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name="s" id="s"/> <input type="submit" id="searchsubmit" value="Search"/> </div> </form> </div> </div> <hr/> <div id="content" class="span-13 append-1"> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-13625"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/07/05/international-committee-of-the-red-cross-iraq-activities-update/#comments" title="Comment on International Committee Of The Red Cross: Iraq Activities Update">1 Comment</a></span> Posted on July 5th, 2011 by Burhan Aydin</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/07/05/international-committee-of-the-red-cross-iraq-activities-update/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to International Committee Of The Red Cross: Iraq Activities Update">International Committee Of The Red Cross: Iraq Activities Update</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/iraq/" title="View all posts in News" rel="category tag">News</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/1990-1991-gulf-war/" rel="tag">1990-1991 Gulf War</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/abu-ghraib/" rel="tag">Abu Ghraib</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/al-rashad/" rel="tag">al Rashad</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/al-khadra/" rel="tag">al-Khadra</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/al-qosh/" rel="tag">al-Qosh</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/anbar/" rel="tag">Anbar</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/armed-conflict/" rel="tag">armed conflict</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/babil/" rel="tag">babil</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/bala/" rel="tag">Bala</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/balad/" rel="tag">Balad</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/basra/" rel="tag">Basra</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/civilians/" rel="tag">Civilians</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/detainees/" rel="tag">detainees</a>, <a 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rel="tag">missing persons</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/nahrawan/" rel="tag">Nahrawan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/najaf/" rel="tag">Najaf</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/northern-iraq/" rel="tag">northern iraq</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/occupation/" rel="tag">occupation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/prisoners/" rel="tag">prisoners</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/rainfall/" rel="tag">rainfall</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/red-cross-messages/" rel="tag">Red Cross messages</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/refugees/" rel="tag">Refugees</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/rehabilitation/" rel="tag">rehabilitation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/resources/" rel="tag">Resources</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/rice/" rel="tag">rice</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/rural-areas/" rel="tag">rural areas</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/sadr-city/" rel="tag">Sadr City</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/salah-al-din/" rel="tag">Salah al-Din</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/sanitation/" rel="tag">sanitation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/shirqat/" rel="tag">Shirqat</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/statistics/" rel="tag">statistics</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/students/" rel="tag">Students</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/turkey/" rel="tag">Turkey</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/violence/" rel="tag">violence</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/wasit/" rel="tag">Wasit</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water/" rel="tag">Water</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-purification/" rel="tag">water purification</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-supply/" rel="tag">water supply</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-treatment/" rel="tag">water treatment</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/zaidan/" rel="tag">Zaidan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/zubair/" rel="tag">Zubair</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div style="text-align: left; unicode-bidi: bidi-override; direction: ltr"> <p>Three decades of conflict have left hundreds of thousands of families struggling to find out what happened to their missing loved ones. Abandoning the search is not an option. Since 1980, the ICRC has spared no effort to put an end to their anguish. Operational update, March-May 2011. </p> <p>"Iraq is currently one of the countries with the highest number of missing persons and, as a result, with the highest number of families seeking information on their missing relatives," said ‘Dika Dulic’, the ICRC delegate in charge of issues relating to missing persons in Iraq. A lack of clear statistics, however, makes it difficult to accurately establish the true size of the problem.</p> <div style="border-bottom: black 1px solid; border-left: black 1px solid; padding-bottom: 5px; margin: 5px 0px 5px 15px; padding-left: 5px; width: 48%; padding-right: 5px; float: right; border-top: black 1px solid; border-right: black 1px solid; padding-top: 5px"> <h3>How do I report my relative as a missing person?</h3> <p>The Ministry of Human Rights is responsible for collecting information about any person reported missing in connection with armed conflict or internal violence. The ministry has offices in each Iraqi governorate. In northern Iraq, the Ministry of Anfal is in charge of this issue.</p> <p>The Department for missing persons, prisoners of war and human remains has two hotline numbers: <br/>+964 781 375 7020 <br/>+964 781 375 7021 <br/>and can also be contacted by <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/mailto:d.mom-mhr@humanrights.gov.iq">e-mail</a></p> <p>Information provided by Basra’s Al-Zubair Centre on soldiers exhumed or otherwise known to be dead can be found on the Ministry of Human Rights website: <br/><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.humanrights.gov.iq /">www.humanrights.gov.iq</a>  You can also contact Al Zubair Centre directly.</p> <p>If you believe that one of your relatives has been killed, you can contact Baghdad’s Medico-Legal Institute by telephone: <br/>+964 78 137 57 655 or by <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/mailto:mli_bag41@yahoo.com">e-mail</a></p> <p>In an effort to alleviate the agony of those still waiting for news, the ICRC, in its role as a neutral intermediary, facilitates dialogue between the parties involved in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and in the 1990-1991 Gulf War, who have an obligation under international humanitarian law to account for those who went missing.Baghdad resident Hayat has led a sad life since her husband disappeared on 8 April 2003. "I lost hope," she said. "In the past nine years I have searched every prison. I ended up convincing myself that my husband Abdallah must have died."</p> <p>In an effort to alleviate the agony of those still waiting for news, the ICRC, in its role as a neutral intermediary, facilitates dialogue between the parties involved in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War and in the 1990-1991 Gulf War, who have an obligation under international humanitarian law to account for those who went missing.</p> </p></div> <p>Baghdad resident Hayat has led a sad life since her husband disappeared on 8 April 2003. "I lost hope," she said. "In the past nine years I have searched every prison. I ended up convincing myself that my husband Abdallah must have died."</p> <p>In April, the remains of 17 Iranian soldiers killed in the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War were handed over from the Iraqi to the Iranian authorities under ICRC auspices at the Shalamja border crossing, near Basra.</p> <p>As a neutral intermediary, the ICRC facilitates the dialogue between the parties who were involved in the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf war and who carry the responsibility to clarify the fate of persons still unaccounted for. This includes: <br/>supporting authorities in the collection of information <br/>facilitating transmission of information between the parties chairing meetings <br/>facilitating joint missions in the field and the handover of human remains</p> <p>The ICRC continues to provide training and other support for the Ministry of Human Rights, Basra’s Al-Zubair Centre of Iraq and Baghdad’s Medical-Legal Institute.</p> <h4>Bringing aid to people facing hardship</h4> <p>Many people in Iraq are still struggling to earn a living and support their families. Between March and May, the ICRC:</p> <p>Distributed over 8 million Iraqi Dinars through cash-for-work scheme, to 450 vulnerable displaced people and residents of Deralok in Dohuk governorate; <br/>Awarded 108 grants to disabled people and women-headed households in Ninawa, Kirkuk, Basra, Missan, Erbil, Baghdad and Sulaimaniya, enabling them to start small businesses and regain economic self-sufficiency. <br/>Distributed individual food and hygiene parcels, including essential household items, to 2475 internally displaced households, benefiting some 14850 people, in the group settlements of Ninawa, Kirkuk and Wasit;</p> <p>Following heavy rainfalls and consequential flooding in Ninawa, Erbil and Salah Al-Din governorates in April, the ICRC assisted affected/displaced households, distributing: 4984 blankets, 634 towels, 1340 hygiene parcels, 1315 tarpaulins, 317 kitchen sets, <br/>763 food parcels, and 11.1 metric tons of rice. The ICRC assistance also reached families affected by the floods in Rabea and Baaj districts.</p> <h4>Assisting health-care facilities</h4> </p></div> <p> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/07/05/international-committee-of-the-red-cross-iraq-activities-update/#more-13625" class="more-link">» أقرأ التفاصيل .. | Read the rest of this entry »</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-12873"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/03/28/violence-hits-education/#respond" title="Comment on Violence hits education">No Comments</a></span> Posted on March 28th, 2011 by Khaled</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2011/03/28/violence-hits-education/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Violence hits education">Violence hits education</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/children/" title="View all posts in Children" rel="category tag">Children</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/features/" title="View all posts in Features" rel="category tag">Features</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/women/" title="View all posts in Women and Children" rel="category tag">Women and Children</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/amil/" rel="tag">Amil</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/armed-conflict/" rel="tag">armed conflict</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/budget/" rel="tag">Budget</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/cairo/" rel="tag">Cairo</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/child-labour/" rel="tag">child labour</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/demonstrations/" rel="tag">Demonstrations</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/displacement/" rel="tag">displacement</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/economic-situation/" rel="tag">economic situation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/egypt/" rel="tag">Egypt</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/hts/" rel="tag">HTS</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/human-rights/" rel="tag">Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/illiteracy/" rel="tag">illiteracy</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/illiteracy-levels/" rel="tag">illiteracy levels</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/interior-ministry/" rel="tag">Interior