[Peace-discuss] black and white and red all over

[Ricky Baldwin]

First Newspaper to Hit Baghdad's Streets Is Red 
> 
> Sun April 20, 2003 08:26 AM ET
> By Rosalind Russell BAGHDAD (Reuters)
> 
> - It would not be Washington's first choice, but the
> long-banned Iraq 
> Communist Party on Sunday won the race to publish
> the first newspaper in 
> Baghdad since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
> 
> The eight-page "People's Path" was handed out for
> free, snapped up eagerly 
> by passers-by hungry for any kind of news after the
> U.S. invasion eradicated
> 
> state-run media.
> 
> "Collapse of a Dictator" read the headline under the
> hammer and sickle on 
> the front page, followed by an article railing
> against the abuses of 
> Saddam's "bloody, terrorist reign."  "With the
> dictatorship's collapse, all 
> the wishes of the vast majority of the Iraqi people
> have come true," it 
> said, printed around a picture of a child victim of
> the U.S.-led war, his 
> head bandaged and a tear rolling down his cheek.
> 
> When U.S. forces rolled into Baghdad 11 days ago,
> ending Saddam's rule and 
> toppling a statue of him for good measure, they
> created an information and 
> authority void, with practically no electricity, no
> papers, no TV and no 
> officialdom to turn to.
> 
> Angry citizens yearn for order and advice, but the
> last written U.S. 
> information came in the form of airdropped leaflets
> urging people to stay 
> calm during the war.  Others have moved in to fill
> the void, with 
> influential religious leaders setting up community
> services, but the 
> Communists were the first into print.
> 
> In Firdos Square in the center, Iraqis stopped in
> their tracks to read the 
> paper, amazed to see criticism of their former
> leader in writing.  "It is 
> telling us about Saddam, how he did harm to our
> country," said 27-year-old 
> Khudair. "Of course we knew it, but we have never
> seen it written in a 
> newspaper before."  
> 
> It was not clear where the paper was printed but it
> was 
> full of praise for Kurdish leaders in north Iraq,
> which was free of Saddam's
> 
> control for a decade and where small Communist Party
> cells operated.  
> 
> NO MORE BABEL.  Under Saddam's 24-year-old rule,
> Iraq's newsstands sold only
> 
> state-approved papers. Babel, the
> highest-circulation newspaper, belonged to
> 
> Saddam's eldest son Uday, while Thawra was the
> official mouthpiece of 
> Saddam's Baath Party.  They were the last vestige of
> the old rule to be 
> seen, hitting the streets on the morning of
> Wednesday April 9 -- U.S. 
> marines rode into Baghdad on tanks.  "The great Iraq
> will remain steadfast,"
> 
> read Babel's last front-page editorial.  All other
> parties and their media 
> were banned, and leaders of what was once the most
> powerful Communist 
> movement in the Middle East had long fled into exile
> in Britain and 
> elsewhere.  Now the official newspapers have gone,
> along with state-run 
> television and radio. Iraqis may not miss them, but
> they are desperate for 
> news. Most listen to Iranian or Kuwaiti radio, BBC
> Arabic or Radio Sawa, the
> 
> U.S.-sponsored pan-Arabic station.  The occupying
> forces' own Alliance 
> Television airs for three hours from 8 p.m. on
> frequencies once used by 
> Saddam-eulogizing state television, but few
> Baghdadis have the power to tune
> 
> in.  If they do, they prefer to watch al-Alam, an
> Iranian-based channel 
> broadcast in Arabic which Iraqis can pick up without
> a satellite dish and 
> which first popped up just before the war. 
> Satellite dishes, banned under 
> Saddam but available discreetly to the wealthy, are
> now being snapped up.  
> 
> © Copyright Reuters 2002. All rights reserved.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>
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