houses and they want Rana to go and bring out the family from the house
whose roof they’re on. Thirteen women and children are still inside, in
one room, without food and water for the last 24 hours.
“We’re going to be going through soon clearing the houses,” the senior
one says.
“What does that mean, clearing the houses?”
“Going into every one searching for weapons.” He’s checking his watch,
can’t tell me what will start when, of course, but there’s going to be
air strikes in support. “If you’re going to do tis you gotta do it
soon.”
First we go down the street we were sent to. There’s a man, face down,
in a white dishdasha, a small round red stain on his back. We run to
him. Again the flies ave got there first. Dave is at his shoulders, I’m
by his knees and as we reach to roll him onto the stretcher Dave’s hand
goes through his chest, through the cavity left by the bullet that
entered so neatly through his back and blew his heart out.
There’s no weapon in his hand. Only when we arrive, his sons come out,
crying, shouting. He was unarmed, they scream. He was unarmed. He just
went out the gate and they shot him. None of them have dared come out
since. No one had dared come to get his body, horrified, terrified,
forced to violate the traditions of treating the body immediately. They
couldn’t have known we were coming so it’s inconceivable tat anyone
came out and retrieved a weapon but left the body.
He was unarmed, 55 years old, shot in the back.
We cover his face, carry him to the pick up. There’s nothing to cover
his body with. The sick woman is helped out of the house, the little
girls around her hugging cloth bags to their bodies, whispering, “Baba.
Baba.” Daddy. Shaking, they let us go first, hands up, around the
corner, then we usher them to the cab of the pick up, shielding their
heads so they can’t see him, the cuddly fat man stiff in the back.
The people seem to pour out of the houses now in the hope we can escort
them safely out of the line of fire, kids, women, men, anxiously asking
us whether they can all go, or only the women and children. We go to
ask. The young marine tells us that men of fighting age can’t leave.
What’s fighting age, I want to know. He contemplates. Anything under
forty five. No lower limit.
It appals me that all those men would be trapped in a city which is
about to be destroyed. Not all of them are fighters, not all are armed.
It’s going to happen out of the view of the world, out of sight of the
media, because most of the media in Falluja is embedded with the
marines or turned away at the outskirts. Before we can pass the message
on, two explosions scatter the crowd in the side street back into their
houses.
Rana’s with the marines evacuating the family from the house they’re
occupying. The pick up isn’t back yet. The families are hiding behind
their walls. We wait, because there’s nothing else we can do. We wait
in no man’s land. The marines, at least, are watching us through
binoculars; maybe the local fighters are too.
I’ve got a disappearing hanky in my pocket so while I’m sitting like a
lemon, nowhere to go, gunfire and explosions aplenty all around, I make
the hanky disappear, reappear, disappear. It’s always best, I think, to
seem completely unthreatening and completely unconcerned, so no one
worries about you enough to shoot. We can’t wait too long though.
Rana’s been gone ages. We have to go and get her to hurry. There’s a
young man in the group. She’s talked them into letting him leave too.
A man wants to use his police car to carry some of the people, a couple
of elderly ones who can’t walk far, the smallest children. It’s missing
a door. Who knows if he was really a police car or the car was
reappropriated and just ended up there? It didn’t matter if it got more
people out faster. They creep from their houses, huddle by the wall,
follow us out, their hands up too, and walk up the street clutching
babies, bags, each other.
The pick up gets back and we shovel as many onto it as we can as an
ambulance arrives from somewhere. A young man waves from the doorway of
what’s left of a house, his upper body bare, a blood soaked bandage
around his arm, probably a fighter but it makes no difference once
someone is wounded
and unarmed. Getting the dead isn’t essential. Like the doctor said,
the dead don’t need help, but if it’s easy enough then we will. Since
we’re already OK with the soldiers and the ambulance is here, we run
down to fetch them in. It’s important in Islam to bury the body
straightaway.
The ambulance follows us down. The soldiers start shouting in English
at us for it to stop, pointing guns. It’s moving fast. We’re all
yelling, signalling for it to stop but it seems to take forever for the
driver to hear and see us. It stops. It stops, before they open fire.