Ministry</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/iraqi-refugee/" rel="tag">iraqi refugee</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/irin/" rel="tag">IRIN</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/jordan/" rel="tag">Jordan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/kuwait/" rel="tag">kuwait</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/lebanon/" rel="tag">Lebanon</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/middle-east/" rel="tag">Middle East</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/millennium-development-goals/" rel="tag">millennium development goals</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/photos/" rel="tag">Photos</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/port-said/" rel="tag">Port Said</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/refugee-children/" rel="tag">refugee children</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/rural-areas/" rel="tag">rural areas</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/schoolchildren/" rel="tag">schoolchildren</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/security-situation/" rel="tag">security situation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/students/" rel="tag">Students</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/sudan/" rel="tag">Sudan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/syria/" rel="tag">Syria</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/unesco-report/" rel="tag">unesco report</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/violence/" rel="tag">violence</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p>NAIROBI, 3 March 2011 (IRIN) – Several Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq and Yemen are unlikely to achieve the education-for-all Millennium Development Goals by 2015 because of insecurity and conflict, according to a new report by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). </p> <p> <a title="20110328_yemen_school_caption by Gorillas Guides, on Flickr" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.flickr.com/photos/gorillasguides/5568168739/" class="external" target="_blank"><img style="border-right: silver 1px solid; border-top: silver 1px solid; display: inline; float: left; margin: 3px 10px 5px 0px; border-left: silver 1px solid; border-bottom: silver 1px solid" height="326" alt="20110328_yemen_school_caption" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028im_/http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5063/5568168739_658b6e1305_o.jpg" width="350" align="left"/></a> <p>The education-for-all goals were endorsed by more than 160 countries in 2000. But according to Kevin Watkins, director of <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/leading-the-international-agenda/efareport/reports/2011-conflict" class="external" target="_blank">UNESCO’s 2011 Global Monitoring Report</a>, children and education are not just getting caught in the cross-fire, they are increasingly the targets of violent conflict. </p> <p>"The failure of governments to protect human rights is causing children deep harm – and taking away their only chance of an education," he said. </p> <p>The UNESCO report, entitled The Hidden Crisis: Armed Conflict and Education, says 35 countries were affected by armed conflict between 1999 and 2008, several in the Middle East. “Children and schools are on the front line of these conflicts, with classrooms, teachers and pupils seen as legitimate targets,” it noted. </p> <h3>Egypt </h3> <p>Recent demonstrations and clashes in Egypt led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak, but also closed many schools. In mid-February, half-term was extended for two weeks. Schools in only seven of the country’s 29 governorates reopened after the recess, according to sources in Cairo. </p> <p>The Interior Ministry deployed police outside schools to beef up security and encourage a return to school, but thousands of parents still preferred to keep their children at home. </p> <p>“A deteriorating security situation hinders the opening of the schools and this affects the whole educational process,” Fathi al-Sharqawi, a professor of educational psychology at Cairo’s Ain Shams University, told IRIN. “Teachers will have to skip some parts of the curricula after the students go back to their classrooms, which will also affect these students’ learning badly.” </p> <p>Hundreds of parents have complained that their children are attacked by thugs on their way to school, according to human rights groups. The Egyptian Centre for Human Rights, for example, said some parents complain that criminals use weapons to grab money from children. </p> <p>Manal Abdul Aziz, an Egyptian journalist who opted for home-based tuition for her two children, told IRIN in Cairo: “There is total obscurity about the future of this academic year.” The cost of hiring five teachers for her two children (aged 12 and 15) is the equivalent of US$169 a month – a significant sum for most families. </p> <h3>Iraq</h3> <p><strong></strong>Decades of war in Iraq, UN sanctions, poor security and the economic situation have adversely affected education and increased illiteracy levels. According to data produced by the government and UNESCO in September, at least five million of Iraq’s almost 30 million people are illiterate. Of these, 14 percent are school-age children who left school to feed their families, are displaced or have no access to suitable schooling. </p> <p>Ahmed Khalid Jaafar, 14, told IRIN in Baghdad that he left school after his father died in an explosion three years ago, and sought work on the streets to feed his mother and two younger daughters. </p> <p>"I sell gum and my mother works is a seamstress," said Jaafar. "We make 200,000-300,000 dinars (US$160-250) a month. We spend that money on the most important things, mainly food. School is not important now." Jaafar and his family squat in an abandoned government building. </p> <p>The September data show that adult illiteracy in Iraq is now one of the highest in the Arab region. In rural areas, almost 30 percent of the population are unable to read or write. Significant gender disparities exist, with 40 percent of the illiterate being women. </p> <h3>Other countries </h3> <p>Bahrain is on track to achieve the goal of halving illiteracy levels by 2015, but countries like Iraq, Mauritania and Sudan are off track. "The recent experiences of Algeria, Egypt, Kuwait and Yemen show that literacy policy can be effective: all four countries have increased their adult literacy rates by at least 20 percentage points in the past 15-20 years," the UNESCO report said. </p> <p>In Yemen, a reallocation of 10 percent of the military budget to education would put an additional 840,000 children in school. In the north, 220 schools were destroyed, damaged or looted during fighting in 2009 and 2010 between government and rebel forces, according to the report. "In Yemen, many internally displaced children complement family income by begging, smuggling or collecting refuse, and there are concerns that child labour is increasing." </p> <p>In Syria, attendance rates in pre-school programmes varied from less than 4 percent for children in the poorest households, to just above 18 percent for wealthy households. </p> <h3>In harm’s way </h3> <p>According to the report, armed conflict places children directly in harm’s way. Some get killed while others are exploited as soldiers or forced to flee their homes and become refugees. </p> <p>“Children subject to the trauma, insecurity and displacement that come with armed conflict are unlikely to achieve their potential for learning,” it said. All too often, armed groups see the destruction of schools and the targeting of schoolchildren and teachers as a legitimate military strategy. </p> <p>In conflict situations, children fear to go to school, teachers to give classes and parents to send their children to school. According to UNESCO, in such situations, children suffer psychological trauma, as well as loss of parents, siblings and friends. One survey of Iraqi refugee children in Jordan found that 39 percent reported having lost someone close to them, and 43 percent witnessed violence. </p> <p>“Armed conflict remains a major roadblock to human development in many parts of the world, yet its impact on education is widely neglected,” said UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova. “This groundbreaking report documents the scale of this hidden crisis, identifies its root causes and offers solid proposals for change.” </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=92091" class="external" target="_blank">IRIN Middle East | MIDDLE EAST: Violence hits education | Egypt | Iraq | Lebanon | Oman | OPT | Syria | Yemen | Children | Conflict | Education</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-8141"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/01/01/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d9%82%d9%8a%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%ac%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%af%d8%a9-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%a8%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%b7%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d8%a8%d8%b4%d8%a3%d9%86-%d9%82%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%85-%d8%ac%d9%86/#respond" title="Comment on تحقيقات جديدة في بريطانيا بشأن قيام جنودها بارتكاب جرائم بحق عراقيين ابرياء">No Comments</a></span> Posted on January 1st, 2010 by Editors</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/01/01/%d8%aa%d8%ad%d9%82%d9%8a%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%ac%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%af%d8%a9-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d8%a8%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%b7%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d8%a8%d8%b4%d8%a3%d9%86-%d9%82%d9%8a%d8%a7%d9%85-%d8%ac%d9%86/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to تحقيقات جديدة في بريطانيا بشأن قيام جنودها بارتكاب جرائم بحق عراقيين ابرياء">تحقيقات جديدة في بريطانيا بشأن قيام جنودها بارتكاب جرائم بحق عراقيين ابرياء</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/human-rights/" title="View all posts in Human Rights" rel="category tag">Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/iraq/" title="View all posts in News" rel="category tag">News</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/war-crimes/" title="View all posts in War Crimes" rel="category tag">War Crimes</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/abu-ghraib/" rel="tag">Abu Ghraib</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/abu-ghraib-prison/" rel="tag">Abu Ghraib prison</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/america/" rel="tag">America</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/assault-on-prisoners-by-british-invaders/" rel="tag">assault on prisoners by British invaders</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/baghdad/" rel="tag">Baghdad</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/british-invaders/" rel="tag">British Invaders</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/british-troops-rape-allegations/" rel="tag">British troops - rape allegations</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/british-troops-torture-allegations/" rel="tag">British troops - torture allegations</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/children/" rel="tag">Children</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/hts/" rel="tag">HTS</a>, <a 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rel="tag">Phil Shiner</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/public-interest-lawyers/" rel="tag">Public Interest Lawyers</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/ramadan/" rel="tag">Ramadan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/sexual-abuse/" rel="tag">sexual abuse</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/shaibah-logistics-base/" rel="tag">Shaibah Logistics Base</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/sleep-deprivation/" rel="tag">sleep deprivation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/southern-iraq/" rel="tag">southern iraq</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/torture/" rel="tag">Torture</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <div dir="rtl" align="right"> <p>تنفرد صحيفة الإندبندنت البريطانية الصادرة اليوم بنشر تحقيق بعنوان فريق عسكري بريطاني سرِّي يسيء معاملة العراقيين. <a title="20100101_independent_british_soldiers_tortured_prisoners" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27086036@N02/4232895307/" class="external" target="_blank"><img style="display: inline; margin: 20px 0px 15px 15px" alt="20100101_independent_british_soldiers_tortured_prisoners" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028im_/http://static.flickr.com/2519/4232895307_deab47231b.jpg" align="right" border="0"/></a></p> <p>يقول التقرير، الذي أعده محرر الشؤون الداخلية في الصحيفة، روبرت فيركايك، إن وزارة الدفاع البريطانية تحقق حاليا بالتهم الموجهة إلى فريق الاستخبارات المتقدمة المشترك (جي إف آي تي) بشأن مسؤوليته عن ارتكاب انتهاكات لحقوق السجناء العراقيين واستغلالهم على نطاق واسع بين عامي 2004 و2007.