Monday, December 29

Help the Bam earthquake victims

Online donations can be made to the Red Cross/Crescent while UK residents can donate here and US residents here. Eyeranian casts doubt on the trustworthyness of the Iranian Red Crescent, saying in the mid-90s he could buy unused tents marked with the RC logo from the previous earthquake appeal.

Alternatives are Islamic Relief or Mercy Corps.

Some moving accounts posted on the BBC comments page from relatives, friends and survivors. Also hear what Iranian bloggers are saying.

Monday, December 22

Photos from Iraq

I've finally got around to posting these up on my fotopage. planning a return trip to Baghdad in mid-January on the way back West after the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India. I'll make an effort to take more and better photos. Off to cinema to see Lord of the Rings now, am completely over excited!

Wednesday, December 17

So, do you look your age?

Today's been quite a media flurry for Jubilee Iraq, what with James Baker's tour of Europe. I was due to be in Geneva today to protest at the UN Compensation Commission (which is having it's 50th meeting to allot yet more reparations against Iraq) but none of the London Iraqis who wanted to come were able to get visas over the Switzerland. So instead I spent the day firing off press releases left right and centre.

Did a 3 minute slot on CNN breakfast news, which was my first experience of a TV interview - quite surreal. The lady who called to invite me on the program asked how old I was (25) and then said "not meaning to be rude, but do you... hmm, look you age?" Help, if I was being really honest I should have said that I almost get IDed going into 18 certificate films and when I was in Iraq was frequently asked "how is it that your parents and school have allowed you to come here?" If I had come clean, I wonder if they would have said "thanks but no thanks" - though wouldn't that be age-ist, or appearance-ist or something.

Until about half an hour ago I was due to get up at 6am tomorrow to be interviewed on the Today program, the BBC's flagship morning news/politics show, but annoyingly that has been cancelled. I seem to spend ages waiting for calls from journalists and they end up calling at inappropriate times. Just now some guy from the Associated Press in America called right in the middle of the penultimate episode of the last ever series of Buffy... grrrrr.... aaarg....

Tuesday, December 16

Photos & celebrations

I've just set up a photo page. So far there are just a few photos of friends from my last few weekends and about 40 photos of a building site in Baghdad which I posted up to help an Iraqi friend who is trying to find investors to support his little project - just about the only real "reconstruction" actually happening on the ground. But I'll try and post up all my photos from Iraq in the next couple of days.

I went to a celebratory rally with some young Iraqi friends outside the Houses of Parliament last night, it was being filmed by the Iraqi Media Network - did any friends in Baghdad spot me? (actually, I know none of you watch the state media).

Later I had supper with two older Iraqi friends to chew over all the implications of Saddam's capture and discuss how this effects the Jubilee Iraq campaign. One of them had just finished a two hour interview with Al-Mutaqele, an arabic satalite channel, and was frustrated at how many of the Arab callers to the program (aside from Iraqis and Kuwaitis) had criticised him for welcoming Saddam's capture, and accused him of being an American stooge. This to a guy who has campaigned for years against the US sanctions, against the war and is now on the board of Occupation Watch. He said that some Arabs can get very blinkered and see things in black and white - "Saddam was against the Americans, so if you are pleased that he was captured then you must be with them", I pointed out this is very similar thinking to Bush's "You're either with us or with the terrorists."

It's been one of the great pleasures of working on Jubilee Iraq that I've been able to work with people who have much more complex political views than the black & white sylogisms of either the Arab extremist or the American Neocon varieties, and who are willing to adjust their views as situations change or new evidence comes to light.

Friday, December 5

The 519th Billesdon dinner

Now for something completely different: let me give you an account of the archaic remnants of British tradition and privilage.

This evening I was a guest at the annual Billesdon dinner, at which the Master and Wardens of the Merchant Taylors' Company visit the Worshipful Company of Skinners. These two "companies", along with many others based in the heart of London's financial district (called "The Square Mile" or simply "The City"), are all that is left of the ancient guilds which once dominated British - and indeed global - trade. The remnants of the guilds are essentially social clubs with some tacked on charitable activities, principally schools (the Skinners founded Tonbridge, where my father was educated, while the Merchant Taylors school main is Winchester). The members of the guilds are drawn from "the great and the good" of British society, in large part the financial services industry, for whom the guilds are a useful networking forum and a colourful backdrop to the fevour of the financial markets, reminding them of a time when The City dealt in physical goods rather than abstract financial instruments. Anyhow the origins of this particular dinner are in 1484 when, following an armed battle between the Skinners and the Taylors, over which would march ahead of the other at the annual Lord Mayors Show, Mayor Billesdon decreed that they should kiss and make up, cementing this with an annual dinner. Five hunderd and ninteen years later this is still happening - with considerably better food, wine and cigars than would have been available back in 1484. The meal is steeped in ceremony, from the sung grace, to the passing of the Loving Cup to the formal toasts to the royal family and officers of the companies.

I'd expected the whole affair to be very alien, but as it happens I had connections to the all the principal participants. The Master of the Skinners was educated at my prep school (the Dragon), the after dinner speaker was an alumni of my Oxford College (Balliol) and the most honoured guest, the Acting Master of the Taylors, was my sister's godfather. I was forcifully reminded how inescapably entwined I am with the old British Establishment by dint of upbringing and education.

Anyhow, the guest speaker, Sir Eric Anderson, the Provost of Eton College (bitter rivals of my own secondary school Radley), was very humourous and impressive. He has the unusual history of having taught, early in his career, both the Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Heir to the Throne Prince Charles. A few years ago there was a very powerful television advertising campaign to attract people to teaching in which celebrities simply spoke the names of their favourite teachers, with the tag line "No one forgets a good teacher." Tony Blair named Eric Anderson. This fact makes what he said at the dinner particularly poinient. "Something I must clear up immediately is that, while I did teach the Prime Minister, I certainly did not teach him either politics or economics... And his latest proposals do not get high marks." He was refering to the governments policy of introducing £3000 top-up fees for university students, something Anderson said was the most bureaucratic and least effectual option for tackling the crisis in higher education. Anderson certainly agrees with the government that more funding is needed for universities - stating that the Americans spend 2.7% of GDP on this against our mere 1% - but favoured a system of giving univeristies discretion in what they charge, with half of raised funds going to pay bursaries for students unable to afford the fees.

Anyhow, much to my shame I rather enjoyed the dinner, although after the five courses of food, wine, port, brandy, cigar and pipe... I was feeling rather brittle this morning.

Wednesday, December 3

In Prague

Suddenly It seems I'm becoming a bit of a jet setter. I'm currently in Prague for a Eurodad conference of about 100 debt and development campaigning groups, mainly from Europe but also Zambia, Indonesia and South Africa. I've been amazed by the amount of interest in Jubilee Iraq, and am really excited by the number of groups across Europe who are keen to start campaigning on Iraq (or who have already begun without our knowledge!).

I saw the World AIDS Day concert in Cape Town on Czech TV on Monday night, great stuff. The crowd was a bit confused about when to cheer. When Nelson Mandela was talking, and saying things like "when I was in jail for 18 years the Apertheid regime wanted to reduce me to a number (46664), now millions of individuals dying from AIDS are also being reduced to mere numbers." Importan and stirring stuff coming from the living legend, but not really appropriate for cheering... but crowds at concerts are used to cheering. Anyhow you can donate the AIDS program of the Nelson Mandela Foundation at www.46664.com.

Monday, December 1

World AIDS Day

Over 45 million people are infected with HIV, more of half of them are in Sub-saharan Africa. South Africa has the largest burden, with latest figures implying 5.3 million have HIV. Tying in with World AIDS Day (today), I've written a 2-page update on my report for NPC Rhetoric to Action, a guide for potential donors to AIDS projects in South Africa. We've emailed the update to about 500 wealthy indiviudals and foundations, and hopefully it will generate some new funding into projects such as the Treatment Action Campaign.

Sunday, November 30

A rose by any other name...

I've decide it's time for a name change. Out with the rather nondescript "Justin's waffle" and in with "Iraqi wannabe". The occassional waffling will continue of course.

Saturday, November 29

CPT leaflet for Coalition forces

My friends at Christian Peacemaker Teams have begun leafleting Coalition troops in Iraq to inform them of their duties to Iraqis under international law. Here is the text of the leftlet entitled "Coalition Forces and the Human Rights of Iraqi Citizens":

Like all human beings, Iraqis have a right to just treatment and respect. Yet many Iraqi families have shared with us their stories of U.S. troops violating their human rights and dignity. As a result, support is growing among Iraqis for violent resistance.

If any Coalition soldier mistreats an Iraqi citizen, it endangers all Coalition soldiers. For your own safety and for the well-being of Iraqi citizens, we invite you to abide by these principles taken from the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and related humanitarian and human rights law:

* Soldiers have a duty to protect civilians. Care must be taken not to harm those who are unarmed, or women, children, and the elderly or sick. Force should be used only when absolutely necessary and in proportion to the level of force threatened.

* Coalition Forces, as the Occupying Power in Iraq, are ultimately responsible for ensuring that family members of detainees are notified as to where they will be detained.

* It is against international law to punish a group of people collectively, (such as reprisal assaults on a family, neighborhood, or town) because individuals within that area have attacked Coalition Forces. Only those who have are guilty of wrongdoing should be punished.

* Soldiers shall respect the property of civilians. If property is confiscated, a receipt must be issued with explicit instructions for how it may be retrieved.

