Haifa Zangana

The entire Labour party shares blame for Iraq's horrors

Haifa Zangana — 2007-05-28T22:22:19Z

The members may want to pin responsibility on just one man, but they have a moral duty to question their own role

Iraqis often debate whether it is the Labour party as an institution or Tony Blair as an individual that is the real British culprit in their tragedy. This issue needs to be addressed, not least for the future of relations between Iraq and Britain; but the debate echoes the deeply felt anger among Arabs and Muslims worldwide.

Blair's callousness about Iraqi lives and the country's ongoing destruction should now be notorious. In December 2004, the BBC's Andrew Marr asked Blair during a visit to Baghdad's Green Zone: "Many thousands of people have died for this moment, including scores of British people: are you sure that this prize was worth that price?" Blair's answers ranged from, "I know that we are doing the right thing" to, "Yes, I believe we did the right thing" and, finally, "I've got no doubt at all that that is the right thing for us to do". (...)

- / Guardian

We have not been liberated

Haifa Zangana — 2007-03-07T16:45:00Z

Women's basic rights are being rapidly eroded in Iraq and occupation forces seem to have forgotten their promises of empowerment.

The regime in Baghdad's Green Zone is busy organising a celebration of a different kind for this year's International Women's Day on 8 March. Among its highlights will be the execution of four Iraqi women. This follows on from its decision to honour four of its Iraqi officers accused of raping a young woman Zainab Abbas Hussain al-Shummary. The office of prime minister had forged an American medical report. Long gone are the colourful parades of Iraqi women commemorating their achievements. Now we only have parades of death, where the "liberated" and "empowered" Iraqi women and girls, covered head to toe with hijabs and abayas, will queue at police stations, prisons, detention camps, hospital's "fridges" and crowded morgues looking for the disappeared, kidnapped or their assassinated loved ones.

Briefing MPs on the latest situation on Iraq, on the eve of invading Iraq, Prime Minister Tony Blair, his eyes glowed with messianic determination, said:

"I know the innocent as well as the guilty die in a war. But do not let us forget the 4 million Iraqi exiles, the thousands of children who die needlessly every year ... Let us not forget the tens of thousands imprisoned, tortured or executed by his [Saddam's] barbarity every year. The innocent die every day in Iraq - victims of Saddam - and their plight too should be heard."

Indeed, let us hear the plight of Iraqi people, especially women. (...)

- / Comment is free

The Blight of Occupation

Haifa Zangana — 2006-12-02T15:19:00Z

While the media focuses on civil war in Iraq, many Iraqis feel that the occupying forces pose a bigger threat.

Five children were killed in their house in Ramadi, in the Anbar province, western Iraq, yesterday. The youngest female casualty was six months old and the eldest was aged 10. Another female at the scene was injured but refused treatment, the US military said in a statement.

A US patrol fired tank rounds, machine gun and small arms fire at ” two men who were shooting from the roof of a house”, the statement said. After the “battle” there were no US casualties but the US patrol found six bodies (five children and a female adult) inside the house.

The new massacre, like many others, follows the same pattern of actions by US troops: kill, try to cover up the crime, then issue a statement blaming it on the “insurgents” either directly or indirectly.

But these days the US massacres barely prickle the consciousness of the public. We are being repeatedly told that the main story in Iraq is Iraqis killing Iraqis in their hundreds each day, and that the main question is whether it has yet become a sectarian civil war, as if the victims care about the label. So the scores of Iraqi girls killed, in various cities, by the occupation troops are just a minor part of the picture. For Iraqis, it is not. The presence of occupation troops and their crimes are the main picture. (...)

- / UK Watch, Comment is free

There is more than one triangle of resistance

Haifa Zangana — 2006-09-14T08:33:02Z

Reuters reports that the commander of US Marines in Iraq denied on Tuesday that his troops had lost the Anbar province they patrol, after newspapers said his intelligence chief had written the grimest report from the field since the war began.

The area he refers to as the Sunni insurgency's heartland is obviously part of the disappearing "Sunni Triangle", which make us wonder: whatever happened to the Sunni Triangle, the brand name which was used by the US-UK military spokesmen and all the media outlets in reporting on the US-led occupation's struggle to maintain effective control of Iraq since the invasion in 2003? (...)

- / Comment is free

The nightmares that fill the Baghdad night

Haifa Zangana — 2006-05-11T00:55:00Z

Iraq: the Women's Story was shown on Channel 4 last night. To protect the identity of the filmmaker, who lives in Baghdad and fears reprisals, she was given the name Zeina.