</p> </p> <p>ويضيف تقرير الإندبندنت قائلا إن 14 شكوى جديدة رُفعت مؤخرا ضد الفريق، المختص بإجراء التحقيقات والاستجوابات، والذي كان يتمركز في قاعدة الشيبة للخدمات اللوجستية الواقعة على بعد حوالي 13 ميلا من مدينة البصرة جنوبي العراق.</p> <p>إساءات جنسية </p> <p>وتشمل الاتهامات الجديدة مزاعم بارتكاب أعضاء الفريق المذكور أعمال تعذيب بحق السجناء، بالإضافة إلى سمحاحهم بالإساءة للمعتقلين جسديا وجنسيا.</p> <p>ويشير التقرير إلى أن الحكومة البريطانية تحقق حاليا بـ 47 حالة انتهاك لحقوق سجناء عراقيين، وتحمِّل مسؤولية تلك الانتهاكات لفريق (جي إف آي تي)، والذي يضم محققين من الجيش البريطاني وجهاز الاستخبارات الداخلية البريطاني (MI5).</p> <p>يقول التقرير إن العديد من العراقيين يقولون إنهم تلقوا معاملة سيئة في أعقاب إرسالهم إلى الوحدة العسكرية المذكورة للتحقيق معهم.</p> <p>ضرب وحرمان</p> <p>ويروي المشتكون كيف أن معظم الرجال الذين تم استدعاؤهم إلى تلك الوحدة تعرضوا للضرب، وحُرموا من النوم، وتم جرُّهم في مجمَّع السجن قبل أن يخضعوا للتحقيقات.</p> <p>وفي إحدى الحالات، يقول التقرير، قام المحققون بتركيب صورة لرأس أحد المتهمين على جسد رجل يقوم باالاستغلال الجنسي لطفل، ومن ثم هدَّدوا المعتقل المذكور بنشر الصورة المركَّبة في جميع أرجاء البصرة.</p> <p>كما قام المحققون في حادثة أخرى، على ذمة التقرير، باعتقال رجل في زنزانة انفرادية لمدة 36 يوما، وهددوه باغتصاب زوجته وقتل أطفاله.</p> </p> </p></div> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-8137"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/01/01/secret-army-squad-abused-iraqis-the-independent/#respond" title="Comment on Secret Army squad ‘abused Iraqis’ – The Independent">No Comments</a></span> Posted on January 1st, 2010 by Editors</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2010/01/01/secret-army-squad-abused-iraqis-the-independent/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Secret Army squad ‘abused Iraqis’ – The Independent">Secret Army squad ‘abused Iraqis’ – The Independent</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/human-rights/" title="View all posts in Human Rights" rel="category tag">Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/war-crimes/" title="View all posts in War Crimes" rel="category tag">War Crimes</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/abu-ghraib/" rel="tag">Abu Ghraib</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/abu-ghraib-prison/" rel="tag">Abu Ghraib prison</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/america/" rel="tag">America</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/assault-on-prisoners-by-british-invaders/" rel="tag">assault on prisoners by British invaders</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/baghdad/" rel="tag">Baghdad</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/british-invaders/" rel="tag">British Invaders</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/british-troops-rape-allegations/" rel="tag">British troops - rape allegations</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/british-troops-torture-allegations/" rel="tag">British troops - torture allegations</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/children/" rel="tag">Children</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/hts/" rel="tag">HTS</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/human-rights/" rel="tag">Human Rights</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/independent-the-uk/" rel="tag">Independent -The (UK)</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/ireland/" rel="tag">Ireland</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/jfit/" rel="tag">JFIT</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/joint-forward-intelligence-team-jfit/" rel="tag">Joint Forward Intelligence Team (JFIT)</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/militia/" rel="tag">Militia</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/militias/" rel="tag">Militias</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/phil-shiner/" rel="tag">Phil Shiner</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/public-interest-lawyers/" rel="tag">Public Interest Lawyers</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/ramadan/" rel="tag">Ramadan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/sexual-abuse/" rel="tag">sexual abuse</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/shaibah-logistics-base/" rel="tag">Shaibah Logistics Base</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/sleep-deprivation/" rel="tag">sleep deprivation</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/southern-iraq/" rel="tag">southern iraq</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/torture/" rel="tag">Torture</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p> </p> <p>A secret army interrogation unit accused of being responsible for the widespread abuse of Iraqi prisoners is being investigated by the Ministry of Defence.</p> <p>Fourteen fresh claims of torture against the British Army include detailed accounts of a shadowy team of military and MI5 interrogators who are alleged to have authorised the physical and sexual abuse of Iraqi detainees.</p> <p>The new allegations bring the total number of cases being investigated by the Government to 47.</p> <p>Many of the Iraqis allege they were abused after they were sent to a unit called the Joint Forward Intelligence Team (JFIT) based at the Army’s Shaibah Logistics Base, 13 miles from Basra, between 2004 and 2007. Nearly all the men say they were beaten, denied sleep and then dragged around the prison compound before facing multiple interrogations.</p> <p>In one account the interrogators are accused of creating an image superimposing a suspect’s head on the body of a man who is sexually abusing a child, and then threatening to disseminate the image throughout Basra.</p> <p>In another, a detainee, held in solitary confinement for 36 days, alleges that interrogators threatened to rape his wife and kill his children.</p> <p>Many of the detainees’ witness statements appear to corroborate each other by referring to named soldiers responsible for their alleged torture. </p> <p>According to the Iraqis’ solicitors, Public Interest Law (PIL), the men were all held in solitary confinement in a "compound within a compound" guarded by a specialist detachment of soldiers. The lawyers claim that the JFIT interrogators were a mix of members of the military, MI5 and civilian staff and that they took their orders directly from London.</p> <p>In 2003 the Americans raised concerns that the British were failing to secure intelligence from Iraqi prisoners held at the UK/US Camp Bucca in southern Iraq who were suspected of having close links with extremist militias. They urged their British counterparts to take a tougher line.</p> <p>Lawyers and human rights groups now believe the British heeded the Americans’ concerns by allowing personnel attached to JFIT to conduct coercive and unlawful interrogations. The Americans were later found to have tortured prisoners held at the Abu Ghraib prison, which has since been renamed the Baghdad Central Prison.</p> <p>Between 2004 and 2007 hundreds of prisoners were held at the Divisional Temporary Detention Facility compound run by JFIT at the Shaibah base. When the JFIT interrogators had finished with them, the prisoners were released into the camp’s main prison halls, where they claim their abuse continued.</p> <p>Many of these detainees complain of being subjected to sexual and physical abuse by male and female soldiers. Last year <i>The Independent</i> reported that the Ministry of Defence was investigating 33 separate allegations of abuse. </p> <p>Phil Shiner, a human rights lawyer who is representing all the detainees, said that the Government must come clean about the role of the JFIT interrogators in the alleged unlawful detention and abuse of Iraqi prisoners. </p> <p>In a legal letter, setting out the men’s claims and sent to the Defence Secretary, Bob Ainsworth, Mr Shiner said: "The forms of ill-treatment suffered by the claimants include physical beatings, deprivation of food, exposure to the cold and excessive heat, threats of rape and violence, sexual humiliation and solitary confinement. It is manifestly clear that the extent and culmination of the above amount to a clear and egregious breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights.</p> <p>"In particular, the allegations evidence a return to the use of coercive interrogation techniques declared unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Ireland vUK (1978) 2 EHRR 25.</p> <p>"It must also be said that the marked similarity of the claimants’ allegations with so many other cases lends a great weight of credibility to the allegations." </p> <p>He added: "Much of the ill-treatment suffered by the men was clearly intended to break their will for the purpose of interrogation. This is in clear breach of international provisions and in clear breach of ECtHR jurisprudence."</p> <p>A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence said that while she could not comment on any individual cases she was able to confirm that all 47 were or will be investigated. </p> <p>She also confirmed that JFIT is part of the Army’s intelligence corps and that, as for any other military personnel, the allegations made against them will be investigated but "remain allegations until they are proven".</p> <p>The Armed Forces minister, Bill Rammell, said: "We must never forget that over 120,000 British troops have served in Iraq and the vast, vast majority have conducted themselves to the highest standards of behaviour, displaying integrity and selfless commitment. Only a tiny number have ever fallen short of our high standards, but even a tiny number is unacceptable. All allegations of abuse are taken very seriously. However, allegations must not be taken as fact, and formal investigations must be allowed to take their course without judgements being made prematurely."</p> <p><b>Case study: ‘A soldier hit me again and again with a hammer for at least three minutes’</b></p> <p>In one of the most disturbing cases Hussain Ghazi Shihab, 35, claims he was badly beaten by soldiers before being handed over to specialist interrogators at Shaibah. </p> <p>He recalls: "The officer showed me another photograph of a man… [and] insisted that I knew where he lived. I told him I did not know, otherwise I would take him there. The more I told them I couldn’t help, the more the officer instructed the soldiers to beat me further. The soldiers were hitting me with their fists, kicking me and bringing their rifle butts down on to my head and body. I was hit hard in the stomach by a soldier who had picked up a hammer.</p> <p>"The pain was horrendous and I fell forward grabbing my stomach in agony. He hit me again and again with the hammer for at least three minutes on different parts of my body, but mainly concentrating on my stomach… I vomited later when I was in the tank and there was blood in the vomit."</p> <p>The injuries were so serious he claims members of the Joint Forward Intelligence Team were forced to break off the interrogations so he could receive hospital treatment. Mr Shihab, a policeman employed by Iraq’s Ministry of Transport in Basra, said the lead interrogator who threatened and abused him during his detention in 2006 was dressed in civilian clothes.</p> <p>In one of the most shocking allegations made against British soldiers, Mr Shihab alleges the interrogators superimposed his head on the photograph of a man sexually abusing a child.