Iraqis detained by Coalition Forces have been held for months without charges, without legal counsel, and without contact with their families. The loss of husbands and fathers and the income and security they provide creates terrible hardship for families. Often men are detained on the basis of false information and malicious rumors. Please remember that suspicion is not proof and that the men detained may be innocent of all wrongdoing.

Coalition Forces are obliged to respect the provisions of international human rights treaties to which their home countries and/or Iraq havesigned. The ‘Rules of Engagement’ are not the only rules which apply. You can be held liable for your actions in Iraq, even if you are obeying orders from your commanding officer. When you return home, will you be able to tell your families that you acted with honor and compassion?

Christian Peacemaker Teams is a program of Christian churches, congregations, and individuals who believe in nonviolent means of conflict resolution and violence reduction. CPT members engage in mediation and conflict transformation, nonviolent action, and observation and reporting of human rights abuses. For more information, please visit our website at http://www.cpt.org

Thursday, November 27

Friends under threat of bombs

Whoops - this post is from 14th November, but I just noticed I'd posted it on Jubilee Iraq news by mistake (as I use Blogger to write that as well).

I just got an email from my friends at Christian Peacemaker Teams (i recommend subscribing to their list):

"Yesterday we visited the sheikh at his mosque in Adumiyah district. He reported that a day earlier the Coalition military patrols had rolled through the streets and announced, "This is the last warning for inhabitants of this area. We will use the tanks to bomb Adumiyah." There is a US military base directly across the river in one of Hussein's old palaces and there have been times when the base shoots randomly across the river into the central civilian area of the district. Many of the main buildings have received damage, including a minaret of the mosque."

The cleric mentioned here is Sheikh Mauyad of the Abu Hanifa mosque, a lovely man who so humble you wouldn't realise he's probably the most senior Sunni religious leader in the country. I interviewed him about debt and then we chatted for a long time about Islam. I feel sick at the thought of my friends in Adumiyah being bombed yet again.

Saturday, November 15

Jo Wilding in Baghdad

Felt so "home-sick" reading Jo's eloquent first post back in Baghdad. Anyone who's read my blog in October may recognise some of the people she talks about - Salam and Muthana who were my translators (who are going to Geneva for Indymedia training - wow congratulations guys!!); the Al-Fanar hotel, which has now opened the outdoor cafe in the space between the concrete blocks and razorwire defending the Palastine hotel; Michael and Eva who are busy defending the Palastinian refugees (who's position is particularly precarious)...

I'm stuck in my room in London processing hundreds of unread Jubilee Iraq emails and planning how to use Bush's visit to Britain next week to advance the campaign. Going to an Anglo-Iraqi "iftar" in at sunset - the meal which breaks the fast during Ramadan (have any budding etmologists out there noticed the root of the english work "breakfast"). I hope there'll be some of the Iraqi dishes which Riverbend mouthwateringly describes.

Wednesday, November 12

Oppression in Egypt

I went to a meeting last night about the 2nd Cairo Conference, which will bring together Western and Arab peace campaigners next month. I was incredible impressed with the Egyptian guy who was speaking (though can't recall his name I'm afriad). I hadn't realised quite how repressive Egypt is. Apparently it's a crime for 5 or more people to stand together in the street for any reason! Against this context it's amazing that thousands openly gathered in Tahrir Square on 20th March , for the first time since 1972, to do what they called "a Hyde Park"! Apparently there are hundreds in jail and being tortured as a result of these protests. Apparently when an Egyptian novelist was recently awarded an important prize (similar to the Booker Prize I think), he refused to accept it from the Minister of Culture, instead speaking out about the human rights abuse. I'm hoping to go to Cairo for the conference, and look forward to meeting some of these brave Egyptians activists.

Time to breath

There's been a really great development in my life - ashkurallah - I'm downsizing to part-time work! Basically the last seven months have been crazy working full time at NPC and doing Jubilee Iraq in early mornings, evenings and weekends. I've had almost no time to chill, zero social life and have been doing justice to either NPC or Jubilee.

Going to Iraq certainly put a bit of perspective on things, and then a few weeks ago I was reading Pauls letter to the Philippians "Do nothing out of selfish ambition, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others" (2:v3-4). It was one of those 'words jumping out of the page' experiences and I knew that this was a principle God was telling me to apply in my situation. Why was I sticking at my nice safe job instead of putting more energy into trying to help Iraq and get the unjust debt cancellation?

I though the best solution would be to work part-time, so I could still earn a little money to pay the rent and Jubilee Iraq expenses, but have two days mid-week to think, write and get on the phone to people (it's been really hard trying to run the campaign without being able to call people during office hours). It looked pretty unlikely that this would be acceptable, so I was expecting to have to resign. That probably wouldn't have been a great solution because, quite apart from lack of money, I'd probably revert to my natural laziness and end up lying in bed until mid-day if I didn't have the discipline of paid employment. Anyhow after much umming and ahhing I popped the question to my bosses and, what do you know, they graciously agreed!

The next month is going to be pretty crazy even with the extra time. Important meeting with UK government next week, writing an op-ed for New York Times, doing a proper launch of the Iraqi views on debt report, lecturing in Parliament on 27th and possibly going to meetings in Prague, Paris, Cairo and Geneva in early December. Not sure how I'm going to afford all that travel, but with the new part-time arrangement I should certainly be able to find the time. Another huge answer to prayer is that a couple of amazingly talented people in various parts of the world have emailed over the last few days offering to lend a hand. I'm pretty dreadful at delegating, but now I'll have a bit more thinking and emailing time hopefully Jubilee Iraq will be able to make proper use of some of these wonderful volunteers.

So things are basicaly looking up, al-hamdulillah. Now all that's missing is a girlfriend.

Sunday, November 2

World Beard Championship

I couldn't resist this link for the World Beard and Mostache Championships taking place in Carson City Nevada. It seems to be a German dominated event, but I know a couple of Iraqi Sheikhs who could take the event by storm. Its coming to London in 2007 so I need to find a way to cultivate something on my baby smooth face - Haythem can we do the hair/mostache swap we agreed when I'm next in Baghdad?

The idea for an Iraqi voices group blog is developing... watch this space (and email if you know Iraqis who'd like to be involved). For now, here's a new angle from Baghdad: Babel On, the blog of an American contractor living in the Palastine hotel.

Thursday, October 30

Iraq conference + day job update

The Reconstructing Iraq conference which I spoke at on Monday went reasonably well. On the plus side I didn't mumble, stutter or get stuck (my usual fears with public speaking), got an invitation to speak at a similar conference in the US and was thanked afterwards by a number of people, including a delegate from a Russian oil company - very bizarre!

Update on my day job (NPC): There now a 3-page summary of my guidebook on philanthropic giving to tackle AIDS in South Africa online. I'm currently working on one about cancer in the UK, might be doing AIDS in India early in the new year, and then it's likely I'll do a long project on prisoners and ex-offenders in Britiain for much of 2004. My big hope is to get the go ahead to do a guidebook on peace and reconsiliation worldwide, which would involve visiting lots of amazing grassroots projects in conflict zones and trying to secure lots of funding for them.

Saturday, October 25

Missing Iraq

I've been suffering from a bit of culture shock since I've been back in England. I'm used to walking out on the street and immediately being bombarded with calls of "Hello Mister!" from kids, handshakes from shabab (youths) and invitations from old men to "stikhir" (sit down) and drink tea. Now I leave my flat on a cold overcast morning and spend half an hour standing squashed in the Underground on my way to work, during which time not a single person makes eye contact or acknowledges my existence.

Here's something bizarre. Some of my friends are protesting next week outside a conference for companies trying to win contacts in Iraq, they are taking a huge Iraq-shaped cake and will be offering delegates a slice to represent the corporate takeover of Iraq. The bizarre thing is that I'm not going to be involved in the protest because I'm speaking at the conference! I got a call this week from the conference organisers and am hurridly preparing a presentation this weekend. I'm going to explain why companies should support cancellation of Saddam's debt, and also argue a business case for them operating ethically in Iraq. Instead of making a quick buck from unfair contracts and being chased out when Iraqis take over, if companies employ Iraqis on good terms, partner with Iraqi companies and generally treat Iraqis with fairness and respect, then they will benefit in the long term as Iraq prospers. I feel very out of my depth, but thankfully my friend David has stepped in to help.

There's a new US soldier blogger online, Boots on Ground. One of his first posts notes that Iraqis "aren’t all that different than us Americans", which is an enouraging observation of shared humanity. The final version of my visit report is online by the way: Iraqi views on debt and reparations (pdf).

Finally, off the topic of Iraq completely, I was very excited to meet one of my heros this week - Zackie Achmat. He heads the Treatment Action Campaign in South Africa, which lobbies on behalf of people with HIV/AIDS. Zachie is HIV+ himself, but refused to take antiretroviral drugs (which he could afford to buy) until the South African government agreed to make them available to poor people as well. Back in August there was a U-turn in SA policy, as i mentioned, and in principle the government is now committed to providing universal access to drugs, though roll out may take 3-5years. Zackie has therefore been taking drugs for 7 weeks now, and says his energy level has doubled. In the last few years he's struggled to concentrate enough to read a single book a year, but has now read 4 in the last 7 weeks alone. Here's a picture of us:

Tuesday, October 21

Back in the UK

I've had some worried emails due to the absence of blogs for a few day. Thanks for the concern, but the reason is just that I was traveling back to London. I'm going to be pretty busy the next few days catching up on my day job (starting a study of cancer in the UK), endlessly repeating the same Baghdad stories to friends, and trying to get the Iraqi views about debt heard at the Madrid conference. I'll post up some more photos in a couple of days.

