[WCUSP] [womeninblack] Waiting to be killed by Luisa Morgantini

[yvonne simmons]

> From: MORGANTINI Luisa 
> 
> 
> Palestinians in Iraq with nowhere to find shelter.
> For them, everywhere it is «denied entry»
> 
> Waiting to be killed
> 
> And the exclusions and discrimination brought into
> force by the Iraqi government
> Target of the army, the police, and fundamentalist
> militias, they have suffered 186 victims and 662
> armed attacks
> 
> By 
> Luisa Morgantini
> Vice President of the European Parliament
> 
> Published in Il Manifesto
> 6 April 2007
> 
> «You Palestinians, traitors, Saddam's people,
> terrorists, infidels. You must leave the country.
> You have ten days to get out otherwise we will come
> and kill you. Day of Justice Brigade.». It's a text,
> written on a piece of paper, found pinned to the
> door of their home in a district of Baghdad by a
> Palestinian family one morning last September. 
> The Palestinians in Iraq, apart from families who
> have lived there since times long gone by, are
> refugees from 1948 and 1967, who, in contrast to the
> Palestinians in other Arab countries who live mainly
> in refugee camps under the protection of the UN
> agency for the protection of refugees, UNRWA, live,
> or rather lived, in city districts in houses
> assigned to them by the government and who had
> travel documents and passports. 
> >From day one of the military occupation and the end
> of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003,
> Palestinians have been subjected to every type of
> discrimination. They have been sacked from their
> jobs, and suffered harassment and cruelty. Several
> humanitarian organisations have charged that «a
> systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing » is being
> carried out in Baghdad against Palestinian refugees.
> Only in 2006, more than 600 have been killed by
> Shiite militias. Tawfiq Abdul-Khalil Abu Abed, an
> old man of 70, was found dead with evident signs of
> torture, killed by a criminal group who had
> kidnapped him. Abu Abed is only one of the many
> victims of the death squads in Iraq. 
> 
> Shiites on the rampage
> 
> In the days immediately following the military
> occupation, during the greatest period of vandalism,
> Iraqi citizens, mainly Shiites forced many
> Palestinians to leave there homes to avoid being
> killed. They accused them of being collaborators
> with the regime, to have been treated in a
> privileged manner by Saddam, and of being Sunnites.
> In Kuwait too, after the war, Palestinians were
> persecuted, imprisoned, and more than 300,000 were
> forced to flee, losing all their possessions and
> paying the price of Saddam Hussein's war. 
> In Iraq, their houses have been broken into, looted,
> and then taken over by other Iraqis. Even the
> Palestinian embassy has been attacked three times
> and the ambassador has been in prison for more than
> a year. The security forces of the Iraqi Interior
> Ministry are accused of being involved in the
> arbitrary arrests, torture, killings and
> "disappearances" of many Palestinians. The armed
> militias linked to the Badr and Mahdi brigades have
> released proclamations against them and have
> attacked isolated Palestinians. 
> The process of continuing deterioration in the
> living conditions of Palestinians in Iraq is
> unstoppable and it is not possible to think of
> turning back the tide. The current state of Iraqi
> society, drowning in clashes, bombing raids, and
> terrorist attacks, does not allow it. Seen as the
> old privileged class from the times of Saddam
> Hussein's regime, the Palestinians have become a
> scapegoat. They are the target of all armed forces
> in Iraq, from the army to the police and the
> fundamentalist militias: 186 victims in 662 armed
> attacks, according to the Palestinian human rights
> organisation «Rased». And matching the violence is
> the process of exclusion and discrimination brought
> into being by the Iraqi authorities: all residence
> permits, whether temporary or permanent, obtained
> under Saddam Hussein's regime, have been annulled.
> It is almost impossible to obtain a travel permit,
> emission of documents for new born children have
> been suspended since 2003, every kind of assistance
> and humanitarian aid is denied. A law has been
> passed that obliges every single Palestinian to
> present himself or herself before the competent
> authorities every three months - the whole family,
> including newborn babies and old people without
> consideration for illness or disabilities. Any delay
> means a fine of 10 thousand dinars. 