</p> <p>"The photographs were of Western faces and the people looked to be around 15 to 16 years old," he said. "The sheet of paper was about A4 size and there were around 10 photographs on it. The interrogator told me that I should admit to raping the children in the pictures. He said that if didn’t confess he would send information to Basra to say that I was part of a sex gang which kidnapped and raped young girls and then threw them on to the street.</p> <p>"He said they were just about to send the picture to the police unless I gave them the information they required. They even said they would distribute it on the streets in my area to my neighbours and friends."</p> <p><b>Case study: Sleep deprived, kept in the dark, blindfolded</b></p> <p>Sajjad Naji Nassir, 40, was arrested at his home by British forces on 18 September 2005 when he claims he was shot in the foot and fell unconscious. </p> <p>On arrival at Shaibah he was forced into a kneeling stress position on pebbled ground. In a letter to the Ministry of Defence his lawyers allege that he was barefoot and was dressed only in his underwear. If he moved or rested from the stress position a soldier kicked him in the back, he says. Mr Nassir was in this position for three hours before being taken to an interrogation. He estimates that over an eight-hour period he was interrogated eight times before returning to his permanently dark prison cell. </p> <p>He was held in these conditions for two-and-a-half months, during which time he was interrogated frequently, he says. When Mr Nassir was taken out of his cell he was blindfolded and ear muffed and walked in a disorienting zigzag. </p> <p>He was deprived of sleep by soldiers making noise and kicking the doors of the cells. Soldiers also allegedly played pornographic movies at high volume, including during Ramadan. He could only eat bread and fruit because the soldiers could not confirm the meat was halal.</p> <p>Source:  <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-secret-army-squad-abused-iraqis-1854749.html" class="external" target="_blank">Exclusive: Secret Army squad ‘abused Iraqis’</a> By Robert Verkaik, Home Affairs Editor – Home News, UK – <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.independent.co.uk/" class="external" target="_blank">The Independent</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-7922"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2009/12/14/the-dust-bowl-of-babylon/#respond" title="Comment on The Dust Bowl of Babylon">No Comments</a></span> Posted on December 14th, 2009 by Editors</div> <h3><a 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href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/sadr-city/" rel="tag">Sadr City</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/sandstorms/" rel="tag">sandstorms</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/saudi/" rel="tag">Saudi</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/snow/" rel="tag">Snow</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/strikes/" rel="tag">Strikes</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/unesco/" rel="tag">UNESCO</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/%d9%85%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%86%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b5%d8%af%d8%b1%e2%80%8e/" rel="tag">مدينة الصدر‎</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water/" rel="tag">Water</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-buffalo/" rel="tag">Water Buffalo</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-crisis/" rel="tag">Water Crisis</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-issue/" rel="tag">water issue</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-level/" rel="tag">water level</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-resources/" rel="tag">water resources</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-shortage/" rel="tag">water shortage</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-shortages/" rel="tag">Water Shortages</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/water-supply/" rel="tag">water supply</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/who/" rel="tag">WHO</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/zagros-mountains/" rel="tag">zagros mountains</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p> </p> <blockquote><p><b>The Dust Bowl of Babylon</b></p> <p>Are crippling droughts the next great threat to Iraq? Asks <b>Martin Chulov</b>.</p> <p>BAGHDAD — From his mud brick home on the edge of the Garden of Eden, Awda Khasaf has twice seen his country’s lifeblood seep away. The waters that once spread from his doorstep across a 20% slab of Iraq known as the Marshlands first disappeared in 1991, when Saddam Hussein diverted them east to punish the rebellious Marsh Arabs. The wetlands have been crucial to Iraq since the earliest days of civilization — sustaining the lives of up to half a million people who live in and around the area, while providing water for almost two million more. </p> <p>The waters vanished after the First Gulf War due to a dictator’s wrath; over the next 16 years, they ebbed and flowed, but slowly started to return to their pre-Saddam levels. By 2007, with no more sabotage and average rains, almost 70% of the lost water had been recovered. Now it’s gone again. This time because of a crisis far more endemic: a devastating drought and the water policies of neighboring Turkey, Iran, and Syria. These three nations have effectively stopped most of the headwaters of the three rivers — the Tigris, Euphrates, and Karoon — that feed these marshes. </p> <p>“Once in a generation was bad enough,” says Awda, a tribal head and local sheikh in the al-Akeryah Marshlands, who also advises the Nasiriyah governorate on water issues. “Twice could well be God’s vengeance.” </p> <p>In a land where fundamental interpretations of monotheistic scripts often determine the tone of public discourse, particular attention is now being paid to the biblical Book of Revelation, in which the Euphrates River drying up was prophesized as a harbinger for the end of the world. It is not doomsday yet in Iraq, but the water shortage here has not been worse for at least the last two centuries — and possibly for several millennia more. Government estimates suggest close to two million Iraqis face severe drinking water shortages and extremely limited hydropower-generated electricity in a part of the country where most households get by on no more than eight hours of supplied power per day, in the best of times. </p> <p>The flow of the Euphrates that reaches Iraq is down, according to scientific estimates, by 50% to 70% and falling further by the week. From his frugal office in Baghdad’s National Center for Water Management, engineer Zuhair Hassan Ahmed has for the past decade plotted the water levels of the Euphrates and the Tigris, the latter of which bisects the Iraqi capital. The hand-etched ink graphs show a black line that marks an average “water year,” from October to May, superimposed over a green line, which shows the actual flow through the two rivers over the same time. The green line had been markedly lower than the benchmark for much of the past decade. But in 2007 — the start of a serious drought — it dipped sharply and has continued to fall. </p> <p>In Baghdad, the lack of water has been an inconvenience, an eyesore, and a health hazard. Raw sewage and refuse pumped into the Tigris is not flushed downstream as rapidly as it once was. The Tigris is Baghdad’s main artery, but it is also still a working river, long traversed by small commuter ferries, industrial barges, and, in the city’s halcyon days, even pleasure boats. Giant mud islands now protrude from the once wide, blue expanse of the river, making it unnavigable for larger vessels. Further downstream, and especially along the Euphrates — which runs roughly on a parallel track west though Iraq’s bread basket — the effects of the shortage are far worse. </p> <p>Between Two Rivers </p> </p> <p>Here, in the land between the two rivers that was once the heartland of ancient Mesopotamia, the water crisis has ravaged agriculture, an industry still struggling to regain its footing after three decades of deprivation and war. This was the second mooted site (the other was the Marshlands themselves) of the fabled Garden of Eden — a land so rich in soil and water that it would quench the needs of its dwellers throughout eternity. It doesn’t look quite like that now. Crops of grain, barley, mint, and dates have failed almost en masse. Further west, in Anbar province, a prized rice variety that was once sold at a premium throughout Iraq and in the markets of neighboring countries has just been harvested. Like almost all other crops, this year’s yield is a disaster. </p> <p>“We blame the Turks for this,” says Hatem al-Ansari, a local Anbar rice grower who claims to have lost half his family’s life savings since January 2009 due to a lack of water to irrigate his rice. “We have been digging wells nearby, and so has the government, but it is not enough. Not even close.” Shielding his face with a black scarf from a sandstorm blowing in on an acetylene desert wind, Hatem points in the direction of the Euphrates’ upper reaches. “If you go down to the bank, you will see where the water was last year and last week,” he says. “Our water pumps can no longer reach it. It’s true it hasn’t been raining, but it’s just as true that even 30% of normal rainfall does not cripple a mighty river like this.” He had to be taken on his word. The swirling sand and dust were starting to turn the sky an ochre-orange haze and was steadily closing like a shroud on us all, making an inspection of the river bank impossible. </p> <p>Sandstorms have long been a fixture of Iraqi summers — on average, there are about eight to ten each hot season. But this year they became a pandemic. Close to 40 sandstorms blew in during the five months from May to early October. Some lasted three days at a time, sheeting farms with suffocating silt, closing airports, and adding another layer of misery to a society that has been through hell. </p> <p>Lack of water for irrigation, especially in Anbar, is a key problem. Iraq’s water minister, Dr. Abdul Rashid Latif, says that the government dug an extra 1,000 wells over the past two years, taking advantage of a relatively high groundwater table. But drawing on a diminishing resource during a time of drought has proved costly. “We now have only around 20% of our original reserves left,” he says. “And the thing about this water is that not much of it is being replenished.” </p> <p><b></b> </p> <p>“The Scent of a Dying Ecosystem” </p> </p> <p>Iraq’s water numbers make for disturbing reading across the board. Government estimates put total reservoir storage at around 9% of nationwide capacity on the leading edge of a wet season that is not forecast to bring much relief. For the past two years, rainfall was some 70% lower than usual in most of Iraq’s 18 provinces. </p> <p>The snow melt that usually feeds the Tigris system from the Zagros Mountains in the Kurdish north was equally deficient. There are now seven dams on the adjoining Euphrates system, most in Turkey and Syria, with plans for at least one more. And then there are the rampant inefficiencies built into Iraq’s antiquated 8,000 miles of canals and drains, which send countless millions of gallons gushing into parts of the country that have little use for the water, and no means to harness it even if they did. </p> <p>Some have looked to the heavens to explain the lack of rain. Society here is deeply superstitious. Many Iraqis, from the Sunni Arabs of Anbar to the tribes of the Marshlands, believe the natural deficiencies are God-ordained — and possibly a punishment for the sectarian ravages that have torn the country apart over the last three years. </p> <p>“Droughts have happened before and will plague us again,” says Awda as he surveys the vast expanse of hard-baked and cracked brown mud in front of him that used to be the Marshlands. “But not even in ’91 was the water like this. Now there is nothing.” The only water left in the maze of feeder streams that empty into this giant basin are pools of lime-colored stagnant ooze. Nothing flows. Ducks and geese sit listlessly on creek banks that have not