[wvns] U.S. military assassinates Iraqi peace workers
U.S. military is assassinating Iraqi peace workers
by Kathlyn Stone
Murder of Iraq Freedom Congress leader is a blow to labor and peace
activists around the world
At 3 a.m. on the 4th of July, U.S. military forces and Iraqi national
guards opened fire with a barrage of bullets and grenades on the
Baghdad home of Abdel-Hussein Saddam. The severely wounded
Abdel-Hussein was taken away and his 18-year-old daughter was left
alone, injured and bleeding on the floor.
Abdel-Hussein's beaten body turned up at the Yarmouk Hospital morgue
on July 6. The murder of Abdel-Hussein was the most devastating of
four attacks by the U.S. military on the Iraq Freedom Congress in the
past 10 months. The IFC is an organization comprised primarily of
trade unionists, community leaders, and women's and children's rights
workers who are determined to look after their own. IFC's goals are to
salvage the lives of as many Iraqis as possible, and to end the
occupation and sectarian fighting. Its slogan: "No Shiite… No Sunni…
Ours is Human Identity."
The IFC has 22 offices or "wards" in Iraq cities and neighborhoods. It
establishes where and when it is invited by local community leaders.
Since 2005 the IFC has been working toward a progressive democratic
non-sectarian government in Iraq. It is as critical of the violent
political Islamic forces as of the violent U.S. occupiers.
Abdel-Hussein, 50, was born in Basra, and was a resident of Baghdad's
Alattiba neighborhood at the time of his death. He was the head of the
IFC's Safety Force, an organization of men who volunteer to prot! ect
and defend both Sunni and Shiite citizens from sectarian gangs. He
spent two years of his life in jail in the 1990s for opposing the
Saddam Hussein regime. "Throughout the period of his leadership of the
Safety Force, there had been no killing based on identity in the area
where he lived and in other areas with the presence of the Safety
Force," the IFC said in a written statement.
An IFC spokesman says the "cowardly" attack is part of Bush's surge
which is aimed at suppressing Iraqi political opponents. It could be,
too, that IFC's growing influence as a protector and unifier within
Iraq's pulverized society is seen as a threat to U.S. government
objectives. A peaceful sovereign Iraq will not turn over its rich oil
reserves to foreign invaders.
The day before Abdel-Hussein's abduction, the IFC-sponsored SANA TV
gave its inaugural broadcast over a satellite network. The program ran
a story about the recent mass demonstration against the proposed oil
law being pushed by the Bush administration. The program included an
overview of the IFC's Safety Force and interviewed some of the five
IFC members who had been arrested by U.S. and Iragi national guards
June 7. Those arrested, Mohamed Karim, Ali Hussein, Mohamed Mahmoud,
Hussam Salim and Abdul Amir Saleh, were interrogated at the U.S. base
in Baghdad's Rustumiyyah neighborhood and then transferred to the
local police station before being released 11 days later.
An IFC spokesman said the Iraqi police intentionally misled US forces,
stating that the IFC was part of the sectarian Al-Mahdi Army that was
planning to expand into the Al-Askary neighborhood, and therefore a
terrorist organization. In fact, the IFC ! Safety F orce had already
confronted the scouts of Al-Mahdi and prevented them from establishing
a foothold.
The IFC won the detainees' release by waging a political campaign both
locally and globally, as well as a judicial battle. It filed a lawsuit
against the U.S. agents for raiding the office without judicial
authorization or an arrest warrant.
SANA is funded by IFC allies around the world, but primarily by
Japanese supporters. Besides its 22 chapters in Iraq, there are five
chapters in Japan and south Asia, five in Europe and Scandinavia, and
two in North America (one in Canada and one in the United States). IFC
has ongoing collaboration with the 0 million member US Labor Against
the War, and the IFC-US chapter carried the IFC banner during the
January 27 protest in Washington D.C. SANA intends on using its
solidarity network "to amplify the voice of freedom, peace and the
equal rights of all people in Iraq and the Middle East," said Nadia
Mahmood Al-Sanna, a SANA producer.
The IFC Safety Force recently graduated its third group of volunteers
who are trained in mediation and self defense. Besides protecting
citizens from marauding sectarian gangs, the Safety Force provides
escorts to people who are in danger, and has a proactive outreach
program calling for an end to sectarianism. The IFC tries to influence
citizens against falling for the trap of retaliation. The so-called
"insurgents" have also organized recreational play days for children,
economic survival conferences for women, teams of doctors who go to
the homes of people too ill or too afraid to travel to the hospital,
raised money for food and medicine, and attended funerals to shield
mourners from further violence. A primary goal of each project is to
bring together Shiites and Sunnis in a spirit of cooperation and
non-violence.
IFC Executive Committee Member Amjad Al-Jawhary (Abdel-Hussein also
served on the committee), said the U.S. administration is target! ing
effo rts such as IFC that "aim to restore security, safety, freedom,
and prosperity. They [US] well know that such forces will jeopardize
the presence of the occupation and threatens to undermine its
determination and prestige." The IFC is trying to provide some
semblance of public safety without government resources or sanction
during a humanitarian crisis. Neither the trillion-dollar U.S.
military led by the dazed and confused Bush administration, nor the
dysfunctional police and army under Bush's puppet leader Al-Maliki
have provided any measurable safety for Iraqis. If anything, civilian
killings are growing by the day.
Abdel-Hussein was a courageous man, someone an American would look up
to, like John Wayne – only real. What will be the result of this all
too common incomprehensible killing? It brings to mind an observation
Cindy Sheehan shared when speaking in Minneapolis this year. "It's
common sense that when you kill an innocent person, it's going to piss
off their relatives. I don't know why George Bush hasn't learned that
from me."
I'm very pissed off, too. And deeply saddened for what we have become.
Abdelhussein Saddam, 1957-2007
"The assassination of Abdel Saddam Hussein by US forces mafia will not
discourage the determination of the Iraq Freedom Congress and will be
a new impetus to continue the struggle to rid the Iraqi society from
all types of terrorists. They murdered Abdelhussein, but his spirit,
ambitious aspirations, and bravery for building Iraq that is secular,
humanitarian, and free from occupation and sectarian gangs, will be
firmly in the hearts of freedom lovers."
-- From a state! ment by the Iraq Freedom Congress on the death of
Abdel-Hussein Saddam, leader of the IFC Safety Force, July 8, 2007
Amjad Al-Jawhary
Iraq Freedom Congress
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