> 
> Ethnic Cleansing in Baghdad
> 
> The Palestinians who had a passport have managed to
> cross the border and are once more refugees in
> Jordan and Syria. The others are without identity,
> without passport. In 2003, the High Commission of
> the United Nations for Refugees (UNHCR), registered
> 23 thousand Palestinians in Iraq while the total was
> estimated at 34 thousand. The agency has made known
> several attacks by armed militias. In particular, a
> few weeks ago in the Palestinian suburb of Baghdad,
> Al Baladya , following several threats aimed at
> forcing the Palestinians to abandon the zone, four
> were killed and a dozen were seriously injured, and
> many families were forced to leave their homes. The
> ambulances that tried to reach the area immediately
> after the attack were forced back by the armed
> militias. The suburb of Al Baladiya was normally
> home to around 8 thousand Palestinians, but
> according to Palestinian sources, there are
> currently only 4 thousand in the area. The agency
> expressed serious worries about the conditions of
> Palestinian refugees and about the difficulty of
> providing adequate protection for them. Though it is
> the responsibility of the Iraqi government and of
> the Coalition forces to guarantee protection, not
> only have the Iraqi government done nothing to
> protect the Palestinian population, the minister
> responsible for displaced and migrant people has
> called for the expulsion from Iraq of all
> Palestinians. The promise of the Kurdish president
> Jalal Talabani to guarantee the safety of
> Palestinians was worth nothing, and though in Iraq
> no one is safe, the Palestinians are less safe than
> others. 
> Most of those who fled from the cities to avoid
> being killed have reached refugee camps situated on
> the borders with Syria and Jordan. There are around
> 1300 stopped at the border, and according to UNHCR,
> around 20,000 are still trapped in Baghdad. 
> For the Palestinians in Iraq, escape is the only
> way, but it is also a forbidden way. The documents
> issued by the regime are now worthless and their
> legal status is not recognised (many are stateless),
> making them the minority that has most difficulty in
> leaving Iraq. Syria and Jordan, who have accepted
> thousands of Iraqis have closed their borders
> against the Palestinians. In 2004, Jordan granted
> entry to 386, who were married to Jordanians, while
> Syria accepted 256 in May 2006. This has led to the
> creation of 4 refugee camps, one in the Jordanian
> desert, one in Syria, one in Iraq, and one in the
> so-called «no-man's land » between Iraq and Syria.
> The camp at Ruwayshid, is one of the first camps. It
> is three hours by bus from Amman inside Iraq in the
> desert. It is a camp set up by the Jordanians who
> would not allow the first group of Palestinians who
> fled Baghdad in the first days of the bombardment of
> Iraq, to find refuge in Jordan. The Palestinians
> have now been living in tents for four years. They
> cannot leave the camp except to go to hospital in
> Amman. There are children who have never seen life
> outside the camp, they live surrounded by barbed
> wire and watched by armed guards. The request of
> UNHCR to the neighbouring states and to other Arab
> countries to keep their borders open to the
> Palestinian refugees coming from Iraq, since Syria
> and Jordan cannot be expected to confront the
> situation alone, remains unheeded. 
> Since May 2006 more than 400 Palestinians have been
> living in tents in the Al Tanf camp, in the desert
> in no-man's land between Syria and Iraq. When they
> arrived they found the border closed. Muhammod is 26
> and arrived at the camp this year, after a tragic
> journey in which his companion was brutally killed.
> He relates how they were already outside the city
> when the Iraqi police stopped them. When they
> realised that they were Palestinians, they took
> everything of value and started to beat them. The
> friend who accompanied Muhammod was killed by a blow
> to the head, while he himself was grazed on the neck
> by a bullet. He survived because they believed he
> was dead. His nose was broken by the blows and the
> police thought that the bullet had hit him in the
> face. 
> 
> «What do they want of us?»
> 
> Sahar Ahmed, is 41 and was born in Iraq. Her family
> fled from one of the 362 Palestinian villages
> evacuated in 48 by Israel and then completed
> destroyed to cancel the memory and the possibility
> of return for the inhabitants. She has four
> children. One has been tortured, the daughter has
> been raped and her husband has been killed. Armed
> men wearing ski masks entered their home and
> destroyed everything. Sahar managed to find the UN
> Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
> and giving testimony, said «I ask the world, what do
> you want from us? What are you waiting for before
> helping us? With a daughter raped, a son killed, a
> husband killed. Without a home, what do you need now
> before you help us get out of this country. How much
> suffering must we still endure? Must we wait here
> until they kill us all, expecting every day to be
> taken and tortured?». Nadia Othman, who fled from
> Baghdad to Jordan, tells of the death of her
> brother: «The Shiite militias stopped him while he
> was on his way to school where he taught Arabic.