been exposed in decades — if ever — to direct sunlight. Infestations of flies circle like Saturn’s rings around giant, steel barrels of drinking water, imported from the nearby city of Nasiriyah, that line village roads. Reeds that were once the staple of the agrarian peoples who worked this waterway through the ages jut starkly from the banks, nearly all of them yellow and hardened, looking more like medieval weapons of war than crops. </p> <p>Earlier this fall, the major tributaries of the Euphrates were flowing at around 30% of their normal levels. “Look at that mark on the bank,” says Awda, pointing to a stain on a corrugated iron beam at the base of the bridge. Not long ago, he notes, this had been a high-water mark. The waterline is now at least nine feet lower. The pungent murk of the riverbed lingers in the air. “Take a deep breath,” says Awda. “That smell is the scent of a dying ecosystem.” </p> <p>Two fishermen, who had launched themselves into what remained of the waterway in a bid to net carp, return to the banks with their haul — 12 fish, none bigger than 10 inches. The catch is not enough to feed their families, let alone take to market. Two years ago, the fish were fat and bountiful. </p> <p>“Fishing is our staple here,” explains one local man, Sheikh Hameed from Abart village, further north of the Marshlands. “That, and hunting water birds. But they’ve all flown away. I had a stall here for many years,” he recalls, pointing to an abandoned roadside hut, where he used to sell his catch. </p> <p>The white polystyrene crates that used to hold the fish on ice are now home to street cats and sand drifts. A giant water buffalo, which once spent the best part of the summer immersed in the water, is now making do with what remains. He stands motionless, buried to the midriff in a festering, black mud. The caked soil cast offers at least some respite from the heat, but with the temperature expected to hover between 118 and 124 degrees Fahrenheit for the following week, he doesn’t have long left to wallow. </p> <p>“We are digging wells for our own survival,” says Sheikh Hameed. “And this in the most water-rich area of the country. This is not God’s wrath. This is the work of people.” </p> <p><b></b> </p> <p>Tweaking the Tap </p> </p> <p>Over the past six chaotic years, new reservoirs have been built into the Euphrates system on both the Syrian and Turkish sides of the border. Iraq, as a downstream country, would have likely suffered from serious water depletion even if it had a government strong enough to assert its authority against two powerful neighbors. But with a political class struggling to win legitimacy amid a sectarian war that has torn the country apart along ancient societal fault lines, there has been little time to tend even to the bare basics of survival. Delivery of services has been close to non-existent, from the national government down to village mayors. Now, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki claiming to run a credible sovereign state, work has begun in earnest on talking to the neighbors about many issues of Iraqi sovereignty, including border integrity, that have remained sidelined throughout the post-war turmoil. </p> <p>“They should realize that we are an important neighbor and share many things in life,” says Dr. Rashid, who has three times led Iraqi delegations to Istanbul and Damascus to beg for more water. He has returned with promises, but little fruit for his labors. With no treaties or agreements signed with either state, however, he has little leverage. “Our neighboring countries need to get the message that it is our right to get our share of water from these two international rivers and that we should have a say in their operational procedures because we are downstream. In our discussions they have never connected the water issues with any other issues.” </p> <p>There is trouble, too, from Iran, whose government earlier this year ordered the diversion back into Iranian territory of a key tributary of the Tigris — the Karoon River, which enters Iraq just north of the southern city of Basra. Until early this year, the Karoon had sent regularly a vital flush of freshwater down the Tigris and into the Shatt al-Arab waterway at the northwestern end of the Persian Gulf. The freshwater pushed back the tidal effect and allowed tens of thousands of Iraqis from the southern Marshlands to make their livelihood through fishing and farming. “There were 13 billion cubic meters of freshwater [annually] feeding into the Shatt al-Arab,” says Dr. Rashid. “Now that has gone. We have asked them to sit down and talk but they won’t even answer our requests.” </p> <p>In late October 2009, Iraqi technicians finally met with their Iranian counterparts. “They were told about the effect on the people in the south who are exclusively Shias — their people,” says Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari. “They were very embarrassed by this and promised to look into it.” Today, the saltwater of the relentless tides around Basra is still winning the push-me, pull-you game and, like a rampaging army, has pushed farther north up the waterway than ever before. As a result, some 30,000 locals have left their land, some of which has now been heavily salinated, leaving it of marginal agricultural value at best. </p> <p>Across Iraq, entire ecosystems are under threat. So far, redress from the Turks and the Syrians has consisted only of sympathetic words, followed by the occasional tweak of the tap. “We need 500 cubic meters per second,” Dr. Rashid said in August. “We have been getting 350 meters on some days, but 150 meters on average. They have promised us more, but we have yet to see it.” In the months that followed, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey three times announced a boost in the headwater flow from the Euphrates. But by late autumn, the downstream effect had been negligible. </p> <p>The giant power station in the city of Nasiriyah was still using only two of its four turbines that are normally powered by the flow of the Euphrates. One had broken down, but could not have been used anyway because, along with a second turbine, there was not enough moving water to power it. Nasiriyah was getting by on about six to eight hours of power a day — roughly the same as the rest of the country. </p> <p>Throughout the summer and fall, engineers at the power station were desperately hoping the river would not fall another eight inches, to a level that would have left Iraq’s fourth-largest city without any electricity whatsoever. “We saw it rise a centimeter or two, roughly two days after every announcement from the Turks, but it would soon drop away,” says an engineer at the power station. “The figures we were being promised were not translating into tangibles.” </p> <p><b></b> </p> <p>The Rains Cometh Not </p> </p> <p>Both Turkey and Syria have been suffering from the same rainfall deficiency as Iraq. The winter storm fronts that once formed regularly near Cyprus and swept east through Syria, Jordan, and Iraq have been rare over the past three years, as have the low-pressure systems that could usually be counted on to dip south into Turkey from the Balkans and the Russian steppe. Cloud seeding and the contentious science of rain-making have been considered in all four countries. </p> <p>Jordanians, in particular, remember the 1991 winter season, when seeding was attempted near Cyprus. That year, six separate snow-bearing storm fronts swept through the country, leaving yard-deep snow drifts on the streets of the capital, Amman, for many weeks. Heavy snow also fell across the Iraqi desert plains and the Zagros Mountains. The snow melt that autumn saw the Tigris burst its banks in Baghdad. Upstream in Turkey, there is still enough reliable winter rainfall to keep the dams brimming and make cloud seeding unnecessary. Downstream in Iraq, where the water is needed most, there is neither money nor interest for such an experiment. </p> <p>Even the ancient ways are starting to fail. From June to August of this year, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) conducted research into the status of ancient, natural subterranean aqueducts used both for human settlement and irrigation in the Kurdish north. The UNESCO results painted a bleak picture of water resources in northern Iraq, which had for centuries boasted relatively bountiful supplies, even during harsh times. The UNESCO study found that 70% of the aqueducts, known as karez, that were producing water in 2005 had since dried up and been abandoned. Of the 683 karez surveyed, most were not functioning, due largely to excessive use and ongoing drought — only 116 still delivered water. The study claimed that 36,000 people were at risk of being displaced, while tens of thousands more had already left their lands. </p> <p>Figures in Iraq are always open to a degree of conjecture, but one reality is now clear: the water crisis is leading to mass migrations of people and a renewed displacement at both ends of the country, just as some order was starting to replace the bedlam of the invasion and civil war. Iraqis have been returning to their homes in mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad, but now rural people, fleeing in droves from the increasingly arid provinces, are also showing up in urban centers. </p> <p>The Marsh Arabs have left their lands in large numbers, according to Nasiriyah’s governor, Qusey al-Ebadi, who has yet to find ways to accommodate them. “They are nomadic people and move around during difficult times,” says al-Ebadi, “but I have never seen them coming into the cities with their animals like this.” The men of the Marshlands — now far from their ancestral lands — mill around in small groups on street corners in Nasiriyah, many searching for laboring work, looking incongruous and desperate. </p> <p>The people from the Shatt al-Arab area of the southern Marshlands also need accommodating. Government estimates suggest as many as 30,000 have left their lands, all but abandoning their agrarian livelihoods. Thousands more have been pushed to the brink of survival. If the Tigris and the Karoon do not flow again toward the Shatt al-Arab, the ecosystem they have relied on is all but finished. </p> <p>The water crisis could not have come at a worse time for Prime Minister al-Maliki, who has spent much of his time and energy as leader attempting to win enough authority to assert his will. His formula had been security first and stability second, followed by delivery of services. So far, he has achieved qualified approval on the first two, but abject failure on the third. </p> <p>Iraq’s energy sector is in a desperate state of disrepair. In late October, a rare thunder and lightning storm that brought the first rains to Baghdad in seven months caused power to crash citywide for eight hours. Even without rain, or other disturbances such as dust or wind, most residents of the capital are getting by on no more than a half-day of regular electricity, the vast bulk supplied by coal-burning energy plants that generate power channeled by substations resembling museum pieces. What little electricity supply exists is frequently targeted by militias who boast of their intent to return the society (literally) to the dark ages. Sewer lines have only been dug in the most affluent areas and city roads are, at best, rudimentary. </p> <p>With a national election looming in early March, al-Maliki knows that his current base of support across Iraq’s religious and ethnic divides is fragile. Failure to give Iraqis the essential services they have long craved — especially electricity, water, and sewerage –will likely spell his doom. Twice this fall, he has traveled to the Shia bastion of Basra to assess the plight of the Shatt al-Arab and to persuade locals that all is not lost. It is a hard sell for the people of the south, who collectively still see themselves as being as deeply deprived today as they were under Saddam. </p> <p>For the prime minister to blame his nation’s neighbors for water woes is unlikely to fly. Beyond the troubles over the water supply, al-Maliki has pointedly accused Syria of destabilizing Iraq by sheltering former Baathists, who, he claims, funded two bombing campaigns that targeted three government ministries and the Baghdad municipal government headquarters in August and October. All