For your reading pleasure there's a new Iraqi blogger in town Healing Iraq, Salam Pax is blogging again (keep an eye on the fierce Goggle battle between him and Riverbend for the top slot on a search for "Baghdad blog") and I'm keen to get the Iraqi Voices group-blog thing I mentioned off the ground soon. Other Iraq links on my Future of Iraq Portal, hopefully that'll keep you all busy and out of trouble for a while.

Saturday, October 18

Old and new

I spent 3 hours today waiting at the Governing Council building for a meeting with a member which ended up lasting just 3 minutes! Most of the time waiting I was chatting with the Nepalese guards. For those non-Brits, the Gurkas are the crack regiment in the British Army, uniquely made up not of Brits but of soldiers from Nepal. The practice dates back a couple of hundred years - the British Raj in India found the Nepalese hill tribes such tough opponents that they finally agreed to stop fighting and hire them instead. Now a private security company has hired retired Gurka soldiers and is using them to guard the most sensitive locations in Iraq. There's a funny kind of symettry in this: one of the last remnents of the British Empire working as outsourced employees in support of new outsourced US Empire. Maybe in a few years time there will be a regiment of Kurdish Peshmerga patroling Cuba on behalf of the US.

Friday, October 17

Pigeons and Passats

It's Friday today, the weekend in Iraq, and I've had my first really relaxing day so far. I spent most of it with my friend Jamil and his family, up in far north of Baghdad in one of the poorest Shia slum areas, named "the Torch of Islam". The dirt roads between houses are full of sewerage which often seeps into the rooms, and a dozen people live in 3 room houses. It's poor but welcoming. I played with the children, ate a huge meal, debated with the local cleric and learnt all about pigeons.

Iraqis are fanatical pigeon fanciers. In many of their gardens there are flocks of fifty or more birds of every colour and shape. Sometimes they race them, taking them up to Samara or Mosul and letting them find there way home (this was how urgent messages used to be carried before telephones). But mainly they're just for fun, much as people in England keep dogs (which are considered unclean in Islam, and so rarely kept as pets). It was wonderful seeing my Iraqi friends proudly displaying their birds and explaining the lineage and qualities of each individuals. After quite a lot of false starts, I learnt how to catch and hold a pigeon gently, and I've got some great photos which I'll try to post up tomorrow.

Something I've wanted to post about for a while - because it's constituted a big chunk of my time in Baghdad - is the traffic. Firstly the cars themselves. The sanctions inhibited the import of new cars and spare parts for old ones, so Iraqis made do with their impressive technical skills, and kept a fleet of ancient cars running for years beyond their natural lifespans. Apart from the newly imported black BMWs without licence plates (beware), most of the Iraqi cars are battered and misshapen, making strange and worrying noises - but they run pretty well. Practically every other car you see is an identical Volkswagen Passat, reminiscent of the uniformity of the Model T Ford days. These cars have a "Made in Brazil" logo on their rear window - which I'll explain in a moment - and, for not discernible reason, often have a Batman symbol on their boots. The Brazil link explains the proponderance of these cars - apparently Saddam's wife owns (owned?) a factory in Brazil which made these models, so in the 1980 hundreds of thousands of them were imported to Iraq and distributed as part of the regime's patronage to its supporters.

If one assumes that every battered car without passengers is a taxi, you're likely to be correct about 70% of the time, so it's incredibly easy to find a ride in Baghdad. There's no such thing as computerised fair counters, so you haggle with the driver before getting in. It's incredibly cheap for a foreigner. This evening, for example, when I returned from Jamil's house about an hour's drive from my hotel, the fare was less than one and a half dollars. The fares are so cheap partly because fuel is still almost free at about 5c a gallon, and because of the competition between all the taxi drivers (many of whom you'll find have graduate degrees).

The traffic is very congested, partly as a result of the lack of border controls leading to the import of huge numbers of cars from Jordan, and partly because of the collapse in order. Traffic lights get ignored in a country used to regular power cuts which render lights irrelevant, many road surfaces are in serious state of despair, and drivers pretty much ignore any traffic laws. On one of my first days my driver took a short cut by doing a U turn and driving the a couple of hundred meters in the opposite direction to the oncoming traffic on one of the cities' main three lane highways! In the few weeks I've been here there has been a noticeable increase in traffic police, and I feel a deep respect for these valiant people who stand in the middle of crossroads trying to direct four lines of cars, all of whom are trying to push ahead. Although bizarrely the traffic seems to flow quicker left to its own devices without the police, still I appreciate in principal their attempt to bring some order to Baghdad's majnoon (crazy) traffic.

Thursday, October 16

My wierd photo...

A couple of people have asked what on earth is happening in my photo on the top left corner of this page. No, I'm not drinking from a big wine glass, or speaking into a fuzzy microphone... in fact I'm blowing bubbles, one of my favourite pastimes. I should really have brought some bubbles to Iraq, as there is an urgent need for fun here. Even better, my friend Jo Wilding is bringing over some circus performers to entertain at schools and in the streets - see www.circus2iraq.org! The photo is in fact from a protest for the cancellation of third world debt at the annual summit of the G8, the richest countries in the world.

The difference a day can make...

Today has been much more sucessful. Sinan Al Shabibi, who's the new Governor of the Central Bank, returned to Baghdad after a few weeks in Geneva and we managed to meet up. He was very gracious to give me an hour of his time on the second day of the new currency when he's very busy. He told me it was actually easier to do his job when he was in Geneva because of between access to internet and phones, than it is when he's in the Central Bank office in Baghdad! This is the same story I've heard in many of the ministries and ties in with my own frustrating experiences - hopefully in a few months the communications will be better, then Iraqis will really be able to get down to the hard work or rebuilding their country - not just the physical infrastructure, but the institutional and social infrastructure (skills etc.) as well, which Sinan explained had been ravaged by twenty five years of Saddam's reign of terror.

I also met a representative of Muqtada Al Sadr. I'd hoped to meet his Shadow Finance Minister, but apparently he hasn't been appointed yet. Sadr City (the poor Shia slums to the North East of Baghdad) was crawling with US soldiers in expectation of trouble in the run up to Muqtada's big rally in Najaf tomorrow.

The other good news is that I finally managed to meet up with my Iraqi friend Jamil, it was sooo wonderful to see him after two and a half years. We went to the British Council to apply for a job I saw they had on offer, but annoyingly it was closed when we arrive - hoping to try again on saturday. He needs a job so he can get a flat for his family - currently he is living with his parents (he's mid-40s) his wife and children are living with their relatives at the other end of Baghdad, because there is no room for them to live together. If anyone reading this is in contact with NGOs working in Baghdad who might need a translator / guide / office manager then Jamil would be perfect, one of the most genuine and reliable people I know.

I arrived back this evening to find grass outside my hotel. Well, a patio of bright green fake grass. Mauyed, the lovely proprietor of the Al Fanar Hotel where I stay (anyone coming to Iraq please stay here, its only $25 a night, half the price of most hotels, and so friendly - more like a family than a hotel) had an idea to create a little garden area since the security zone around the neighbouring Palastine hotel was extended, blocking the Fanar carpark with concrete barriers and razor wire. I'll try and post a photo later, its quite surreal! Mauyed explained that before the war at least 50 of his 96 rooms were continually rented, now its down to a maximum of 18 - and he as 70, yes 70, staff on the payroll, none of which he has the heart to fire, so he's just hemoraging his savings. So come and stay here, a great place for a holiday with some winter sun right on the bank of the Tigris. Actually I'm serious, Iraq is a great place for streetwise backpackers, particularly if you bother to learn a few words of Arabic - you'll recieve a warm welcome and many free meals, and the danger is not so great so long as you are obviously not a soldier and treat the people you meet with respect.

I've had one of my random ideas - to create an "Iraqi Voices" blog - a group blog involving dozens of Iraqis, so that there would be a varied commentary updated hourly rather than daily or weekly like most blogs and newspapers. If you know any Iraqis you use the net and have good english who would be interested in this (or are such a person yourself!) then please drop me an email!

Wednesday, October 15

Draft version of the debt consultation

I've muddled together a brief (5 page) summary of the Jubilee Iraq consultation on Iraqi views about the $200bn foreign debt and reparations (the reason I'm here in Baghdad). Here is a MS Word document , and here's a less flashy html version

Just one of those days...

Today was the anniversary of the 100% "referendum" in favour of Saddam last year, it was also the first day of the new dinar notes without Saddam's head on. There's been a lot of tension in the air and a heavy presence of soldiers. I came back to my hotel just now to find the proprieter sitting with his head in his hands - everything was going wrong: few guests, little water, problems getting supplies... and the fortifications around the Palastine hotel 200 meters away are extending each day, as if to gobble up the poor little Al-Fanar hotel.

I've had a frustrating day today, probably my low point in Baghdad. The finale just now was wandering into a roll of unexpected newly laid razor wire in the dark and cutting up my legs and new trousers. From 8am-6pm I drove all around Baghdad - Saddon to Mansour to Kadhamia to Sadr City, back to Kadhamia, to Rashid Street and then Karada, and every single meeting I had arranged was cancelled "bacher inshallah." In the process I managed to twice miss my dearest Iraqi friend Jamil (who was my flatmate in Jordan for 5 months) who I've been trying to meet with since I arrived two weeks ago, but with phones not working it's been so difficult. Anyhow, there's my moan. Obviously a lot of people in Iraq have much more serious things to moan about.