> After they saw his documents, they shot him in the
> back of the neck in cold blood ». «The same day -
> continues the woman - they abducted and killed the
> president of the Palestinian Haifa Sports Club of
> Iraq». Another Palestinian, who managed to get to
> the northern West Bank, says that now no one goes
> out with their documents, in an attempt to cancel
> their identities. These seem almost like stories
> from Lebanon during the civil war - they used to ask
> those suspected of being Palestinians to say tomato.
> The Palestinians replied «bandura», and the Lebanese
> «banadura» . It's said that many Palestinians in
> Lebanon were recognised and killed because of this. 
> 
> Enough, we won't allow more crimes 
> 
> Adam Schapiro, an American sociologist and Perla
> Issa, a Palestinian who lives in Lebanon, have
> collected the testimonies of the tragic conditions
> of Palestinians in Iraq in a documentary. They are
> dedicated helping Palestinians to leave Iraq. We
> invited Perla to the European Parliament to
> participate in a meeting with the delegation
> relations wit the Palestinian Legislative Council
> and to sensibilise Europe and the parliament to the
> condition of Palestinian refugees and to ask the
> Union and the European governments to intervene.
> «The documentary and our commitment have a specific
> function: to persuade the leaders of national
> governments to grant political asylum to the
> Palestinian refugees coming from Iraq » said Perla.
> «Adam and I go round the world, from one national
> institution to another, to talk directly with
> governments, to sound out possible political
> amenability and to try to find ways to safety for
> the refugees». 
> 
> «The situation is very delicate - Perla Issa
> explained - we must find the right balance in the
> mediatic presentation. Raising the question too much
> could worsen the situation of Palestinians who are
> still in Iraq. It's right that the problem should
> enter the public domain but we believe that it is
> only possible to resolve it at the
> political-institutional level. We are asking all
> governments to accept the Iraqi Palestinians. In
> this sense, our recent visit to Chile was very
> fruitful. Chile, though not a country that is
> traditionally open to refugees, has accepted two
> hundred Palestinian refugees. The result is that
> probably, the Ruwayshid camp can be closed. We are
> in contact with other Latin American and European
> countries and our next mission is to Yemen, where
> the UNHCR is trying to set up a temporary evacuation
> centre». 
> 
> The European Union has a duty to support this
> project, but its principal responsibility must be to
> put pressure on the single national governments, to
> take in groups of Palestinian refugees. The entire
> international community must consider the case and
> recognise the tragedy, first of all calling on
> Jordan and Syria to open their borders and on
> Israel, responsible for the '48 e '67 refugees, to
> open the West Bank and Gaza to the Iraqi Palestinian
> victims. Italy as well, among the European countries
> that are most sensitive to the problem, must do
> everything to make a concrete contribution. 
> Up to now, the UNHCR has only found a solution for
> 62 refugees (54 accepted by Canada and 8 by New
> Zealand), while Adam and Perla acting independently
> and going to speak directly with governements, have
> managed to find a solution for another two hundred
> and to open negotiations with Brazil and South
> Africa. But a juster solution would be that of
> preventing the persecution of the Palestinians,
> calling on the Iraqi government and the occupying
> forces to defend and protect them. Even more just
> would be to allow the return of the refugees to
> their own land: the occupied Palestinian
> territories. Israel opposes this with the usual
> security issues - the Iraqi Palestinians could be
> dangerous extremists and the Palestinian government
> lacks the sovereignty to be able to decide whether
> to accept them. Action must be taken soon. Their
> lives are in danger and the Iraqi Palestinian
> community is suffering a new Nakba, after that of
> 1948. Our responsibilities and those of the
> International Community are immense. Let's not
> permit more crimes. Let's save them! 
> 
> Luisa Morgantini  
> 
> 
> Thanks to Jane Reynold, from Women in Black Italy,
> for having translated the article from Italian to
> English
> > _______________________________________________
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