four buildings were annihilated, with almost 300 people killed and more than 1,000 maimed. While wagging his finger at Damascus, al-Maliki has also been constantly promising patronage to the southern tribes and an entrée to state coffers if they fall in behind him. Months before a definitive election and amid an unparalleled ecological crisis, the tribes are, at best, restless. And water is near the top of their worry list. </p> <p><b></b> </p> <p>Enough Blame to Go Around </p> </p> <p>“The government didn’t do this directly, it’s true,” says tribesman Maher al-Zubaidi, as he surveys the shrinking Euphrates in Nasiriyah. “But they tell us they are strong now and yet they can’t stand up to the Turks. Wars have started in this region for a lot less. Also, Iraq constantly cries poor, yet we read about the trade minister taking a cut from every kilo of imported grain and see enormous revenues from oil. The time has long past for them to deliver.” </p> <p>The Turks, though sympathetic to the plight of their downstream neighbors, lay much of the blame at the feet of Iraqi bureaucrats who have done next to nothing to protect an already precious natural resource from atrocious water management practices. It is not uncommon to see burst water-mains spouting geysers through Baghdad’s parched suburbs or across village roads, quickly mixing with refuse and oil, turning into giant molasses-like pools. Almost all public taps invariably leak, and environmental awareness is close to nonexistent. </p> <p>Publicly, Turkey will say nothing on the subject of its water dispute with Iraq, other than that it is working with both Syria and Iran to remedy the situation and has agreed to share daily technical data with both sides on flows. After recent floods near Istanbul, a limited extra release was allowed into the Euphrates system. It was soon stopped. The saga was symptomatic of Iraq’s dilemma and its lack of means to do much about it. Again, Baghdad had to make do with what its neighbors could spare on a good day. Iraq is yet to press its case for water rights under international law and, with its hand weakened by so many ongoing woes, the government does not currently hold much sway in the region. </p> <p>The torpor is of no comfort to Iraq’s downstream dwellers. Back in al-Akeryah Marshlands, Awda Khasaf kicks a splintering skiff that used to ply the lowland waterways. The last six months, he says, have changed everything. “If the Turks release all the water that used to come down the Euphrates, then the Marshes will fill up again within two months and we will recover. But that is not going to happen. They caught the government off guard while it was obsessed with the war and now they have a chokehold on us. This has had a revolutionary effect. The Turks have the upper-hand and until we are strong enough to stand up for ourselves, all we can do is pray for a flood. Look at them. They are not serious about helping us. They are trying to build another dam [the Ilus hydroelectric plant planned for southeastern Turkey, on the northern reaches of the Tigris]. Only when we can stand up can we address this. For now…” He leaves the last thought hanging, possibly conjuring up the same apocalyptic vision that started our conversation: only the good Lord can save us. </p> <p>In the short term, it would appear that divine intervention is Iraq’s best hope. The means to address water management effectively seem decades away. Much of the country’s infrastructure belongs in scrap yards or exhibits of nineteenth-century industrial artifacts. Re-laying water pipes nationwide for urban water delivery would likely take the better part of a generation. Desalination has been considered during cabinet meetings and projects have been offered by investors from the cash-rich Gulf states, which rely heavily, if not exclusively, on desalinated water. But Iraqi officials have so far described the costs as prohibitive. “It might work out for a small state like Abu Dhabi that doesn’t need tens of thousands of kilometers of pipeline,” says one minister. “But for us, it is a non-starter for now.” </p> <p><b></b> </p> <p>Globalization Woes </p> </p> <p>The crisis of 2009 has revealed some domestic inefficiencies that Iraq’s farmers will struggle to reverse. Wholesalers have been able to import and distribute fresh produce at market rates that compete successfully with what domestic consumers would have paid for locally grown produce. Hundreds of tons of bananas have been flown in from Somalia, watermelons from Iran, rice from the Far East, and bottled water from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. </p> <p>Water woes are playing a big part in turning Iraq into a net food importer. But so are the cost-efficient alternatives introduced to the Iraqi market by companies in both developing states and Western nations, all of which are clamoring to service some 20 million people who, for the most part, have always relied on homegrown produce. </p> <p>Apart from small pockets that can still harness water from the Euphrates, much of Iraq’s politically and strategically critical Anbar province is now a dust bowl. So, too, is Diyala province, north of Baghdad, which boasts some of the most fertile alluvial soil in the land. Both areas were ground zero for the Sunni militancy — Anbar the so-called triangle of death, Diyala the declared heartland of a new Islamic caliphate in 2006. The al-Maliki government had hoped to appease insurgents with the promise of prosperity. But as 2009 draws to a close, the notion seems fanciful. Family incomes are down substantially in many areas. The violence, successfully quelled throughout the past two years, is again on the rise, especially in Anbar. </p> <p>Iraq’s provinces and some of its most dangerous towns have been the focus of work throughout the past five years by American reconstruction teams, especially the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which in October wound up its mission. The engineers left, claiming that 21.2 million Iraqis now had access to potable drinking water, up from just over 5 million people immediately after the invasion. Last year, in the giant Sadr City slum in Baghdad’s northeast, the Army Corps built a treatment plant which draws and purifies water from the Tigris. The net effect, the Army claims, has been an increase from 46 to 200 in the per capita liters of water per day for Sadr City residents. The bill for the project was $65 million. </p> <p>In all, the engineers completed 25 large water distribution projects across the country as well as 800 smaller water sector projects that delivered potable water to many Iraqis who had no such luxury before Saddam fell. But now the engineers are gone. Gone with them is the bulk of America’s capacity to do more good works before the White House orders the last troops out late next year. </p> <p>Water distribution at the micro level is undoubtedly better than it was. But in a macro sense, the efforts amount to a small splash in a large pond. Iraq has giant subterranean lakes of another precious resource — oil — under the soil at both ends of the country and appears to be betting its future on turning anticipated revenues into purchasing power and regional clout today. </p> <p>Oil is Iraq’s meal ticket — a buffer against both drought and geopolitical impotence. The cabinet has been absorbed over the past six months with finding a formula that offers foreign investors enough financial incentives to bring their expertise to the badlands, while at the same time retaining control of the oil sector and the billions of petro-dollars it is likely to produce. But while the promise of future riches and power may see the waters flow again one day, on the barren plains of Iraq’s south a simpler business plan is taking shape. </p> <p>Alongside the highway between Baghdad and Basra — a giant, Saddam-era, four-lane road built to move tanks and troops — a rare agricultural success story is emerging. To travel this road in 2005-06 was to almost guarantee a run-in with a militia group, or an angry burst of bullets fired from a nearby sand berm. It remained a no-go zone to most non-Iraqis until the middle of 2008. By then, scorched wrecks of tankers lined the highway along with the charred chassis of the occasional American Hummer or private security company four-wheel-drive vehicle, conspicuous by its blackened, rusting bulk. </p> <p>Even today, giant scabs of charred bitumen are missing along the entire stretch to Basra, legacies of improvised bombs and aerial strikes that turned Iraq’s main arterial highway into a Mad Max-like wasteland. But now, dozens of salt farms line both sides of the road. There had always been a small salt industry, especially in the center of Iraq, near the cities of Babylon and Najaf, but with rapid water depletion turning lakes into shallow, salinated pools, dozens of small enterprises have now sprung up. Salt, piled in pyramid-style heaps, pockmarks the horizon of a barren landscape once covered in year-round sheets of water. One farmer sold his flock of goats to concentrate on salt. “I have around 190 kilos here,” he says, pointing at his pile. “It’s much more [profit] than I will get this year from dates.” </p> <p>The salt is then taken to market in Baghdad, where a small export industry is tipped to develop this year. Until the oil money kicks in or its neighbors turn on the taps again, success in the salt pans is likely to be a rare high-water mark for Iraq. In the short term, it would appear that divine intervention is Iraq’s best hope. The means to address water management effectively seems decades away. </p> <p><b></b> </p> <p>Martin Chulov is the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/martin-chulov" class="external" target="_blank">Baghdad correspondent </a>for the Guardian of London.</p> </p> </blockquote> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=36192" class="external" target="_blank">Middle East Online</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-6378"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2009/05/31/dahr-jamail-colonizing-culture/#respond" title="Comment on Dahr Jamail: Colonizing Culture">No Comments</a></span> Posted on May 31st, 2009 by Editors</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2009/05/31/dahr-jamail-colonizing-culture/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Dahr Jamail: Colonizing Culture">Dahr Jamail: Colonizing Culture</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/analysis-briefings-commentary/" title="View all posts in Analysis Briefings Commentary" rel="category tag">Analysis Briefings Commentary</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/features/" title="View all posts in Features" rel="category tag">Features</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/colonialism/" rel="tag">colonialism</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/cultural-genocide/" rel="tag">Cultural Genocide</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/dahr-jamail-reports/" rel="tag">Dahr Jamail Reports</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/edward-said/" rel="tag">Edward Said</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/features/" rel="tag">Features</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/franz-fanon/" rel="tag">Franz Fanon</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/gandhi/" rel="tag">Gandhi</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/hts/" rel="tag">HTS</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/human-terrain-systems/" rel="tag">Human Terrain Systems</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/national-archive/" rel="tag">National Archive</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/national-library/" rel="tag">National Library</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/saad-eskander/" rel="tag">Saad Eskander</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p><strong>Transgress</strong> </p> <p>The geo-strategic expansion of the American empire is an accepted fact of contemporary history. I have been writing in these columns about the impact of the US occupation on the people of Iraq in the wake of the "hard" colonization via F-16s, tanks, 2,000-pound bombs, white phosphorous and cluster bombs. </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.flickr.com/photos/27086036@N02/3580900251/" class="external" target="_blank"><img title="20090531_boy_surrounded_US_soldiers_Taken_20080819_illustration_for_jamail_article" style="border-top-width: 0px; display: block; border-left-width: 0px; float: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border-right-width: 0px" height="362" alt="20090531_boy_surrounded_US_soldiers_Taken_20080819_illustration_for_jamail_article" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028im_/http://gorillasguides.com/wp-content/uploads/20090531-boy-surrounded-us-soldiers-taken-20080819-illustration-for-jamail-article.jpg" width="611" border="0"/></a></p> <p>Here I offer a brief glimpse into the less obvious but far more insidious phenomenon of "soft" colonization. That scholars and political thinkers have talked at length of such processes only establishes the uncomfortable reality that history is bound to repeat itself in all its ugliness, unless the human civilization makes a concerted effort to eliminate the use of brute force from human affairs. </p> <p>Gandhi, the apostle of non-violent resistance said: </p> <blockquote><p>"I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. I refuse to live in other people’s houses as an interloper, a beggar or a slave."