On a lighter note, here's that man walking a sheep (passed some bemused soldiers outside the Palastine hotel) I mentioned yestarday:



Apparently Bremer was trying to flirt with one of my Iraqi friend's girlfriend. She is one of the few Iraqis to have got a job with Bechtel and was at a CPA reconstruction meeting. She'd very beautiful and caught Mr.Bremer's eye, and he invited her to come up for a ride over Baghdad in his helicopter. Luckily she had the wits to decline pleading a fear of heights, otherwise my friend (on the left below) might well have become the next bomber.


Tuesday, October 14

It seems I'm a Zionist

That last post prompted a few responses from people. I must stress that I was just reporting my host's views, not in any way endorsing them. One reader questioned the Ben Gurion reference, and I can't authenticated it. Another reader, who is an Iraqi exile in the UK, said that story about Hallabja was a lie propogated by the mukabarat (secret police). He said that even if the Iranians had captured Hallabja, it would not have been a threat to Baghded (400km to the south). That was my own response when I was told the story.

Anyhow, what is interesting is the difficulty many Iraqis have in discerning the truth. I don't mean that offensively, I'm sure I would be the same if I'd lived for decades under the brainwashing of an oppressive regime which controlled most of the flow of information, and required citizens to accept the official line or risk persecution. When I was living in Jordan a few years ago I met many very intelligent Iraqis who sincerely believed the most bizarre conspiracy theories - no event is straightforward it seems, there must always be hidden causes, usually involving the dreaded trio of Zionists, Americans and freemasons. The inteligence agencies certainly have meddled in other countries' affairs for decades, and sometime quite significantly, but they are only one component of the complex myriad of factors determining world events. I guess in some ways its comforting to people to believe in a big conspiracy - at least someone is in charge!

As it happens I was suspected of being a Zionist today. What started out as one of my most promising meetings ended in horrible confusion. I was meeting with the Democratic and Peace Front, a grouping of 18 small parties, one of whom, the Iraqi Peace Party, had invited me along to their gathering. Representatives from every party were sitting around a couple of plastic tables in the White Palace (a former royal residence which now seems to be a kind of civil society convergence centre). It was quite exciting to see this grassroutes democracy in action.

I handed around my usual Jubilee Iraq intro sheet (translated into Arabic by Wajeeh Elali, a lovely Iraqi-Canadian economist), with a few bullet points of data about the debt and some questions about which types of debt and reparations they think should/shouldn't be paid, how claims should be negotiated and so on. Unfortunately one of the delegates appointed himself as my translator, and it seems he didn't do a very good job, as the discussion rapidly decended into heated exchanges between him and the other 17 people in the room in arabic, with only the odd phrase or two getting translated to me.

The loudest voice was the chairman's and, piecing together later what when wrong, I think he misunderstood my question about the best way of negotiating with the creditors. His view (a fairly common one) was that Iraqis are not responsible for any of Saddam's debt or reparations whatsoever and, therefore, if I was asking questions about a negotiation process, then I must be wanting to try and make Iraqis pay something. Ergo I'm probably some kind of Israeli agent disguised as a humanitarian NGO. Of course my aim is quite the reverse, but unfortunately a nerve had been struck, translation had broken down, and I didn't have a clue what was going on until after I'd left and my Iraqi guide explained what had transpired. I think part of the problem is that Iraqis have little experience of NGOs, and have a conditioned distrust of people - essential for survival under Saddam. Other NGO friends have also told me that people assume they are agents of some kind. This doesn't prevent Iraqis from treating us with warm hospitality, but it does mean that we have to earn their trust not take it as a given.

Riverbend mentions Muqtada Sadr's new shadow government. This has been the main topic of conversation in Baghdad today, and I'm also surprised it hasn't had wider coverage. I was hoping to meet Sadr in Najaf last week, but it didn't happen. I'm going to try and track down his new shadow finance minister tomorrow to see what he thinks about the debt.

Monday, October 13

Some unexpected views

It's amazing how quickly life returns to normal after a bomb in Baghdad. I guess people have just got so used to explosions that they hardly blink. Yesterday, an hour after the Baghdad Hotel attack, I was up on the roof of my hotel not far from the Baghdad. I was talking with a photographer who was sending his photos to New York by satellite modem, pleased that he'd got a shot of an injured guy in front of the burning car which was better than the hurried AP photos which were online twenty minutes after it happened. Down below kids were playing football, people were pushing about trolleys of goods and a guy was walking a sheep - yes, a sheep on a lead - all within 30 seconds walk of the carnage which was being aired on TVs around the world. Today Saddoun street is open and the barrier around the hotel has been rebuilt and supplemented with two tanks. The concrete blocks around the Palastine hotel have been growing every day, seeming to bifurcate like amoeba - now I have to navigate through a maze of concrete to get onto Saddoun street to hail a taxi.

Today I only had one Jubilee Iraq meeting, but it was a quite important one with the Oil Minister Bahr al-Uloum, who I've just heard survived an assasination attempt yestarday. He was a surprisingly softly spoken man, and was very diplomatic in his comments, but at one point his passion flared up. I'd mentioned the possibility of Iraq's economic policies being dictated by the IMF (this would be a condition of a Paris Club debt restructuring deal by the richest creditor countries). He replied "We are Iraq! We were the cradle of civilization, we will become the richest country in the world and we will decide our own future, not have policies imposed upon us!"

I've just had afternoon tea with a lovely Iraqi family. I'd delivered some letters a few days ago from their family in the UK, and they invited me around. The father of the family talked for hours and some of his views were quite surprising and controversial. For example he approved of Halabja - the occasion in 1988 when Saddam gassed a Kurdish border village. What is not usually mentioned, he told me, is that the Iranian army was in Halabja with the help of some Kurds, and their tanks were within striking distance of destroying a dam which could have caused a flood downstream in Baghdad, and furthermore the tanks could have rolled relatively unopposed to the capital. So, he compared Halabja with Hiroshima, a dreadful event but justified in wartime by the danger of not acting. Apparently a large number of Iraqi soldiers also died from the gas. He said, "I hated Saddam and he ruined the country, but if I had been in his place I would have ordered the gassing of Halabja." He said it was a double standard to condemn Halabja and accept Hiroshima. He had the same view about the suppression of the Shia rebellion in 1991 - he believes that the Shia would have sacked Baghdad if this had not happened. I don't know enough to make a judgment about the factual basis of his claims, but unexpected views are always interesting.

He also said that all the coups in Iraq in the last 60 years were a result of British/American/Israeli intervention to keep Iraq weak and submissive. Apparently Ben Gurion wrote a book before the formation of Israel which advised Zionists to ferment military coups and ethnic strife in neighbouring countries. I should note that my host was educated in the UK and US in the 1960s. The most worrying thing he said, if it is correct, was that Iraq's different ethnic groups cannot work together in a democracy and they need a strong man or a foreign ruler to maintain stability - "I will vote for Bremer at the elections" he said, in spite of opposing the war and being critical of the handling of the occupation.

Sunday, October 12

Baghdad Hotel bomb

A few hours ago there was a suicide car bombing at the Baghdad Hotel, which is about 300 meters away from my hotel. At the time of the bomb I was miles away (meeting with the finance minister Kamil Al-Gailani) and only heard about it when a friend sent a text message from Britain. It's rather strange that I'm sitting in my hotel, just around the corner and a stone's throw from the explosion, and am actually learning the facts from Satalite TV and on the internet, not from direct observation. I don't want to go and gawp at people's suffering, and anyway I think the road is closed with tanks now.

This is another dreadful event; apparently at least seven people have been killed, all of them Iraqis I believe. Please pray for the injured and the families of those killed, and for peace and security in Iraq.

To my family, please don't worry - I'm staying at a hotel with few westerners which is therefore highly unlikely to be a target, and anyway I am usually away during the day when these bombings tend to happen.

Saturday, October 11

Never a dull moment in Baghdad

Today I've: listened to a lecturer at Baghdad University play me an impromptu Beegee concert on his guitar in a bare classroom; sipped gin and tonic in a posh private "hunting" club overlooking the building site of the world's largest mosque; sat on ornate chairs in one of Saddam's palaces talking with the second most powerful man in Iraq (Jeremy Greenstock) and discussed the problems of forming Iraqi trade unions over dinner with an African-American longshoreman veteran of the West Coast dockers strike which George Bush decreed a threat to US national security. Of course there was plenty of waiting in traffic jams, visiting offices only to be told "come back tomorrow" and sitting around drinking tea. Who knows what tomorrow will hold.

Friday, October 10

Street children

This is a shot in the dark, but maybe someone reading this might be inspired to act: the street children in Baghdad need homes and families and as far as I can tell no one is helping them. This is a society with incredibly strong family bonds in which people look after there own; ironically, it seems therefore that there is little provision for those without the protection of a family. For a host of reasons (staff fleeing to safety, squaters occupying buildings...) the war emptied many of the orphanages leaving the children wandering the increasingly dangerous streets.

Most of the street children I talk to have horrible scars from the war, or more usually from street violence. At the moment the temperature isn't a problem for rough sleepers, but I don't know how they manage to eat. Most importantly they're lacking love and education. Many seem to cluster around the hotels hoping for gifts from foreigners. As a result the security guards treat them as a nusiance and I've heard reports of them being viciously beaten and bundled into the boot of cars.

