The Awakening of a Delicate Giant

Iraqi Women's Rights activist Yanar Mohammed reflects on her country's shaky future

Yanar Mohammed's eyes are wet with tears but lit with pride.
Her relatives, her friends, all her loved ones are thousands of kilometres away, under the bombs, in the devastated neighbourhood of Baghdad or Kirkuk. They survive - she hopes, with the resignation of one who got a taste of war - fighting for some water and food, carrying with them their frightened and sick children.
Yanar, a representative of the Iraqi Women's Rights organization in Canada, experienced the "humanitarian" bombs pounding Baghdad during Desert Storm in 1991. She perfectly knows the butcher's bill that, once again, civilians are footing...
And she unmasks, between the lines, "the great swindle" carried out backstage in the operation that the U.S. administration christened "Iraqi Freedom".
Yanar's hopes of peace were shattered in front of her television set, as she watched infrared images of the U.S. attack, and later, when cameras showed the fall of Saddam's statue on Paradise Square.
She harbours few illusions on the future of Iraq, and that's why she spent days stationed in front of the U.S. consulate in Toronto, rain or shine, bearing witness to the reality of a people dying for the dirty business of the system most of us profit from.
She doesn't mince words, and speaks loud and clear.
Don't you think that this war was waged for the freedom of the Iraqi people?
"I think this is genocide, not war... and anyway, it should be for the Iraqi people, for the Iraqi people alone, to decide their lot. We all know that Saddam was going to be ousted, one way or the other, but at what price? When the Americans depart, only death and devastation will remain... too high a price, don't you think? Of course Iraqis do not want this kind of 'liberation'. The Americans promise to rebuild the country, presenting themselves as liberators, but we should be the people rebuilding the place where we've lived and which we were forced to flee."
How was life under Saddam's rule?
"Terrible. Nobody ever denied this."
Weren't the sanctions conceived to lead to Saddam's ousting?
"Sure, that was the official reason. However, the only result of the sanctions was to exhaust a people already worn down by war and tensions."
What do you mean?
"At first they cut off pharmaceuticals: they said that drugs could be used to manufacture chemical weaponry. Then came food. As a result, 1.5 million Iraqis died, including 500,000 children. Finally, the attack came. These have been the only results of the 'oil for food' program: Saddam becoming richer, and our people being sentenced to a slow death. When I was living there, I saw the 'smart' bombs devastate whole neighbourhoods. Doors were thrown down, no window survived."
Your loved ones are in Baghdad; what is really happening there?
"I managed to phone them a week ago, then communications were cut. They told me that the bombs were falling at random on an already destroyed city, adding horror to terror."
What about civilians?
"We're talking of thousands of casualties, to say nothing of the wounded who will be scarred for life. Bassora is paralyzed. In Karcun, where I have some relatives, water and power have been cut for days now. In any case, this is worse than 1991."
Do you think that the media are reporting on this war fairly?
"I don't know. What I can say is that all too often my people are presented as barbaric, uncivil. Think of the scenes with people crowding around food packages or water, pushing and shoving. Did anybody realize that if a mother has four starving children she's perfectly ready to push and shove to obtain some food for them? Most of all, aren't those who forced some fellow human beings in those conditions more barbaric by far? We saw the images on TV, we were a group of Iraqis, and every frame looked weirder and weirder. First, the fact that the statue was demolished by Americans and not Iraqis is very meaningful. And where was the crowd mentioned in the newspapers? On TV we saw no more than 200 people at best, many of whom were clearly reporters, as they were taking pictures and shooting cameras."
You are working for women's rights in Iraq. What was their condition under Saddam's rule?
"Paradoxically, one of the best in the Middle East. Forty percent of the women, in fact, worked for the public administration. They generally got good education and were not forced to wear the veil."
The US administration proposed a new leader for Iraq, Ahmed Chalabi. What do you think of him?
"Chalabi is a corrupt banker, a man without scruples, who often put his personal interest before the destiny of his people. Should Chalabi really take power, Iraq will live another nightmare. And the condition of women will surely worsen."
Why?
"It is evident that the U.S. administration sees in Chalabi its man in Iraq. On the other hand he's been installed in Southern Iraq for the past few days, and we can't rule out the possibility that he already struck some deal with U.S. businessmen. Chalabi's story is no mystery, and he's well known in the country as 'the Baghdad thief'. In 1992 a Jordanian tribunal sentenced him to 22 years of forced labour, and he's currently under an Interpol arrest warrant. Moreover, in the corridors of Amman's royal palace King Abdallah II is rumoured to agree with many of his subjects, who allege that Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress, in 1989 misappropriated $500 million from the bank he was chairing and fled, leaving shareholders and account holders penniless. Some diplomatic sources think that the Jordanian elite could soon change its mind about Chalabi, due to U.S. pressure or to the usual dependence of the small kingdom from Iraqi oil."
Is there an ideal solution?
"I think that the only way out would be for Iraqi exiles who escaped abroad to avoid jail in Baghdad, to return home. In my opinion they are those who should lead the rebuilding of our country, and certainly not people like Ahmed Chalabi."
Do you feel supported by the antiwar rallies?
"I feel that somehow the 'giant' is awakening."

Publication Date: 2003-04-20
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=2627