We haul them onto the stretchers and run, shove them in the back. Rana
squeezes in the front with the wounded man and Dave and I crouch in the
back beside the bodies. He says he had allergies as a kid and hasn’t
got much sense of smell. I wish, retrospectively, for childhood
allergies, and stick my head out the window.
The bus is going to leave, taking the injured people back to Baghdad,
the man with the burns, one of the women who was shot in the jaw and
shoulder by a sniper, several others. Rana says she’s staying to help.
Dave and I don’t hesitate: we’re staying too. “If I don’t do it, who
will?” has become an accidental motto and I’m acutely aware after the
last foray how many people, how many women and children, are still in
their houses either because they’ve got nowhere to go, because they’re
scared to go out of the door or because they’ve chosen to stay.
To begin with it’s agreed, then Azzam says we have to go. He hasn’t got
contacts with every armed group, only with some. There are different
issues to square with each one. We need to get these people back to
Baghdad as quickly as we can. If we’re kidnapped or killed it will
cause even more problems, so it’s better that we just get on the bus
and leave and come back with him as soon as possible.
It hurts to climb onto the bus when the doctor has just asked us to go
and evacuate some more people. I hate the fact that a qualified medic
can’t travel in the ambulance but I can, just because I look like the
sniper’s sister or one of his mates, but that’s the way it is today and
the way it was yesterday and I feel like a traitor for leaving, but I
can’t see where I’ve got a choice. It’s a war now and as alien as it is
to me to do what I’m told, for once I’ve got to.
Jassim is scared. He harangues Mohammed constantly, tries to pull him
out of the driver’s seat wile we’re moving. The woman with the gunshot
wound is on the back seat, the man with the burns in front of her,
being fanned with cardboard from the empty boxes, his intravenous drips
swinging from the rail along the ceiling of the bus. It’s hot. It must
be unbearable for him.
Saad comes onto the bus to wish us well for the journey. He shakes
Dave’s hand and then mine. I hold his in both of mine and tell him “Dir
balak,” take care, as if I could say anything more stupid to a pre-teen
Mujahedin with an AK47 in his other hand, and our eyes meet and stay
fixed, his full of fire and fear.
Can’t I take him away? Can’t I take him somewhere he can be a child?
Can’t I make him a balloon giraffe and give him some drawing pens and
tell him not to forget to brush his teeth? Can’t I find the person who
put the rifle in the hands of that little boy? Can’t I tell someone
about what that does to a child? Do I have to leave him here where
there are heavily armed men all around him and lots of them are not on
his side, however many sides there are in all of this? And of course I
do. I do have to leave him, like child soldiers everywhere.
The way back is tense, the bus almost getting stuck in a dip in the
sand, people escaping in anything, even piled on the trailer of a
tractor, lines of cars and pick ups and buses ferrying people to the
dubious sanctuary of Baghdad, lines of men in vehicles queuing to get
back into the city having got their families to safety, either to fight
or to help evacuate more people. The driver, Jassim, the father,
ignores Azzam and takes a different road so that suddenly we’re not
following the lead car and we’re on a road that’s controlled by a
different armed group than the ones which know us.
A crowd of men waves guns to stop the bus. Somehow they apparently
believe that there are American soldiers on the bus, as if they
wouldn’t be in tanks or helicopters, and there are men getting out of
their cars with shouts of “Sahafa Amreeki,” American journalists. The
passengers shout out of the windows, “Ana min Falluja,” I am from
Falluja. Gunmen run onto the bus and see that it’s true, there are sick
and injured and old people, Iraqis, and then relax, wave us on.
We stop in Abu Ghraib and swap seats, foreigners in the front, Iraqis
less visible, headscarves off so we look more western. The American
soldiers are so happy to see westerners they don’t mind too much about
the Iraqis with us, search the men and the bus, leave the women
unsearched because there are no women soldiers to search us. Mohammed
keeps asking me if things are going to be OK. “Al-melaach wiyana, “ I
tell him. The angels are with us. He laughs.
And then we’re in Baghdad, delivering them to the hospitals, Nuha in
tears as they take the burnt man off groaning and whimpering. She puts
her arms around me and asks me to be her friend. I make her feel less
isolated, she says, less alone.