Eventually I hope an Iraqi government will provide for these children but, for the moment and probably the next few years, everyone seems to be too busy to bother about these kids. If I had the time, skills and resources, I'd love to try and do something for them, but I think this is a task for someone else - maybe you??

Thursday, October 9

Recap and dilemas

Ahlan fi blogi (welcome to my blog) to Riverbend readers who've just browsed over. To get you up to speed, I'm a young Brit in Baghdad with Jubilee Iraq, a little NGO trying to help free Iraq from the burden of $200 billion of Saddam's unpaid bills. I'm consulting with Iraqis about their views on this issue in order to show the countries demanding payment how strongly they feel about this issue - basically everyone agrees that Iraqis should not be held responsible for loans which financed Saddam's regime and harmed rather than benefited the Iraqi people. My posts relate some of the frustrations and successes in this endeavour, along with random observations about Baghdad life. A quick plug, if you don't mind, for my Future of Iraq Portal which is intended to be a quick and comprehensive guide to all the websites out there relating to Iraq.

A lady called by my hotel today asking for help and I turned her away. I feel pretty bad about it, despite the numerous rationalisations I have to hand. She'd seen a reference to Jubilee Iraq, and mistakenly thought I had lots of money available to pay off people's personal debts. I didn't get a clear picture of her situation, with my minimal understanding of arabic, but it seemed pretty grim - involving unemployment, sick children and threatening loan sharks etc. My rationalisation of course is that it's the job of the state, humanitarian organisations, the local community and her family to help her. I'm working on this big structural issue of national debt and don't have the time or resources to try and understand and meet any of the huge individual needs in Iraq. Fine, that all makes sense, but nevertheless I felt like I was wrong to send her away. In the same way I struggle everytime the ragged street children come running up saying "give me dollar" - I don't want to merely hand out cash and create a culture of dependancy and encourage crowds of kids to flock round be everytime I try to leave my hotel. Nevertheless its painful to ignore the need and pretend its someone else's problem. Jesus was very clear "Give to anyone who asks you" (Luke 6.30) in His upside down economy of loving enemies and "lending without expecting to be repaid" (Iraq's creditors take note). There's no qualification "give if the person is deserving" or "give if you have time" or even "give if you can afford it." It seems incredibly demanding and disruptive of one's life, but just imagine if even a tiny proportion of the population genuinely lived out Jesus' teaching...

There was a suicide bombing of a police station in Sadr City this morning. If I'd been at work in Britain I would probably have heard about it within an hour, here in Baghdad I only found out in the evening - strange. My trip to Najaf fell though, as you may have guessed. Apparently Ayatollah Sistani is not recieving visitors for the time being to avoid accusations of being influenced by anybody. Its a pity, but I've hopefully managed to arrange some other valuable meetings for next week: with the Finance Minister, Jeremy Greenstock (the Brit who is Bremer's No.2) and possible with Ayatollah Hussein Sadr.

I had my first peak into the barricaded hotel complexes today. I visited the Hamra Hotel where may of the journalists are based and had dinner at the Sheraton. To be honest I felt quite uncomfortable in these plush airconditioned oases seperated from the real Baghdad by concrete and soldiers. I'm much happier in the friendly little Al-Fanar, mainly frequented by Iraqis and by Indian and Turkish subcontractors. Anyhow, Tisbah le khayr (good night).

Wednesday, October 8

Iraq is very tired

Half an hour ago I was sitting on Al-Saddoon street with a group of old men discussing the debts and the situation in Iraq generally. The haggard, wrinkled face - able of switching rapidly from very solem looks to wide grins - told me "The people of Iraq is very tired after 35 years of Saddam, so tired." Before that I'd been sitting in a juice bar with a gang of shabab (youths) who were all speaking at once in very excited tones. When we talked about debts they whooped in amazement $200 million? No, no - $200 billion (gasp). These people only earn a few dollars a day and find it unbelievable that the countries who paid for Saddam imagine that they can squeeze money from Iraqis - "we have nothing".

I've had a pretty constructive day today. Meeting first with the Human Rights organisation of Iraq, then Malik Doha, the head of the Lawyers Union and after that the Iraqi Peace Party. The later were so delighted to see me that they laid on a spontaneous banquet of quuzi - a huge bronze dish heaped with rice mixed with nuts, sultanas, spices and meat. It must be eaten standing up, and very quickly! I also spotted some more cute stationary (rapidly becoming a hobby of mine in Iraq) - a smiley face notebook being used by the lovely people at the Peace Party which now includes some jottings about Jubilee Iraq.

I'm hoping to go to Najaf tomorrow to meet Ayatollah Sistani and others with the guys from Coventry Cathedral's Reconciliation ministry. If this happens then i might not be able to blog for a few days, so don't worry if there are no posts. It's very much a "bacher inshallah" appointment, so maybe there will be more waffle from me tomorrow.

By the way, I have a solution for some of my "Bacher Ishallah" problems (see yestarday's post) care of Riverbend, the Iraqi blogger who writes better English than me: "when all else fails, try saying "Ahhhoooooooooooooooooo"- there must be heavy emphasis for this one on the 'h' and you have to roll your eyes and look 'huffy'. This basically means, "For God's sake, when are you people going to sort yourselves out and give me a proper appointment- I don't work FOR you, I'm trying to work WITH you..." But only use "Ahhhhooooooooo" as a last resort."

Tuesday, October 7

Bacher inshallah

After the various warm phrases of greeting and hospitiality, these two words (meaning "tomorrow, if God wills it") are the most common, and most frustrating, that you're likely to hear in Iraq. Today five meetings - with the Finance Minister, the KDP, the Turcoman Front, SCIRI and a senior shia cleric all fell through and, apart from the last one, were not rescheduled except for vague suggestions that I come back tomorrow and see if I'm luckier then.

Given that the working day is only a few hours in the morning (really just 8am-1pm), it seems to take 45mins to get anywhere in Baghdad's orderless traffic and find places (given that there's no A to Z streetmap and hardly anyone knows where organisations are located) and even null-meetings with secretaries of secretaries require sitting down and drinking tea for 20mins... it's easy to lose a day - like today - with a just a handful of non-events. Partly its a cultural thing, partly its a function of the chaos of Baghdad at the moment and the difficulties of communications, for the majority of us who don't have one of the 20'000 or so precious MCI mobiles, which requires physically going back to the same place day after day to try and fix an appointment.

Anyhow, apologies for my moaning, but this is a critical aspect of the situation in Baghdad and its worth understanding to appreciate how difficult and glacial any progress is here.

Monday, October 6

Have you seen the Planning Minister?

He's in his 50s, about 5 foot 10, classic iraqi looks with mostache and probably somewhere in Northern Europe. But we're not sure, and nor is his ministry. They haven't heard from him in a week, don't know if he'll be back in Baghdad before November and have no email or phone number to contact him on. I'm really not kidding you, and it's not just the Planning Ministry, this is a familiar senario in Iraq today. Apart from being incredibly frustrating for someone whose travelled 5000 miles to try and consult with Iraqis, I think it says something about the resources and responsibilities being allotted to Iraqis by the CPA - pretty much nil. I've visted 5 ministries today, and only one had working phones and email, indeed only one (the Ministery of Oil) had a contactable Minister (who i'm meeting next monday, inshallah). The really frightening thing is that in November the UN Oil-for-Food program ends and somehow the CPA and the Ministries (most squatting in temporary building since their offices were largely looted and burnt) are going to have to manage food distribution for the 16 million people who are dependant on the ration for survival.

Oh, here's today's cute detail: the windows in the reception room for the Ministry of Trade were covered with - you guessed it - Pokemon stickers! I tried to find a cinema for a bit of relaxation this evening, but it seems that everywhere is showing either Egyptian movies or pornography, so that was a deadend. Ended up in a 9asiir (juice) bar as usual. Got an invite to go play dominos with some Iraqi students one evening soon, which should be fun. One of them is making his first film and said I can have a cameo role... Cannes here we come!

Some good news - It seems like I've wangled my way onto a trip down to Najaf and Karbala to meet the major Shia clerics like Ayatollah Sistani in a few days time. Tisbah al-khayr (good night).

POSTSCRIPT: I went out onto my hotel balcony (overlooking the Palastine hotel next door where a Salsa class, of all things, was happening) lastnight, and began chatting to the American film crew on the nextdoor balcony. They told me with great glee how much fun they'd had earlier that evening lobbing bananas at the homeless kids on the street seven floors below... I had to dig my nails into my palms to prevent sending one of them sailing after the fruit.

Sunday, October 5

Pokurdmon

Met with the Kurdish Islamic Party today. They were cute. Some people might assume they would be religious fanatics hardened by centuries as an oppressed people without a country of their own. Maybe they are. But they also laugh a lot, particularly at my attempts at Kurdish - if you ever have the opportunity try binnat pash (good morning), zors pas (thanks) and khwa hafees (goodbye - starts with a flemmy semetic sound, similar to the Scottish word loch). After our serious discussion about debt, they got very excited taking photos and comparing our digital cameras (i'll try to upload a photo tomorrow). They even had a stack of Pokemon (Japanese childrens cartoon) exercise books for their official notes!

I thought we had a breakthrough, having arranged to meet with Mohsen Abel-Hamid, head of the Iraqi Islamic Party, on the IGC and, as it happens, the former professor of my Iraqi coworker. However it seems the secretary didn't schedule us correctly, and so we met an underling instead. It was frustrating because we desperately need to talk to one of the top level of politicians to get an entry into that world, since my two best contacts at that level are out of Baghdad for two weeks.