Zeina had sent me an email before the film was shown, saying:

Dear Haifa, I hope this letter finds you very well, also your family. I am writing to tell you that the film on the Iraqi woman is going to be shown today. I am interested in your opinion. Best and greetings, Zeina.

Immediately after watching the film, I emailed her my opinion. I received two replies. The first was brief:

I am happy you find it excellent. Thanks, Zeina.

PS: Intisar's brother was killed. She found his body in the hospital's fridge. He was slaughtered. She said that she is leaving. Well, sorry to tell you this, but you know how the situation is."

(...)

- / Comment is free

So this is the 'national unity government'?

Haifa Zangana — 2006-04-24T03:01:00Z

Last year's democratic elections were claimed by the occupation and its puppets as a panacea, even a main purpose of the occupation, a redress for an oppressed majority. Not any more.

Four months of sectarian and ethnic squabbling over the formation of a new government had reduced the crumpling daily life, corruption, the devastation of the occupation, occupation armed and trained death squads, abduction, torture and murders of thousands of people to a mere question: Jaafari or not Jaafari. (...)

- / Comment is free

The rhythm of death

Haifa Zangana — 2006-03-16T22:30:00Z

On December 7 Tony Benn and others wrote to the UN and attorney general asking them to investigate breaches of the Nuremberg charter and the Geneva convention in Iraq.

Was it yesterday or the day before? At 2pm, in Parliament Square, a few metres away from Brian's homage to the plight of Iraqi people under sanctions, war and occupation we were. Twenty men and women. Writers, filmmakers, activists, two Iraqi academics, two MPs, people from Arab satellite TV and David Wilson, Stop the War press officer.

Behind us there was a banner, a painting. A combination of a vertical section of Guernica with the word Falluja written on. An integral whole. A unified condemnation of two barbaric acts. George Steer, an eye witness to the first act wrote a report, which was published in the Times on April 28 1937. Here is an excerpt under the subtitle, Rhythm of Death:

It is impossible to state yet the number of victims. In the Bilbao Press this morning they were reported as "fortunately small" but it is feared that this was an understatement in order not to alarm the large refugee population of Bilbao. In the hospital of Josfinas, which was one of the first places bombed, all the 42 wounded militiamen it sheltered were killed outright. In a street leading downhill from the Casa de Juntas I saw a place where 50 people, nearly all women and children, are said to have been trapped in an air raid refuge under a mass of burning wreckage. Many were killed in the fields, and altogether the deaths may run into hundreds. An elderly priest named Aronategui was killed by a bomb while rescuing children from a burning house.

(...)

- / Comment is free

Death of a professor

Haifa Zangana — 2006-02-28T21:44:00Z

There is now a systematic campaign to assassinate Iraqis who speak out against the occupation

In a letter to a friend in Europe, Abdul Razaq al-Na'as, a Baghdad university professor in his 50s, grieved for his killed friends and colleagues. His letter concluded: "I wonder who is next!" He was. On January 28 al-Na'as drove from his office at Baghdad University. Two cars blocked his, and gunmen opened fire, killing him instantly.

Al-Na'as is not the first academic to be killed in the mayhem of the "new Iraq". Hundreds of academics and scientists have met this fate since the March 2003 invasion. Baghdad universities alone have mourned the killing of over 80 members of staff. The minister of education stated recently that during 2005, 296 members of education staff were killed and 133 wounded. (...)

[page 28 | Comment & Debate]

- / Guardian

The right to rule ourselves

Haifa Zangana — 2005-11-19T15:15:00Z

Faced with US torture, killing and collective punishment of civilians, support for the Iraqi resistance is growing

The photograph of an elderly Iraqi carrying the burned body of a child at Falluja, widely shown during the chemical weapons controversy of recent days, is almost a copy of an earlier one that Iraqis remember - from Halabja in March 1988. Both children were victims of chemical weapons: the first killed by a dictator who had no respect for democracy and human rights, the second by US troops, assisted by the British, carrying the colourful banner of those principles while sprinkling Iraqis with white phosphorus and depleted uranium.

Article continues

The Falluja image is emblematic of an unjust occupation. We read last week that US troops were "stunned by what they found" during a raid on a ministry of interior building: more than a hundred prisoners, many of whom "appeared to have been brutally beaten" and to be malnourished. There were also reports of dead bodies showing "signs of severe torture". Hussein Kamel, the deputy interior minister, was "stunned" too. This feigned surprise is a farce second only to the WMD lie. Torture has continued as under Saddam's regime in detention centres, prisons, camps and secret cells well beyond Abu Ghraib. (...)