And the satellite news says the cease-fire is holding and George Bush
says to the troops on Easter Sunday that, “I know what we’re doing in
Iraq is right.” Shooting unarmed men in the back outside their family
home is right. Shooting grandmothers with white flags is right?
Shooting at women and children who are fleeing their homes is right?
Firing at ambulances is right?
Well George, I know too now. I know what it looks like when you
brutalise people so much that they’ve nothing left to lose. I know what
it looks like when an operation is being done without anaesthetic
because the hospitals are destroyed or under sniper fire and the city’s
under siege and aid isn’t getting in properly. I know what it sounds
like too. I know what it looks like when tracer bullets are passing
your head, even though you’re in an ambulance. I know what it looks
like when a man’s chest is no longer inside him and what it smells like
and I know what it looks like when his wife and children pour out of
his house.
It’s a crime and it’s a disgrace to us all.
http://www.occupationwatch.org/article.php?id=4105
Iraq Occupation Watch Center
[ Quattrocchi, prima di essere ucciso in Iraq, aveva lavorato per la
IBSSA, una ditta di mercenariato guidata da un tedesco, attiva tra
l'altro in Kosovo...
Sullo strano curriculum di questi "ostaggi civili", anche la stampa
italiana sta rivelando dettagli inquietanti. Uno dei rapiti pare essere
stato impegnato - da volontario (sic) - in Croazia. Invitiamo tutti a
farci pervenire gli articoli e le informazioni utili in tal senso,
apparse in questi giorni sulla stampa italiana. ]
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1082191418.php
17.04.2004
Deutsche Spur
GENOVA/BERLIN/BAGDAD (Eigener Bericht) - Der im Irak erschossene
italienische Kombattant Quattrochi war Mitglied einer internationalen
Söldnerorganisation, in deren Führung ein deutscher Staatsbürger
arbeitet, ein Gründungsmitglied der Organisation. Mitglieder des
Söldnerrings (International Bodyguard and Security Services
Association/IBSSA) wurden u.a. im Kosovo eingesetzt und rühmen sich
blutiger Auftragsarbeiten in Afrika und Afghanistan. Nach eigenen
Angaben ist die IBSSA für mehrere westliche Regierungen tätig (u.a. für
die US-Armee). In Deutschland darf der Ring für seine
völkerrechtswidrigen Aktivitäten unbehelligt werben.
,,General Director" der IBSSA war über längere Zeit der deutsche
Staatsbürger Fritz Wendland. Wendland fungiert heute als Mitglied im
,,Executive Committee" und wird als einer der sechs ,,Honorary Founding
Members" der IBSSA geführt. Für Kontakte des Ringes in Deutschland
nennt die IBSSA einen Julius Eugen Graf von Strähle. Mehrere führende
IBSSA-Organisatoren hielten sich zuletzt Mitte März in Deutschland auf
und warben in Nürnberg Interessenten an. Obwohl die Tätigkeit des
Ringes sowohl nach deutschen wie nach internationalen Gesetzen unter
Strafe steht, griffen die deutschen Behörden nicht ein. Unbehelligt
blieb auch ein bewaffnetes Wehrsporttreffen, das die IBSSA 1999
ebenfalls in Deutschland abhielt. Für Oktober 2004 kündigt der Ring
einen ,,Weltkongress" gegen ,,Kriminalität und Terrorismus" an, der in
Berlin stattfinden soll.
Hohe Moral
Bei mehreren IBSSA-Aktivisten handelt es sich um gewöhnliche
Kriminelle, berichtet die italienische Presse.1) So entstammt der im
Irak erschossene Söldner Quattrochi dem Rotlichtmilieu Genuas. Ein
Kollege des Erschossenen steht wegen Mordversuchs unter Anklage. Andere
Bekannte sind wegen des Betriebs illegaler Wett- und Spielunternehmen
(u.a. Video-Poker) vorbestraft. Der Blutlohn in internationalen
Söldnerbanden, die im Auftrag westlicher Behörden arbeiten, beträgt
zwischen 4.000 und 6.000 Euro monatlich.