Went to the Anglican church again, recieving a similarly warm welcome as last week. I started groaning inwardly when the US army chaplain (who was preaching through translation to a congratation entirely Iraqis, bar myself and the British Ambassador) started "On 9/11 the world changed..." Luckily he carried on by saying "Americans learnt [well some anyway, sadly not many in the White House...] that all our economic, political and military might cannot give us peace and security. That peace can only come from God."

Saturday, October 4

Crowds and Clerics

Today has probably been the most productive so far. Met with the President of the Iraqi Association of Economists, who is also part of the INA party, and who was very clear in rejecting Saddam’s debts. Next I had a meeting with the deputy British consul in the Al-Rasheed complex. There was a dreadful traffic jam (with the paucity of traffic lights and police, plus so many cars on the verge of breakdown after 13 years of sanctions, jams are frustratingly common) so I hopped out in order to walk the kilometre to the complex where the British consulate is. It quickly became obvious that there had been some disturbances, and I found that the road was blocked by soldiers. I pieced together later that there had been a demonstration by ex-military members demanding pay which had turned nasty (an unconfirmed story I was told is that a soldier kicked an old man and was then lynched by the crowds, here's the latest from the BBC). In fact this must have started about 10.30 when we were driving to the INA and were overtaken by tanks (see below) driving over the pavements to get somewhere in a hurry.



I showed my passport to a soldier, and was allowed to walk along the pavement in the direction of the hotel. There was quite a big crowd of Iraqis, mainly young men, being funnelled out of the area, and as I walked I was chatting with some of them. It was all very good natured but quickly, as can happen with frightened crowds, the situation got a bit more boisterous. People were trying to grab my backpack, were pinching my bottom (?!?) and someone even put a lit cigarette in my pocket (ouch). People were swarming around, it was getting noisier, and the Iraqis I’d been talking with decided to take the situation in hand. They took my arm, formed a ring around me, told the shabab (young men) that I wasn’t a solider and demanded that they to back off. Then they guided me out of the crowd and deposited me with some Iraqi policemen who drove me to the hotel. I think it would have been a dangerous situation for someone without any Arabic, but it was typical of Iraqi good nature that, knowing that I was a friend – and more importantly a guest - they looked after me even in the face of angry countrymen. There can’t be many places in the world where, in a tense and chaotic crowd situation, people protect an apparent enemy in such a way.

So I got to the Rasheed complex, though half an hour late, and managed to meet up with the deputy British Consul, who I’d talked with a few days previously. He was a sound chap, supportive of Jubilee Iraq, and offered to help put me in contact with some key people. The next stop was the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan where we met with a friendly member of their leadership who took as trong a line on debt as the INA had done this morning. The final stop of the day, after a gorgeous Kishmisha fruit smoothy (the Iraqi versions outclass the expensive English versions one-hundredfold), was the Abu Khanifa shrine. This is the most important Sunni mosque in Iraq, and I’d arranged to meet with it’s cleric Sheikh Moyaad. You might remember the mosque from the news back on 10 April, since it was attacked by the US following a rumour that Saddam was praying there. The Sheikh was a lovely warm guy, and I was amazed that he gave me about an hour of his time after evening prayers. He explained that the longest verse in the Koran is actually on the subject of debt, and gave some very interesting responses to my questions in an area in which he had no experience. Afterwards finishing the interview on debt, he was keen to tell me about Islam. It was a real privilege – like hearing the Gospel from the Pope or something I guess. When I got up this morning I couldn’t have guessed that in a few hours I’d be debating predestination in broken Arabic with one of Iraq’s leading clerics. He invited me to come back and talk some more with him, which I hope will be possible. As I'm typing the power has just gone out, but the hotel seems to have just installed a backup for the computers, so i'm typing awaying in the dark under the glow of the monitor! I better press "post" quick before the backup power fails...

Friday, October 3

What if

It’s funny how things work out. Today was panning out to be a bit of a wasted day. Being Friday, no one was about and I was exhausted and having my first brush with the runs. I actually stayed in my hotel room until the late afternoon, feeling too ill to eat and too weak to go walking about Baghdad. I read the entirety of “What if?” a book of counterfactuals written by eminent historians (what might have happened if Socrates had died at Delium, what if the Chinese had discovered the Americas first, what if Lenin had not arrived at Finland Station in 1917… etc.). I’d grabbed it randomly at the airport, but it is actually very appropriate reading material in Iraq which has many possible futures with widely divergent paths, and events in the next few months are likely to decide which path is followed.

Finally I forced myself out on the street, and wandered down to CPT’s house. They had another guest, an Iraqi doctor who’s three teenage sons are in detention down in Umm Qasr. I heard the full account of what happened (also see CPT 1 and 2): In early August a US Humvee smashed through their front garden gate and soldiers began spraying bullets at the house. Finally, after two hours of unsuccessfully calling out for them to stop, the doctor bravely went to front room and shouted “I’m opening the door”. He got an affirmative response but, as he reached to open the door, it was kicked in. The soldiers charged into the house, beating the family with the butts of their rifles and handcuffing them. Bullets had smashed open a big jar of olive oil which was split all over the kitchen floor, and the doctor and his family were forced facedown onto the oily floor, with soldiers standing on their heads. The doctor’s nephew, who is seriously mentally disabled, was traumatised by the experience and, trying to run away, was tackled and pummelled by soldiers, in the process receiving a serious slash on his leg from broken glass. The soldiers interrogated the doctor for some time, repeatedly asking him if he was a certain person, to which he kept replying (he speaks decent English) that the man lives a few doors down the road – the soldiers had got the wrong address. Finally the soldiers let the doctor treat his nephew’s cut leg and left, but took his three eldest sons with them “for questioning”. For a month the doctor heard nothing about his sons, and asked CPT for help. They intervened with the CPA and learnt that the sons were down in Umm Qasr (in the far south). They went down to visit them, and were told by the military that there were no charges against the sons and they should be released. Now, a month later, the sons are due to start their university terms today, but they still haven’t been released. CPT and the doctor visited again last week, but received no explanation why they hadn’t been released. Iraqis are being treated as if they had no rights. The doctor also explained how expensive medicines are today, without government subsidies, so that many of his patients can’t afford even basic drugs such as antibiotics.

Next I went to hang out with Voices in the Wilderness for a while, and met two new members, both in their 70s, who’d just arrived from Australia. Michael, an Irish guy, was heading out to help edit Iraq Today, an English language newspaper that was set up by the cousin of my Iraqi friends in London, so I took the opportunity to go over and meet them. It was very opportune. They were lacking an editorial for the weekly paper which had to go to the printers the following morning, and suggested that I write one on the debt. It’s being published on Monday, and is read by pretty much every journalist in Iraq, and many Iraqi politicians, so I’m hoping that it will result in some good contacts and invitations to meet with people. The downside is that I was up into 3.30am writing it!

Thursday, October 2

A couple more meetings today. Met with one of the ruling council of the Da'wa Islamic Party, who was very clear that Iraq should not repay any of Saddam's debts as they had not been responsible for them and had already suffered a great deal from them. Another meeting with Sharif Ali, the descendent of Iraq's Hashemite kings, was less positive as he said he thought Iraq should accept legal obligation for the former regime's debts and hope for altrusitic reductions from creditors. On the issue of reparations he questioned the size of the claims, and seemed to suggest that the awards and claims should be reprocessed in a fairer way with Iraq input. He's a shrewd player, who's rocketed in popularity from being a bit of a joke to being one of Iraq's most popular figures through his opposition to the Governing Council. He certainly puts on a very good regal show at his plush mansion - compared to many of the political parties which are squatting in derelict offices of the former regime. I disagreed with his position on debt, but was generally impressed with him. One of the Iraqis with my suggested that he could potentially be a figure similar to King Hussein of Jordan, who brought stability and a reasonably moderate rule compared to neighbouring countries.

Wednesday, October 1

Tour de Baghdad

Started early today, at 8am, which was a good move as everything shuts down by about 2pm. Met with the Communist party and had visited Al-Da'wa and the Kurdish Islamic Party (who were charming hosts) to fix proper meetings when their chief ponchos were back in town - it's frustrating because everyone seems to have left Baghdad as I've arrived! My two best contacts, Adnan Pachachi and Sinan Al Shabibi are apparently both out of town for a couple of weeks, and I'd hoped to get introduction from them to all the other key parties and individuals. Hey-ho. Blagged my way into the Central bank and a freindly British lady from the CPA agreed to arrange for me to meet with a group of the politicians en masse to more efficiently arrange individual interviews. Hopefully that'll work out, but I'm going to keep driving around knocking on doors. It's bizarre that many of the main political parties in Iraq are currently inhabiting pretty derilict buildings that belonged to the Ba'ath regime and were looted in April and then taken over my whichever political group got to them first.

Some Iraqi students have suggested, and agreed to help organise, a public meeting in the main conference centre on Sunday in order to give many smaller groups a chance to air their views on the debt. I fixed to get some business cards printed ($5 for 200) but the resulting cards gave my email as "jubikeirag.org" so back to the drawing board.

Got in a bit of sightseeing as we drove about: passed by the nuclear plant which was bombed by the Israelis in 1982. Worryingly it's about 100 yards from my friend Hatham's family farm - though he seems to be fine! Also sped past the British 1st World War cemetary, the ammo dump that blew up (back in April I think), the famous Iran-Iraq war memorial of gigantic swords crossed over the highway... in fact buzzed all over Baghdad. Sadly not many of the sites are flat and so not that photo genenic, or have nervous troops standing nearby, hence I haven't been snapping much. Here's a pile of photos I took yestarday for my hotel's manager who's bought a old looted casino which he's converting into a car showroom, and wanted to send some photos to a potential investor. A couple of nice views of the river.