</p></blockquote> <p>This is an idea rendered irrelevant in the current scenario, where the mightier among the world’s nations have secured the mandate to invade, with impunity, any society and any state that can be exploited for resources. Unlike earlier times, modern-day invasions are invariably camouflaged by a façade of elaborate deceit that claims altruistic intent as the motive of assault. In this new scheme of things, resistance is deemed as insurgency and dissent is unpatriotic. Those that are invaded do not have the luxury to decide between being beggar and slave. Culture would be the last thing on their minds as they struggle to stay alive. Yet it is the loss of their culture that ultimately causes the disintegration of these societies to the absolute advantage of their victors. </p> <p>It is said that history is written by the victor. What is not said is that destroying the enemy is only half the purpose of a victor. The other half is the subjugation and drastic alteration of the self-perception of the enemy, so as to gain unquestioned control over every aspect of the subjugated state, its populace and its resources, so that having won victory it can get on with the "much bigger business of plunder," according to Franz Fanon, philosopher, psychiatrist, author and a pre-eminent thinker of the twentieth century. </p> <p>At one level we have the Human Terrain System (HTS) I have written about <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.truthout.org/043009R" class="external" target="_blank">previously</a> wherein social scientists are embedded with combat units, ostensibly to help the occupiers better understand the cultures they are occupying. The veiled intent is to exploit existing schisms and fault-lines in these societies to the occupier’s own advantage through the policy of divide and conquer. </p> <p>As Edward Said stated in "Orientalism": </p> <blockquote><p>"… there is a difference between knowledge of other peoples and other times that is the result of understanding, compassion, careful study and analysis for their own sakes, and on the other hand knowledge – if that is what it is – that is part of an overall campaign of self-affirmation, belligerency, and outright war. There is, after all, a profound difference between the will to understand for purposes of coexistence and humanistic enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external enlargement of horizons, and the will to dominate for the purposes of control and external dominion."</p></blockquote> <p>It is extremely obvious that the HTS belongs to this second category. </p> <p>At another unquestioned level, the "democratization" and "modernization" of a "barbaric" society goes on. The embedded scholars of HTS evidently find no evidence of these cultures having withstood decades of international isolation and assault, yet sustained their sovereignty by the sheer dint of their education, culture and a well-integrated diverse social fabric. So the US sets up a range of state-funded programs, ostensibly to empower the women and youth of the target society, in the ways of democracy and modern civilization. Whether or not that suspect goal is accomplished, the badgered collective consciousness of the invaded people, traumatized by loss and conflict, does begin to submit to the "norms" of behavior prescribed by the victor, even when they are in violation of actual norms of society that may have prevailed prior to invasion. </p> <p><strong>Transform</strong></p> <p>Fanon said: </p> <blockquote><p>"A national culture under colonial domination is a contested culture whose destruction is sought in systematic fashion." <br/>Describing the psychopathology of colonization he said, "Every effort is made to bring the colonized person to admit the inferiority of his culture which has been transformed into instinctive patterns of behavior, to recognize the unreality of his ‘nation’, and, in the last extreme, the confused and imperfect character of his own biological structure."</p></blockquote> <p>Fanon’s speech to the Congress of Black African Writers in 1959 is an uncanny description of Iraq’s tragedy today: </p> <blockquote><p>"Colonial domination, because it is total and tends to over-simplify, very soon manages to disrupt in spectacular fashion the cultural life of a conquered people. This cultural obliteration is made possible by the negation of national reality, by new legal relations introduced by the occupying power, by the banishment of the natives and their customs to outlying districts by colonial society, by expropriation, and by the systematic enslaving of men and women … <br/>"For culture is first the expression of a nation, the expression of its preferences, of its taboos and of its patterns. It is at every stage of the whole of society that other taboos, values and patterns are formed. A national culture is the sum total of all these appraisals; it is the result of internal and external extensions exerted over society as a whole and also at every level of that society. In the colonial situation, culture, which is doubly deprived of the support of the nation and of the state, falls away and dies."</p></blockquote> <p>At times we may witness blatant violations as in the distribution of backpacks with US flags to Iraqi children. </p> <p>A more repulsive example is the Skin White Serum. One of many companies engaged in selling skin-bleaching cream is Skin White Research Labs. They proudly sell <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.skinwhite.com/" class="external" target="_blank">Skin White Serum</a> in "over 30 countries." There are countless other companies involved in this market, selling similar products, like <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.amazon.com/Bleaching-Formula-Brighten-Beautiful-Complexion/dp/B000JVD5F2" class="external" target="_blank">Skin White Bleaching Cream</a> and <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.xtremecreams.com/skinwhitening.html" class="external" target="_blank">Xtreme White</a>. </p> <p>The hidden message here is that, politically, those in the culture being colonized should seek to cover their brown skin, which is in fact part of their ethnic identity, and aspire to the culture, power and influence of the dominant culture at the expense of their own. </p> <p>Somewhat less subtle is the corporate colonization of Iraq’s culture. An example of this is Iraqi girls <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=101533" class="external" target="_blank">carrying Barbie backpacks</a> in the Sadr City area of Baghdad. </p> <p>In Iraq and Afghanistan, the dominant culture for a while now has been the US military. Since it has all the firepower and the brute force, it sets the norms and the standard. This is done by repeated suggestions through propaganda, and advertisements suggesting that the local population is of lesser worth than the occupiers of their country in their appearance, their beliefs, their customs and their way of life. </p> <p>The material practices of society sustain its culture, which is the lifeline of identity, and affirmation that the progress of a nation depends on. Social custom, production systems, education, art and architecture are a few of the visible pillars of culture. </p> <p>Community and custom become the first casualties when an entire people, unequal in the face of military might, struggle to survive under perpetual fear of loss and death. In a state of vacuum, the threatened society will grasp whatever is offered by the occupier as a "better" way of living. In the process it is bound to lose its own tried and tested self-sustaining modes of living. </p> <p>With the destruction of infrastructure, education, health and livelihood sources are destroyed. When rehabilitation and restoration come packaged in alien systems of knowledge (read-<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.usaid.gov/iraq/" class="external" target="_blank">USAID</a>), that, too, is accepted in the absence of what existed earlier. </p> <p>Literature, art and architecture meet with more systemic demolition. </p> <p>My artist friends in Baghdad <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://dahrjamailiraq.com/the-ongoing-occupation-of-iraqi-artists" class="external" target="_blank">have reported</a>, </p> <blockquote><p>"The occupation forces encouraged the rebels to loot museum and libraries. Five thousand years of history and art were irretrievably lost in hours. It is a loss for the world, not Iraq alone. Buildings can be fixed, so can electricity, but where can I find another Khalid al-Rahal to make me a new statue for Abu Fafar al-Mansoor? How will I replace the artifacts dating back to thousands of years? Iraq is altered forever."</p></blockquote> <p>I have heard from ordinary men and women in Iraq, "We need our art, because it connects us with what has brought us here, and reminds us of where we are headed." Dr. Saad Eskander has been director general of whatever remains of Iraq’s National Archive and Library and he says, "This building was burned twice, and looted. We have lost sixty percent of our archival collections like maps, historical records and photographs. Twenty-five percent of our books were lost … It has crippled our culture, and culture reaches to the bottom of peoples’ hearts, whereas politics do not." </p> <p>It is not difficult to see that the extent of devastation caused by the invasion and occupation of Iraq goes beyond loss of life, livelihood and property. The historical and cultural roots of the nation have been destroyed. </p> <p><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.truthout.org/052709R" class="external" target="_blank">t r u t h o u t | Colonizing Culture</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="post clearfix" id="post-6199"> <div class="postmetadata"><span class="comments"><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2009/05/16/dahr-jamail-engineering-trust-of-the-indigenous-population/#respond" title="Comment on Dahr Jamail | Engineering "Trust of the Indigenous Population"">No Comments</a></span> Posted on May 16th, 2009 by Editors</div> <h3><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/2009/05/16/dahr-jamail-engineering-trust-of-the-indigenous-population/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Dahr Jamail | Engineering "Trust of the Indigenous Population"">Dahr Jamail | Engineering "Trust of the Indigenous Population"</a></h3> <p class="postmetadata">Category: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/analysis-briefings-commentary/" title="View all posts in Analysis Briefings Commentary" rel="category tag">Analysis Briefings Commentary</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/category/english-articles/" title="View all posts in English Language Articles" rel="category tag">English Language Articles</a>, Tags: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/afghanistan/" rel="tag">Afghanistan</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/anthropology/" rel="tag">Anthropology</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/counterinsurgency/" rel="tag">Counterinsurgency</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/dahr-jamail-reports/" rel="tag">Dahr