Trotz der kriminellen Zusammenhänge, die die Genoveser
Staatsanwaltschaft in einem Ermittlungsverfahren untersucht, feiert die
italienische Regierung den Söldner Quattrochi als ,,Helden". Er habe
die Tugenden Italiens wiederbelebt und der Nation ein Vorbild hoher
Moral hinterlassen, heißt es im Corriere della Sera, einem als seriös
geltenden Blatt der Regierungsmehrheit. Sämtliche italienischen Medien
verschweigen die Namen der internationalen IBSSA-Hintermänner, deren
Spur nach Deutschland führt.
1) Il manifesto, 16.04.2004
Informationen zur Deutschen Außenpolitik
© www.german-foreign-policy.com
IBSSA, una ditta di mercenariato guidata da un tedesco, attiva tra
l'altro in Kosovo...
Sullo strano curriculum di questi "ostaggi civili", anche la stampa
italiana sta rivelando dettagli inquietanti. Uno dei rapiti pare essere
stato impegnato - da volontario (sic) - in Croazia. Invitiamo tutti a
farci pervenire gli articoli e le informazioni utili in tal senso,
apparse in questi giorni sulla stampa italiana. ]
http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/de/news/article/1082191418.php
17.04.2004
Deutsche Spur
GENOVA/BERLIN/BAGDAD (Eigener Bericht) - Der im Irak erschossene
italienische Kombattant Quattrochi war Mitglied einer internationalen
Söldnerorganisation, in deren Führung ein deutscher Staatsbürger
arbeitet, ein Gründungsmitglied der Organisation. Mitglieder des
Söldnerrings (International Bodyguard and Security Services
Association/IBSSA) wurden u.a. im Kosovo eingesetzt und rühmen sich
blutiger Auftragsarbeiten in Afrika und Afghanistan. Nach eigenen
Angaben ist die IBSSA für mehrere westliche Regierungen tätig (u.a. für
die US-Armee). In Deutschland darf der Ring für seine
völkerrechtswidrigen Aktivitäten unbehelligt werben.
,,General Director" der IBSSA war über längere Zeit der deutsche
Staatsbürger Fritz Wendland. Wendland fungiert heute als Mitglied im
,,Executive Committee" und wird als einer der sechs ,,Honorary Founding
Members" der IBSSA geführt. Für Kontakte des Ringes in Deutschland
nennt die IBSSA einen Julius Eugen Graf von Strähle. Mehrere führende
IBSSA-Organisatoren hielten sich zuletzt Mitte März in Deutschland auf
und warben in Nürnberg Interessenten an. Obwohl die Tätigkeit des
Ringes sowohl nach deutschen wie nach internationalen Gesetzen unter
Strafe steht, griffen die deutschen Behörden nicht ein. Unbehelligt
blieb auch ein bewaffnetes Wehrsporttreffen, das die IBSSA 1999
ebenfalls in Deutschland abhielt. Für Oktober 2004 kündigt der Ring
einen ,,Weltkongress" gegen ,,Kriminalität und Terrorismus" an, der in
Berlin stattfinden soll.
Hohe Moral
Bei mehreren IBSSA-Aktivisten handelt es sich um gewöhnliche
Kriminelle, berichtet die italienische Presse.1) So entstammt der im
Irak erschossene Söldner Quattrochi dem Rotlichtmilieu Genuas. Ein
Kollege des Erschossenen steht wegen Mordversuchs unter Anklage. Andere
Bekannte sind wegen des Betriebs illegaler Wett- und Spielunternehmen
(u.a. Video-Poker) vorbestraft. Der Blutlohn in internationalen
Söldnerbanden, die im Auftrag westlicher Behörden arbeiten, beträgt
zwischen 4.000 und 6.000 Euro monatlich.
Trotz der kriminellen Zusammenhänge, die die Genoveser
Staatsanwaltschaft in einem Ermittlungsverfahren untersucht, feiert die
italienische Regierung den Söldner Quattrochi als ,,Helden". Er habe
die Tugenden Italiens wiederbelebt und der Nation ein Vorbild hoher
Moral hinterlassen, heißt es im Corriere della Sera, einem als seriös
geltenden Blatt der Regierungsmehrheit. Sämtliche italienischen Medien
verschweigen die Namen der internationalen IBSSA-Hintermänner, deren
Spur nach Deutschland führt.
1) Il manifesto, 16.04.2004
Informationen zur Deutschen Außenpolitik
© www.german-foreign-policy.com
