Beneath the rubble

Posted by Eddie Truman on November 3, 2006. Filed under International,Iraq. Posted with the tags:Iraq
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In normal times, Rana Al-aiouby would be studying. She already has a degree in French literature and was teaching French but wanted to continue her university education, perhaps doing postgraduate studies and learning Spanish.

But in 2003, the Americans and British invaded Iraq and changed the course of her life forever.

Now Rana takes medical supplies into towns and cities under siege by the occupation forces in Iraq, and takes out those women and children who are willing and able to leave.

Asked about her family background, Rana says that, like many Iraqis, her family descends from a mix of different geographical and social backgrounds.

She is proud of her surname, Al-aiouby.
“Do you know who this is I am descended from?
“Selahedîn Ayûbî, the world’s first terrorist!”

“Freedom fighter,” I say.

“Yes, the only man to liberate Jerusalem.
“My mother and father are both from Baghdad, my grandmother on my mother’s side is from Fallujah.”

Fallujah is a name that appears regularly throughout my discussions with Rana.

Forty-three miles west of Baghdad, with a pre-invasion population of 350,000, the town hit world news headlines when it was besieged twice by the Americans.

‘The first siege of Fallujah’ has become both a symbol of the inhumanity of the occupation armies and of the spirit of resistance of the Iraqis.

Bringing wounded women and children out of the city, Rana became a news story herself when the ambulance she was in was shot at by American troops.

We talk for a while about the huge social benefits brought to Iraq by the Baathist revolution of 1968 and the nationalisation of Iraq’s oil industry – Iraq became the best educated country in the Middle East, and its citizens had access to free health care.

“We were brought up with the basic demands of the Baathist revolution; that there should be one unified state for the Arab people and the idea of unity, freedom and socialism.
“When the Americans invaded, I started working as a translator for the media, but when the terrible sieges began I started doing what I could to help with humanitarian work.
“Working in the conflict area we would evacuate women and children, literally from under the bombing.”

The organisation that Rana now runs with the help of activists from the US, Europe and Scotland, was born during the second siege of Fallujah, when an American aid worker saw her carrying boxes of medical supplies through an American checkpoint and suggested Rana form her own aid organisation.

It was named International Peace Angels, and while other NGOs pull out their workers when the fighting begins, Rana goes to wherever people need help, even if there are American snipers picking off anything that moves.

“Whenever a town is put under siege, the Americans put snipers on vantage points and they shoot anything that moves on the streets; men, women, animals,” she says, “even if they are carrying a white flag.
“All the major Iraq cities are now surrounded by checkpoints and they will suddenly close them. Nothing gets out, nothing gets in. People can’t go to work, get supplies or anything.”

For Rana it is the situation faced by women and children under the occupation that pushes her to continue her work.

She cites the fact that 30,000 women have had miscarriages because of the state of fear they are living under.

A further 1,500 women have had miscarriages as a direct result of a beating from occupying soldiers.

“Sometimes when I think about it afterwards, the blood and the bodies, it is not easy, I wonder how I was able to do something like that. But you have to do it.
“This is what I believe; that even if I get shot and lose my life, if I have saved one life then I have done the right thing, if I have saved more than one life before I lose my own, then I will have won.
“And I wish I could do more, we have been created to help each other, not to sit about keeping our brains warm.”

The occupation forces have been involved in some of the most appalling war crimes against Iraqi women and children.

Rana goes over the details surrounding the rape and murder of 14 year old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi in Mahmoudiya earlier this year.

Abeer had been sexually harassed by a group of US soldiers at the checkpoint she had to go through every day. Then one afternoon they came looking for her, raped her and killed her and her family afterwards.

Rana reads the details, carefully taken in testimony from friends and neighbours, from a notebook, with the full names and dates of birth of all those killed.

The details are horrific.

It was to become a worldwide news story, with the American military desperate to paint this as a one-off incident, but Rana has arrived in the UK with the same methodical documentation of other atrocities committed by occupation forces.

On 4 May of this year an American patrol was hit by a roadside bomb in Samarra’a. Very quickly the area was the subject a huge military operation.

The Zaidan family, 14 in all, took shelter in what they thought would be the safest room in the house.

Twenty American soldiers entered the house, shouting and abusing the family. Dragging the father outside, they then start to execute the family, shooting the Grandmother through the eye in front of the children.

The two youngest girls are the only ones who survive unscathed, along with the wounded nephew of one of the women killed.

Rana shows me pictures of the wall of the room splattered with blood and pieces of brain, and the blood soaked book of one of the children.

“We hate the Americans because they killed our Grandma, our Uncle and our Aunt.”

On 6 May 2006, again in Samarra’a, a big American patrol raided the house of Atif Abed Khalaf, his wife and their four children.

At 7am the Americans took Atif outside, while the family watched from the kitchen window, and executed him.

Rana shows me pictures of different calibre bullet holes in the wall; more than one soldier had done the shooting.

On 3 January 2004 Zaidoun Fadel Hassoun was on the way back to Samarra’a with his cousin.

They were stopped by an American patrol after their truck broke down and the two were taken in handcuffs to the edge of the river – where they were told to jump in.

Zaidoun pled with the soldiers that he was unable to swim but was pushed in and drowned.

His cousin survived and related the story to his mother, who launched a campaign to bring the soldiers to justice.

The pictures that Rana brings, the interviews with survivors and witnesses, though they are in-depth and meticulous, give just a glimpse of the brutality meted out everyday on Iraq’s streets and in Iraqi people’s homes.
This is what occupation means, and this is the occupation in which Britain’s troops play a part.

And for every day occupation continues, their will be another Zaidan family, another Atif, another Zaidoun.