Jamail Reports</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/david-price/" rel="tag">David Price</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/hts/" rel="tag">HTS</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/human-terrain-systems/" rel="tag">Human Terrain Systems</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/john-burns/" rel="tag">John Burns</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/judith-miller/" rel="tag">Judith Miller</a>, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://gorillasguides.com/tag/unethical-behaviour/" rel="tag">Unethical behaviour</a></p> <div class="entry" dir="rtl" align="right"> <p>Anthropologist Audrey Roberts works for Human Terrain System (HTS), a Pentagon program. Referring to the information produced by HTS scholars, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-afghanculture_08int.ART.State.Edition2.48b1d26.html" class="external" target="_blank">she says</a>, "If it’s going to inform how targeting is done – whether that targeting is bad guys, development or governance – how our information is used is how it’s going to be used. All I’m concerned about is pushing our information to as many soldiers as possible. The reality is there are people out there who are looking for bad guys to kill. I’d rather they did not operate in a vacuum." </p> <p>In a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.truthout.org/043009R" class="external" target="_blank">recent article</a> on this site I have described HTS as comprising American scholars, primarily in the field of anthropology, along with sociologists and social psychologists, embedding themselves with the US military in the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Their brief is to enable the military to make better decisions by helping it to understand the social mores and customs of the cultures it is occupying. </p> <p>As a program that is likely to have a long tenure, it deserves further examining. The US military would like the US public to believe it is a benevolent program, but it does not require a crystal ball to recognize the insidious reality. HTS teams actively engage in targeting the "enemy" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Team members often wear military uniforms and body armor, and even carry weapons. Like Ms. Roberts, they are not overly concerned about the fact that the "intelligence" they produce is instrumental in capturing and killing people. The social scientists who choose to employ themselves within HTS clearly are not having a moral struggle with the fact that they are allowing their knowledge to be used as a weapon of war. </p> <p>The military’s <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://humanterrainsystem.army.mil/" class="external" target="_blank">benign description</a> specifies that HTS will "improve the military’s ability to understand the highly complex local social-cultural environment in the areas where they are deployed." Proponents of the program go as far as to claim that its goal is to help the military save lives. </p> <p>Those who know better, like US Army Lt. Col. Gian Gentile, will <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.counterpunch.com/price04072009.html" class="external" target="_blank">tell you</a>, "Don’t fool yourself, these Human Terrain Teams, whether they want to acknowledge it or not, in a generalized and subtle way, do at some point contribute to the collective knowledge of a commander, which allows him to target and kill the enemy in the Civil War in Iraq." </p> <p>The two highest ethical principles of anthropology are protection of the interests of studied populations, and their safety. All anthropological studies consequently are premised on the consent of the subject society. Clearly, the HTS anthropologists have thrown these ethical guidelines out the window. They are to anthropology what state stenographers like Judith Miller and John Burns are to journalism. </p> <p>I consulted David Price, author of "Anthropological Intelligence: The Deployment and Neglect of American Anthropology in the Second World War" and a contributor to the Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual, a forthcoming work of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists, of which he is a member. </p> <p>According to Price, "HTS presents real ethical problems for anthropologists, because the demands of the military in situations of occupation put anthropologists in positions undermining their fundamental ethical loyalties to those they study. Moreover, it presents political problems that link anthropology to a disciplinary past where anthropologists were complicit in assisting in colonial conquests. Those selling HTS to the military have misrepresented what culture is and have downplayed the difficulties of using culture to bring about change, much less conquest. There is a certain dishonesty in pretending that anthropologists possess some sort of magic beans of culture, and that if only occupiers had better cultural knowledge, or made the right pay-offs, then occupied people would fall in line and stop resisting foreign invaders. Culture is being presented as if it were a variable in a linear equation, and if only HTS teams could collect the right data variables and present troops with the right information conquest could be entered in the equation. Life and culture doesn’t work that way; occupied people know they are occupied, and while cultural knowledge can ease an occupation, historically it has almost never led to conquest – but even if it could, anthropology would irreparably damage itself if it became nothing more than a tool of occupations and conquest." </p> <p>The Handbook for the HTS offers the Human Terrain "toolkit" for the US military to understand subjects living in militarily occupied areas. It states: </p> <p>"HTTs will use the Map-HT Toolkit of developmental hardware and software to capture, consolidate, tag, and ingest human terrain data. HTTs use this human terrain information gathered to assist commanders in understanding the operational relevance of the information as it applies to the unit’s planning processes. The expectation is that the resulting courses of actions developed by the staff and selected by the commander will consistently be more culturally harmonized with the local population, which in Counter-Insurgency Operations should lead to greater success. <i>It is the trust of the indigenous population that is at the heart of the struggle between coalition forces and the insurgents."</i> (Emphasis added.) </p> <p>The mission of the Human Terrain social scientists gains legitimacy and credibility when expressed in terms of engineering the "trust of the indigenous population." </p> <p>It is obvious that for the neo-colonialist, the HTS is a form of "soft power." In addition to dropping 2,000-pound bombs in civilian areas, occupation forces now see fit to use HTS to get into the minds of the people of the occupied country. </p> <p>Price avers, "The problem with anthropology being used in counterinsurgency isn’t just that anthropologists are helping the military to wear different cultural skins; the problem is that it finds anthropologists using bio power and basic infrastructure as bargaining chips to force occupied cultures to surrender." </p> <p>Although he says it is too soon to gauge [a] possible increase in HTS operations since Obama took office, Price is convinced that the president is falling for the claim that a smart counterinsurgency can lead not just to easier occupations, but to victory. </p> <p>For the military to find regionally competent anthropologists to work for them is unlikely. Price is convinced that, "most (American) anthropologists understand the obvious ethical problems in working for HTS. The real risk lies in the likelihood that anthropologists will be seduced by arguments to support soft-power projects tied to occupation and counterinsurgency – especially when these projects are increasingly being presented as "helping" the occupied. </p> <p>"Those favoring soft-power forms of counterinsurgency are going to need anthropologists and other social scientists," Price said, "Narratives of aid and assistance, of building hospitals and schools will replace the strategic narratives of soft-power counterinsurgency manipulation of occupied people by occupiers. When you add to this the grim job prospects many anthropologists face in this economy, you can see how easy it is for the US administration to sell these soft-power programs." </p> <p>As the new administration adopts less-violent manipulations of the environments and peoples in Iraq and Afghanistan, Price is concerned that anthropologists will fail to see the distinction between military coercion of occupied peoples and publicized acts of "humanitarianism." </p> <p>As in most matters related to the occupation, the corporate media are squarely responsible for selling the HTS program to the American public. Price <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.counterpunch.com/price04072009.html" class="external" target="_blank">has written</a>, "… the media has become a key supportive enabler of HTS. In the last two years I have probably spent twenty to thirty hours speaking with journalists from NPR, Elle, USA Today, Newsweek, Time, AP, New York Times, Wired, Harpers, Washington Post, etc. patiently explaining what the critical issues for anthropologists are when a program like Human Terrain Systems embeds anthropologists with troops engaged in counterinsurgency operations in occupied battle settings in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sometimes portions of these critiques show up along the way in the final stories, but in most cases, the arguments and critiques against the efficacy, ethical, neocolonial politics as well as the practical impossibility of HTS working as advertised are ignored, or worse yet, they are presented as absurd caricatures." </p> <p>Corporate media coverage of the program conveniently does not indicate that HTS ignores basic anthropological principles of ethics, such as voluntary informed consent, issues of secrecy, and doing no harm, among others. Most anthropologists concur with Price that HTS is also part of a domestic propaganda project, "that tells the Americans that wars for the hearts and minds of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan can be won. History argues against any such outcome, but HTS becomes part of a lie to the American people that helps keep us fighting these already lost causes. It is so poorly designed that HTS has no hope of actually working as advertised, yet both the Bush and Obama administrations have sold us a false hope that such counterinsurgency programs can lead to an eventual victory." </p> <p>As Price <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.counterpunch.com/price04072009.html" class="external" target="_blank">wrote recently</a>, the media stance does not bode well for the future, or for President Obama. "The real bad news for American foreign policy is that given President Obama’s commitment to "soft power" and his open endorsements of counterinsurgency operations in Afghanistan, we can expect more of this uncritical coverage on HTS as a crucial tool needed for America’s occupations in foreign lands. I am left to wonder how anthropologist Ann Dunham, Barack Obama’s mother, would have reacted to her son’s reliance on such clearly unethical anthropological means to achieve political ends so aligned with neocolonialist goals of occupation and subjugation?" </p> <p><strong>Source:</strong> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121025013028/http://www.truthout.org/051609Z" class="external" target="_blank">t r u t h o u t | Engineering "Trust of the Indigenous Population"</a></p> </div> </div> <hr/> <div class="navigation"> <div class="alignleft"></div> <div class="alignright"></div> </div> </div> <div id="sidebar" class="span-10 last"> <div class="span-10" id="tabs"> <ul> <li class="ui-tabs-nav-item"><a href="#featured-articles">Featured Articles</a></li> <li class="ui-tabs-nav-item"><a href="#latest-articles">Latest Articles</a></li> </ul> <div id="featured-articles" class="widget"> <ul> <li><a 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