[Peace-discuss] Occupation is not liberation

[C. G. Estabrook]

[This guy, brother of the editor of Counterpunch, has been writing some of
the best stuff from Iraq, but it's a little hard to get because his Brit
paper wants a subscription.  --CGE] 


Saddam's name more popular than ever in Iraqi oil town

By Patrick Cockburn in Baiji

The Independent
16 October 2003

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story= 453792

New babies are being named Saddam by their parents in this oil refinery
town 160 miles north of Baghdad, such is the hostility to the US
occupation, an official at the local births and deaths registration office
said.

Iraqis queued yesterday for new dinar banknotes with pictures of
Babylonian rulers and a 10th century Iraqi mathematician in place of a
smiling Saddam Hussein.

But in Baiji, "Long live Saddam" slogans are scrawled everywhere. The
mayor's office and a building which housed a pro-American opposition party
are burned out, having been set on fire by demonstrators who brandished
pictures of the former Iraqi leader.

A local sheikh said: "The people have decided that the disasters they
suffer under the Americans are worse than those they suffered under Saddam
Hussein." He pointed to a small pit in the concrete in the courtyard of
his house where a grenade had exploded, thrown by someone who thought him
too close to the Americans.

In the Sunni Muslim heartlands along the banks of the rivers Tigris and
Euphrates, Saddam is the apparent victor over the US in the eyes of the
inhabitants. It is thought the former Iraqi president may even be hiding
in the region.

Local leaders said guerrilla attacks were happening more frequently
because many people who used to work for Saddam, often in his security
services, were out of a job, and there had been a furious reaction to the
random searches, arrests and shootings by US soldiers.

Anger exploded in Baiji two weeks ago when the US-appointed police fired
into a pro-Saddam demonstration, wounding four people. The soldiers were
forced to flee to the American base north of the town. US troops have
returned, with snipers on rooftops and armour in the streets, but they can
control the town only by using military force. This week a US soldier was
killed and another wounded when their armoured vehicle hit a landmine.

In the house of Sheikh Baha al-Hachem in a village on the outskirts of
Baiji, villagers bitterly ticked off grievances accumulated during six
months of occupation.

Faidh Hamid recounted how his 15-year-old nephew, Qusai, was on the roof
of his house, "trying to fix the television antenna when US soldiers shot
him dead". Another time, an imam who had gone for prayers at 4am, and may
have been breaking curfew, was killed.

A Swedish journalist witnessed US soldiers beat an elderly religious man,
Maad Ibrahim, almost to death. Mustapha Can, a correspondent for the
Swedish evening newspaper Aftonbladet, was with a US patrol, which was hit
by two mortar rounds.

He told The Independent: "Suddenly I saw the soldiers kick in a door and
drag out an old man who screamed, 'Me no shoot! please, please mister.'
The soldiers shouted, 'Shut the fuck up! Shut the fuck up!'

"They tied his hands behind his back and then, as he lay on the ground,
one said: 'Keep his head still.' He slammed him on the head with his rifle
butt again and again. Then the others kicked him. There was blood
everywhere." US officers later admitted they were probably wrong about the
old man, but said "these things happen in the heat of the action".

Iraqi leaders in the area say that while Paul Bremer, the head of the US
civil administration in Baghdad, claims the guerrillas are an isolated
remnant of the old regime, the soldiers assume the opposite. They assume
all Iraqis are hostile and support the resistance.

In many cases this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since May, Haj Awwad
Abidasad, a 75-year-old merchant, has been trying to get back $16,000
(#9,600) in Iraqi dinars and $4,500 in gold taken from his house by US
soldiers. His son, Majid, a physiotherapist, was arrested and held for 63
days.

Mr Abidasad and his son have been told the money and gold were confiscated
because a fedayeen, a pro-Saddam fighter, was found in their house, which
they deny.

Mr Bremer was yesterday lauding the distribution of the new Iraqi
currency, which no longer has a picture of Saddam. But in Baiji, suffering
from the daily injustices and humiliations of occupation, it is no longer
safe to criticise his rule.

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