I think i'm becoming Iraqi now as i lost track of time and missed an appointment with someone by about 45mins - but it turned out fine as he was late too. I'm also getting so used to powercuts that last night i carried on eating my dinner in the pitch dark!

Mum - I've tried to phone the last few evenings but my satalite phone is dreadful and never seems to connect - but everything is fine, so don't worry.

Tuesday, September 30

Normality

Someone asked me today what surprised me about Baghdad, and I said "its normality". Anyone looking at Iraq from abroad might assume there are regular shootings on every street corner, and people scamper about looking over their shoulders. But it really isn't like that at all. Sure there are burnt out buildings everywhere. Sure there are Dubaba (tank) and hamar (humvee) patrols with soldiers clinging on to their rashasha (machine guns). Sure there are street kids, in a country which never realy had homeless people before. Sure there is barbed wire around major hotels etc. etc. But people sit on the street and drink tea and as I wander about town I don't get the slit-eye treatment but warm greetings everywhere.

Monday, September 29

Frustration and delight, and lots of chay

I think my first full day in Baghdad was pretty typical. I'm a wanderer at heart, and there are few places in the world more interesting at the moment. Change and stagnation. Hope and despair. Wealth and poverty. So many juxtapositions.

The day started very slow. Two people were meant to come by my hotel at 9am, and after two and a half hours of very pleasant waiting and chatting with taxi drivers, I decided to take a stroll over to visit my new friends in Bayt Al Bacher. I wandered along the river bank, a couple of hundred meter wide strip of greenery and rubble, next to the beautiful river full of reeds (see picture below). Apart from myself, a few stray dogs and some kids swimming among the reeds, there was no one about - on the Baghdad equivalent of the South Bank of the Thames. I imagined the rubble being cleared and the gardens replanted - a faint echo of Eden still hangs around despite all blood that has been spilt.



I took an hour to make a ten minute trip, stopping to accept the welcome of the many people who greeted me. One old man recalled when he was a boy in the 1940s and a British soldier gave him some oranges and cigarettes - Camel, he even remembered the brand! I discussed the idea of elections with another guy, who explained "For 30 years under Saddam we had no options, and now people are saying we have to choose a leader. It's too early, we don't recognise any of the names (of the people in the political parties), we need maybe two years to get to know them before choosing." This was interesting because my gut response had tended to be that elections should happen soon rather than later, but I can see his point.

With my stomach's perfect sense of timing I managed to time my arrival at Bayt Al Bacher with lunch, and after some classic American style chicken soup started out on my project with Hathan Salam, a lovely English student who's missing a year of university because of the war, and is using it to write for newspapers and guide NGOs. We've had a really hilarious day together and got a surprising amount done, given that we only started at about 2pm, after most politicians in Iraq go home for the day. We had a meeting with the Assyrian Democratic Movement, learning a few words of Aramaic in the process, and fixed meetings with the two main Communist parties (ICP, IWCP), the Independent Democrats and the Union of the Unemployed. We drove around a large part of central Baghdad, including the wealth Mansour area, beside the giant unfinished mosque (straight out of Star Wars) which Saddam was building to get an entry in the Guiness Book of Records.

In the evening we met up with Christian Peacemaker Teams, who gave us some good contacts with Iraqi human rights groups and the major Baghdad religious leaders. Last week they'd helped marshall a pilgrimage of maybe a million or more people to a Shia shrine in northern Baghdad, to diffuse potential tensions between the US forces and the pilgrims. Their other main work is to help families get information about relatives who have been detained and argue the cases of those who have been treated unjustly.

So many other little conversations, observations and thoughts today. But it’s late and I need to sleep, and you probably do too, so “tisbah ala Khayr.”

Sunday, September 28

Baghdad with a bump

The cabin pressure was increasing more quickly than the 20 seater plane could compensate as it pitched up on it’s side and dropped 6000 feet in a minute, spiralling until just a few meters from the ground when it straightened both vertically and horizontally and touch down with only a tiny bump. My first combat landing, intended to evade missiles I assume. I’m ashamed to admit I was laughing out loud during the manoeuvre. We clapped the pilot who, appropriately for the situation, was a Brit with a “chocks-away” accent straight out of World War 1.

Less fun was waiting for 4 hours in the arrivals room. There had been a bomb found in a car at the entrance to the airport, and hence none of the drivers were allowed in to pick us up. In the end I hitched a lift with Medicine San Frontier as I was already 2 hours late to meet the Iraqis from Al Muajaha newspaper and the internationals from Voices in the Wilderness who share the same building. So unfortunately I failed to meet my old Iraqi flatmate Jamil, who must have been stuck at the checkpoint – unable to come or go – for hours, hopefully we’ll hook up tomorrow. As soon as I got to the Voices house in Karada I felt at home, as I chatted with new friends. Time was moving on, so Kathy from Voices took me to the Al-Fanar hotel, a lovely little place by the river in the shadow of the giant Palastine Meridan and Istar Sheraton hotels. The gave me a good room (with English plug sockets!) for $20 a night which is spot on. I check in and rushed out immediately to an appointment where I hear a surprising story:

A British employee of the UN got carjacked a few days ago on the road from Baghdad to Falluja. The Ali Babas took all his money and equipment, tore his clothes, beat him up and dumped him by the roadside. It was the middle of the day and about 45 degrees centigrade.

Soon after a convoy of US Humvees came along the road and spotted the guy. But there were only 10 soldiers in the convoy, and the rules require more for a rescue operations in those kind if conditions when there might be a danger of ambush, so the convoy moved over to the other side of the road and accelerated back to Baghdad. A little later an NGO food distribution truck came along, but it was late with it’s delivery of bread and so swerved around the guy on the ground and drove on.

The sun was beating down hard and the flies gathering and the UN guy was pretty near death by now. Finally a car stopped and picked him up. He was just about conscious and managed to drink a little water as he was laid on the back seat. The car sped off at high speed, and he as he swooned on the back seat he overhead the guys who picked him up talking. He’d picked up quite a bit of Arabic and was very worried as he heard them reminisce about how much better it had been under Saddam, and discuss plans for attacking the Coalition troops at Ramadi. These guys were Ba’athists or resistance or something like that. The UN guy assumed he was going to be tortured and held hostage now and wished he’d just died out in the sun. Next time he came round he was in a soft bed with a wet towel on his head, he sat up a little and saw that this wounds were bandaged and he seemed to be in a hotel room. Then a man came in and said “Allah yisalmak” (God give you health). He was told that yesterday some men had dropped him off at this hotel (in Falluja) and paid for a nurse to come around and tend to his injuries and for a room until he was recovered enough to return to Baghdad.

Surprised. Well, maybe you’ve noticed something familiar is you’ve ever hear a story about a certain Samaritan on the road from Jericho to Jerusalam. I was at the Anglican church for the 5.30 service in the shattered building (windows shaken out by nearby bombs and interior wrecked by looters). There were about 200 people in the church, which has only been open for a few weeks now, about a third of them children. Before telling the story of the Good Ba’athist, the American pastor (apparently the CPA chaplain) had given a talk to the children, shown in the picture below.

I’d seen the Anglican church two years ago, as I’d stayed in the Al Mansour Milia hotel over the road, and it was wonderful to see the church so full of life, I couldn’t understand much of the service, but had a huge grin on my face throughout. Afterwards all the kids came over to say hello and my favourite was the caretakers little 2 year old daughter Marian who made me give her aeroplane rides until I was too hot and dizzy to continue! The Iraqi pastor gave me a lift back to the hotel, as I was dark by now. As we drove, he explained than until 1994 he’d been a Mandean, a small Iraqi sect which follows John the Baptist but not Jesus, hence his son was called YahYah (Arabic version of John). It’s always to amazing to meet people from very different backgrounds who also know and love Jesus.



I’m sitting in my hotel room typing this all up. We just had a power cut (my first) for about 10mins, during which I was just sitting in the glow of my laptop. I’m going to go and get some dinner now and try to upload this entry onto the net through the hotel computer – an unexpected luxury!

Saturday, September 27

Jordan - old friends and new

Its wonderful to be back in Jordan after over 2 years (I lived here for a few months in 2001). I’ve been walking around with a big stupid smile on my face as I recognise old haunts, and even people. The Egyptian guy at the falafel stand near my old flat remembered my name, I was so chuffed. A good thing I caught him, as he’s now made enough money to get married and he’s return to Egypt for good next month to do just that. Did my emails at Books@Cafe, a real Jordanian institution. The internet connection is pretty dire, but it’s a fun trendy place with nice seating, food and drinks and second hand English books. I bumped into a guy who was studying Arabic when I was here last, and has stuck about., so caught up on the news about old friends.

I had a few conversations with people on the street and in shops, including a classic, depressing discussion about Palestine. One guy got very excited about Leeds United, but I couldn’t really make out most of what he was saying. The sun is quite exhausting, and I haven’t eaten much. Was up early to do an interview on BBC Radio 5. I think it went well, but I hate to think how much the roaming bill will be on my mobile. I Hope to bump into an Iraqi friend Evan from London, who’s now working in southern Iraq and has come to Jordan today to collect his wife from the airport, but annoyingly he was delayed at the border so we couldn’t meet this morning as planned.

