Seminar in Spain charges:
U.S. occupiers complicit in Iraq murders
By
John Catalinotto
Madrid, Spain
Published Apr 27, 2006 9:38 AM
Representatives from
anti-war groups in eight countries met here the weekend of April 21 to 23 to
discuss a grim emergency: the assassinations and disappearances of hundreds of
Iraqi scientists, doctors, teachers and other intellectuals under the U.S.-UK
occupation. They heard firsthand the plight of Iraqi academics and medical
professionals who struggle to live amid constant threats, physical violence,
kidnappings and the operation of death squads.
Academic officials and
trade union leaders in the Spanish state also spoke out at a seminar against the
U.S. occupation. Evidence was presented that the U.S. occupation is responsible
for the suffering of the Iraqi people, including the assassinations, and that
the U.S. has the motive and means for carrying them out.
The main callers
of the conference were this country’s Statewide Campaign to End the
Occupation and restore the Sove reignty of Iraq (CEOSI), the BRussels Tribunal
from Belgium and the Inter national Action Center from the United States. Other
groups from Germany, Sweden, Britain and Portugal, which had been active in the
World Tribunal on Iraq, also contributed to the discussions.
CEOSI and the
BRussels Tribunal have documented the killings of 220 health professionals and
190 academics in Iraq. They say the occupation planned or at the minimum allowed
these killings to take place. Such destruction of the intellectual capital of
the country threatens to destroy Iraqi society, eliminating its future just as
the pillage of its museums eliminated its past.
The discussions were
carried out within the framework of the conclusions of the World Tribunal on
Iraq, which last June in Istanbul found the U.S. guilty of war crimes for its
invasion and sided with the Iraqis’ right to resist the occupation,
including by armed struggle.
Iraqi speakers included Eman Khamas, a
journalist, author and former director of the group Occupation Watch in Baghdad;
Professor Ali, a teacher of molecular gen etics at the University of Baghdad,
and Dr. Sami, a surgeon at the Hospital for Cardiac and Thoracic Surgery at Bagh
dad’s General University Hospital. All three held the occupation
responsible for the crimes being committed against the Iraqi
people.
Khamas had just finished a six-week tour of the United States. She
made a strong point that the U.S. was still actively carrying on a war against
the Iraqi people. “Bush said on May 1, 2003, that the war was over. He
lied. The U.S. has continued the war against the Iraqi people. Cities,
hospitals, schools are still being bombed.” She said that even when
schools are functioning, they are often closed for security reasons—such
as when the National Assembly is meeting. Khamas pointed out that up to 300,000
Iraqis have been killed since the invasion of March 20, 2003.
She raised
the question of security under the occupation. “Many women,” said
Khamas, “don’t go to school or college because they are
afraid.” Meanwhile, political events that are made much of in the U.S.
media and by politicians in Washington “are completely irrelevant to the
ordinary Iraqi people.”
‘Hell on
Mesopotamia’
Professor Ali, a scientist, was held in prison for
months under suspicion of working on weapons of mass destruction —which
turned out not to exist. He was held in the same prison as high-level
politicians of the Baathist regime. He called the occupation “hell on
Mesopo tamia, where chaotic disorder and organized crime
flourish.”
Dr. Sami had been threatened with death and fired at
while in his office. He had received all his education free from the Iraqi
government, including post-doctoral training, and noted that since 1990 the U.S.
has targeted the education and health systems in Iraq while “before 1991
the entire educational system was free for Iraqis.”
The general tone
of the seminar was that nothing good could come from the occupation, that it
should end as soon as possible, and that the Iraqi people have the right to
drive out the foreign troops.
Participants from Spanish universities
included Carlos Varea of CEOSI, who had been in Iraq during the war in 2003 as
an observer, Prof. Pedro Martinez Montavez, who pointed out that Iraqi society
had never before the occupation been split in a sectarian way as it is now, and
Rosa Regas, general director of the National Library, who noted that if
terrorism were measured by the number of civilians killed, then Bush would be
the number one terrorist.
The meeting was held in the Julian Besteiro
School, an extensive training school for trade union organizers and cadres. Many
trade unionists participated in the discussion, including Manuel Bonmati, in
charge of international relations for the UGT union
confederation.
International speakers in the seminar discussion included
Joachim Guilliard from the German Iraq Committee, Man uel Raposo from the
Portuguese Tribunal, Dirk Andriaensens of the BRussels Tri bunal, Prof. Ian
Douglas, a visiting professor from Scotland at the University of Nahah in
Palestine, and John Catalinotto of the International Action Center in the U.S.
During the second day, participants focused on what actions can be taken
to bring global attention to the destruction of Iraq’s intellectual and
professional resources and hold accountable those directly responsible,
including the occupying power. These include appeals to organizations of
university professors, the United Nations and other bodies that could possibly
support an independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding these
killings.
The texts of talks at the seminar will be posted at the sites of
CEOSI, the BRussels Tribunal and the IAC (www.iacenter.org).
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