[page 32 | Leaders & Reply]

- / Guardian

Chewing on meaningless words

Haifa Zangana — 2005-08-17T12:40:00Z

The battle over the constitution is regarded by most Iraqi women, confined to their homes by the occupation, as an irrelevance

A prominent group of Iraqi women who backed the US-British invasion recently met the American ambassador in an effort to pressure the politicians drawing up Iraq's constitution not to limit women's rights. Western feminist groups and some Iraqi women activists fear that Islamic law, if enshrined as a main source of legislation, will be used to restrict their rights, particularly in relation to marriage, divorce and inheritance. The US claims to share this concern. Iraqi women generally do not.

To understand why, perhaps we need to remember that this constitution is being written in a war zone, in a country on the verge of a civil war. This process is designed not to represent the Iraqi people's need for a constitution but to comply with an imposed timetable aimed at legitimising the occupation. The drafting process has increasingly proved a dividing, rather than a unifying, process. Under Saddam Hussein, we had a constitution described as "progressive and secular". It did not stop him violating human rights, women's included. The same is happening now. The militias of the parties heading the interim government are involved in daily violations of Iraqis' human rights, women's in particular, with the US-led occupation's blessing. Will the new constitution put an end to this violence? (...)

[page 21 | Comment]

- / Guardian

So much for illusions

Haifa Zangana — 2005-03-07T14:33:33Z

Behind the facade of post-election political process, despite Tony Blair's desire to move on and George Bush's attempt to mend fences with Europe, in Iraq the atrocities continue to mount. Some, like the Hilla attack, are Zarqawi-style, with hundreds dead and wounded. Others are more mundane and sustained, like US warplanes bombing suspect houses in Ramadi, Hit, or Mosul, roadblock killings in Najaff, or post-curfew hunting by snipers in Sammara.

Despite all the rhetoric about "building a new democracy", daily life for most Iraqis is still a struggle for survival, with human rights abuses engulfing them. A typical Iraqi day begins with the struggle to get the basics: petrol, a cylinder of gas, fresh water, food and medication. It ends with a sigh of relief: Alhamdu ilah (thanks, God), for surviving death threats, violent attacks, kidnappings and killings. (...) [page 16 | Comment]

- / Guardian

What drives the fighters in flip-flops

Haifa Zangana — 2004-11-17T15:14:00Z

In a statement that directly echoed George Bush, Qasim Daoud, Iraq's interim minister of state for national security, told a news conference at the weekend: "Mission accomplished... Falluja has been liberated". He proudly recited the list of the dead - 1,400 terrorists, foreigners and Saddamists. And what about civilians, the women and children trapped in the fighting zone. Any casualties? He avoided the question. (...) [page 26 | Comment]

- / Guardian

Chaos, murder and mayhem

Haifa Zangana — 2004-10-25T14:26:00Z

The kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is shocking but not surprising. We have come to accept that the same thing might happen to any of our family or friends. In fact, it already has happened to my dearest friend Nada. (...) [page 15 | Comment]

- / Guardian

Iraqis have lived this lie before

Haifa Zangana — 2004-06-29T13:21:10Z

In Iraq, we have an expression: same donkey, different saddle. Iraq's long-heralded interim government has now formally assumed sovereignty. Official labels and tags have duly changed. The US administrator will now be an ambassador, while Sheikh Ghazi al Yawar and Iyad Allawi, US-appointed members of the former governing council, are to be known as president and prime minister.

To formalise the change, the UN has already issued a resolution under which "multinational forces" will replace "US-led forces". On the issue of control over US troops, the message is clear: the US forces are there to stay only because "Iraqi people" has asked them to. But which Iraqi people? Do they mean the new administration headed by the CIA's Iyad Allawi? And why does all this sound strangely familiar? (...) [page 20 | Comment]

I, too, was tortured in Abu Ghraib

Haifa Zangana — 2004-05-11T05:00:00Z

Earlier this year, I met Adnan al-Obaidy in Baghdad. A dignified man in his 70s, he had just been released from Abu Ghraib prison where he had been detained for six months. Surrounded by his wife and three children, he greeted visitors carrying trays of baklava. In a rare moment of silence, I asked: "Were you tortured?" The polite smile deserted his face. "No," he said. With a strange emptiness in his eyes, he looked sideways. (...) [page 22 | Comment]