Internationals in Baghdad describe resistance
By John Catalinotto
They went to Baghdad as doctors, as links to the anti-war
movements in their own countries, as "human shields" defend ing
structures vital to the 5 million humans living in Iraq's
capital.
Whatever they came to do, these solidarity internationalists
are bearing witness to the crimes U.S. and British imper ialism
are inflicting on Baghdad. And, by phone and email, they are
chronicling the resistance of the Iraqi people.
Before the all-out attacks started, on March 16, Rosemarie
Gillespie, one of five Australians in a human-shield team at
the 7th of April water treatment plant on the Tigris River in
the suburbs of Baghdad, messaged to the world:
"Preparations for the dreaded bombing raids are now being
made in earnest. Everywhere windows and glass doors are being
taped up. Crates of bottled water are being delivered in
haste.
"The price of bottled water is going up. So is the price of
a taxi fare to the border. Most people here seem to be dealing
with the threat of bombing with a degree of stoic calm, going
about their business, making the necessary preparations.
"As Asmaa said: 'We are not afraid any more. We're used to
it. We're not afraid for ourselves, only for our children.'
"Asmaa has two small children, a 3-year-old girl, Meriam,
and a 4-month-old baby boy, Omar. Will they survive the
bombing?
"The thought of Australian Air Force pilots, as well as
American ones, bombing Baghdad, possibly blowing up one of the
five Australian 'human shields' or any of the other human
shields for that matter, or little children like Meriam and
Omar, seems not only cruel, but stupid too."
The Spain-based Committee to Support the Arab Cause has been
organizing weeklong brigades to Iraq from different regions of
the Spanish state over the past months.
'We have decided to stay'
On March 18, they vowed: "We have decided to remain here in
Baghdad once the military campaign against Iraq by the USA and
its allies has begun and after the Basque Country Brigade has
been evacuated." Their goal is to bear witness to events in
Baghdad and to continue to link the now massive Spanish
anti-war movement with events and people in Iraq itself. The
six who signed this statement were soon joined by three from
the Basque delegation.
"Our decision should not be taken as one of foolishness or
presumption," they wrote. "It is not for the nine of us that
you should be concerned: concern yourselves instead with the
fate of the Iraqi people, to whom we have freely linked our
own."
And on March 22, in both a report and a message to the
demonstrators back home: "From 7:20 p.m. yesterday until 10:00
a.m. local time, the attacks were very intense, especially in
the Al Mansur district, a densely populated area in the center
of Baghdad where institutional buildings (governmental and
ministerial) are mixed in with residential blocks of flats and
houses."
Following a solidarity visit to a hospital: "Five
brothers-two adults, a teenager, two children-all burned while
they watched the missiles falling over the city early Thursday
night. And so on: up to 36 in one hospital alone, all
civilians, none of them living near any kind of military or
government installation.
"You cannot imagine the impact of the cruise missiles
falling on this sprawling, exposed city; the tremors they cause
when they explode, unleashing a ball of fire and column of dark
smoke.
"It is difficult to describe the ominous sound of aircraft
flying over our heads and dropping their bombs. The aggressors
are now determined to break the spirit of this people after
trying to do so with hunger and disease over 12 years of
embargo, as if this were a medieval siege." For more
information, see www.nodo50.org/csca/.
Two doctors from Belgium
Two doctors from Belgium are now in Baghdad--Dr. Colette
Moulaert, a pediatrician and surgeon and member of the Workers'
Party of Belgium, and Dr. Geert Van Moorter, an emergency
medicine specialist and activist with the anti-war coalition
StopUSA (Stop the United States of Aggression). They both work
with Medical Aid for the Third World and have been in combat
situations in the past.
"We are OK here. Last night (March 20) there were air raids
for about three hours," wrote Dr. Van Moorter. "Some of the
attacks were only some hundreds of meters away, less than one
kilometer. Hotel Palestine, our hotel, is on the banks of the
Tigris and it was at the other side. We don't know what they
targeted.
"According to Iraqi TV many were injured in Basra. But
apparently the Iraqis put up fierce resistance and the U.S.
soldiers had a hard time."
And later, "We tell everybody about the protests against
U.S. aggression in Bel gium and other countries. That is
important for the morale of anybody here," writes Van Moorter.
The "human shields" are receiving permits to work and began
doing shifts at a Baghdad hospital. But they continue to send
reports to the movement in Belgium, urging demonstrations and
strikes.
For more reports from them, see
www.irak.be/ned/missies/medicalMissionColetteGeert/two_belgian_doctors_in_baghdad.htm.
Morale of the Iraqis
Of the ability of Iraqis to resist, the different observers
agree: "Their morale is still intact," wrote Van Moorter on
March 21. "People support one another. The foreign journalists
are panicking more than them."
Gillespie, in a later communication, compared the Iraqis to
the many in England who-while considering Winston Churchill a
reactionary--rallied to him under the bombs of the Nazis, and
noted the growing number of volunteers swell ing the ranks of
armed Iraqis in Baghdad.
The group from Spain wrote: "Every morning, after every
attack, these same people go out again into their streets and
continue to smile at us, grateful that we are here, raising
their fists or flashing the victory sign, warm and trusting in
spite of everything, asking us to tell you of their will to
resist even when that seems an unimaginable miracle in the face
of the war machine closing in on them."
These internationalists, together with those from Voices in
the Wilderness and independent reporters like videographer Mae
Ying Welsh, are the flesh-and-blood evidence of the world's
solidarity with Iraq's people and a heroic link between the
global anti-war movement and the Iraqis who continue to resist
U.S.-British imperialism.
Reprinted from the April 3, 2003, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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