It’s been wonderful walking around Amman, I feel I know the city better than London, and certainly feel more at home here. I’ve just got back from a typically surprising dinner. I’d left my hotel to look for food at about 7pm, and passed a group of men stilling outside some shops drinking tea and chatting. One of them spotted my “Free Palestine” badge, and immediately I was doubly welcome. I would have been welcome without it of course, and indeed the man told me a wonderful story: a few years ago when he was returning from the West Bank, he met some Israelis who were going to Jordan. It was the first time they’d left Israel by land, and he gave them a lift from the border, took them out for a meal and fixed them up in a hotel with a discount. They were overwhelmed to hear that he was a Palestinian (as are about 60% of Jordanians who were ejecting from Palestine in 1948 and 1967) and they exchanged emails for a few years afterwards. After some chatting I was invited out to dinner and we drove to a nearby restaurant and I was given half a chicken to eat (the vegetarianism goes on hold the minute I enter the Middle East!) and told I must eat it all. While we were eating a guy came over whom I recognised. His name is Yad, and he’s an Assyrian from Iraq who I’d met two years previously. A very intelligent guy who’d suffered a lot. He had been imprisoned and tortured by the Ba’athists for being too fervent about his Christian faith (the Assyrians were some of the first Christians, and last time I was in Iraq I visit the site of a 1st century church, possibly founded by St. Thomas on route to India).

Back at the hotel I’ve just been watching some Saudi TV – all American films and TV series, and I was amazing by the content of some of the adverts – I’d thought the Saudi censors were quite meticulous.

Thursday, September 25

Askurallah!

I just had a wonderful answer to prayer. I called Jamil, the Iraqi I lived with in Jordan two years ago, and found that he'd given his phone to someone and returned to Iraq, and no one had a contact number for his there. It would have been great to see him when i passed though Jordan, but even better to spend time together in Iraq. So i prayed with a friend last night, and this morning i had an email from him with his contact number in Sadr City!

I'm going to try and post undates from Iraq here, and possibly some photos. So check back next week and there might be something interesting to read. I may also post onto the Jubilee Iraq news page.

Wednesday, September 24

Small things matter

Apologies to friends and passersby for not posting for a while. My lame excuse is busyness. Ironically I’m at the peak of that busyness now – tying up loose ends at work while preparing to go to Iraq on Friday – and yet for some reason I felt the urge to blog. Maybe it’s a moment of calm in the centre of the Hurricane, as friends over in the US recently experienced.

Things are beginning to come together for the Iraq trip. I’ve got a pile of phone numbers for people in Baghdad, but often one dials 10 times without getting a connection, because the tiny network over there is really overstretched. But I have got through to some lovely people who’ve agreed to meet me at the airport, put me up and guide me around. I suspect the trip (consulting Iraqis on their views on the debt for Jubilee Iraq) is going to require a lot of patience, probably knocking on lots of doors and waiting for hours to meet people. That will be quite a change from the hectic pitch of London life, which might actually be refreshing, though I suspect I’ll be fighting frustration. Please do pray that I have wisdom and tact, and make maximum use of the little time I have in Iraq.

Anyhow, what I really wanted to talk about in this post is: what is important? That’s a pretty huge and vague question, but I’ve been thinking about it because of a fairly mundane experience. We need a little background to set the scene for this. I rent a room in a quite an unusual flat in London. My landlord and flatmate, Paedar, is a elderly man who has struggled with mental illness – schizophrenia and depression principally – for much of his life. I’d expected that living with Paedar would be quite emotionally draining and would involve quite a lot of giving on my part, and it can be like that sometimes. But actually I’ve received a lot of support in return from him, and learnt some quite profound lessons.

Paedar likes to pray together regularly, which is good in itself as I’m often rushing around and forget to put aside “quality” time for God. We have very different concerns. As you can guess by now, I’m very focused on Iraq, and so there are things such as the dreadful bombing outside the Iman Ali mosque in Najaf, or a forthcoming Jubilee Iraq meeting with the British Treasury on my mind. Paedar’s concerns are more mundane. He finds it a great effort to do many of the simple chores of life, and can get very worried about them. So he might ask me to pray about the plumber coming around to fix a dripping tap, or that he’s able to arrange dinner with a friend tomorrow night. Sometimes I fight to keep a straight face because the requests can seem ludicrous, for example yesterday he asked me to pray that he remembers to pay a cheque for the electricity bill tomorrow (when the bill only arrived today, and he really has weeks to pay it, and he has no problem with money because of a large inheritance).

However, on reflection, Paedar’s concerns are not so ludicrous. In particular they are not ludicrous to God, and so they should be ludicrous to me. What I have learnt profoundly from Paedar is that God cares deeply about the smallest detail of our lives as well as issues of global significance. Jesus told his disciples “even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” and King David sang “Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.”

God loves us so deeply that he is concerned about anything which concerns us, even unnecessairies worries about an electricity bill. Human beings have to prioritise their concerns, because we are finite beings. But God is infinite and able to know, care and respond to a car bombing at Najaf while at the same time comforting Paedar in his worries about his daily routine. We need never be embarrased to bring a concern to God because we think it too small.

Thursday, August 28

My AIDS report is published!

Click here for a larger  image I'm very excited because the first copies of the report I've been writing on HIV/AIDS in South Africa have just been printed!

The aim of the report is to encourage philanthropists to fund AIDS charities, and provide them with all the information and advice they need to do that most effectively. There's still work to do "marketing" the report by sending it to relevant people and making presentations to potential donors.

My next project at NPC is probably going to be a sector report on cancer in the UK. In 2004 I may be researching charitable interventions to help prisoners, and - inshallah - doing a big international project on conflict prevention and reconsiliation.

Wednesday, August 27

An encouraging prayer

I've been feeling pretty run down recently. Partly it's sheer physical exhuastion from trying to run Jubilee Iraq as well as my full time job, and feeling frustrated that I don't have as much time and energy as JI really needs. Secondly its loneliness. One result of spending all my free time working on JI is that I haven't been able to put much energy in to social life - and being a single in London one has to really work hard at organising friendships. I've got dozens of friends in the city, some very close, but I rarely get to see any of them, and then only because I've been proactive and booked a slot in their schedule weeks in advance. I really really miss having a community - as i did at school, uni and in Jordan - where there are people around most of the time to just hang out with, without having to plan far in advance.

The most recent frustration is that an Iraqi guy who has been one of the most enthusiastic volunteers and become a good friend in the last few months suddenly turned very negative. A friend of his had misunderstood some things, and as a result I got some quite hurtful emails out of the blue. I tried to reply, but each time got new criticisms in response. I was hoping he'd call, but since he hasn't I really need to phone him and try to clear up the situation. But I'm feeling very weak and quite afraid of making the call and it turning into an unproductive argument.

Anyhow, there was a mid-week service at my church this evening, which I went along to in the hope of meeting some people. It's a good church, but it's logistically very hard to get to know people in a congregation of 1000 on a Sunday evening. We had a time of worship, then there was a time for people to share what things God had been doing in their lives or any words of advice or encouragement he'd given them for the rest of us. After that there was an opportunity to pray for each other.

A guy whom I hadn't met before prayed for me, and I was really encouraged because the things he prayed for were precisely the things on my heart. Its a pretty everyday thing in the church for God to guide people to pray very specific things into other peoples' lives, but I'd never directly experienced it so clearly myself before now. I was feeling timid and he prayed that God would give me boldness. I was feeling run down and he prayed for refreshing. I was feeling weak and he prayed for strength. I was questioning whether I was really trusting God for Jubilee Iraq and he said that God knew I wanted to serve him and would anoint me for the the call he's put on my life. I've had tough times over the last couple of years, and he said that God has been pruning me and preparing me for the work he has for me to do. All these spot-on prayers without me uttering a single word to indicate who i was and what my needs were - i might just as easily have had backache and have been wanting prayer for healing. Anyhow, I'm jotting this down so I won't forget and when I'm next feeling weak and down (this time tomorrow probably!) I will be reminded that God really is concerned about my needs and is eager to satisfy them ("Remember, your Father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him! - Matthew.6.8). Al hammdu illah, Praise God!

Saturday, August 9

South African AIDS U-turn & my job

There's just been a stunning announcement by the South African Cabinet that they will start providing antiretroviral drugs to AIDS patients. This is a amazing news, and a good time to explain a little about my weird job, since I've been researching AIDS in South Africa as part of my job at New Philanthropy Capital.

NPC is a charity which looks and sounds a lot like an investment bank. In fact most of the people working here have come from the world of finance (I was previously an equity analyst at Schroders, working on socially responsible investment). About 2 years ago a group of wealthy individuals from the City, were thinking about how to improve their philanthropic giving. They concluded that they should really be putting as much research into give away their money effectively as they did in making it in the first place. Unfortunately no organisation existed which analysed charities with the rigour that investors analyse companies, and hence NPC was founded to fill this gap.

One way we go about this is by producing sectoral reports on particular areas of social need - such as domestic violence, cancer, community regeneration, conflict resolution etc. - which provide the context for effective philanthropic giving. We look at the extent of the need, methods of intervention and their outcomes (which we try to quantify as far as possible), existing provision and specific charities which could make good use of additional funding. We present this in reports and presentations which are designed to appeal to wealthy individuals to enable them to give in the most effective way (and thereby inspire them to give generously).

I joined NPC in mid-March and have been working largely on AIDS in South Africa along with a colleague with a wonderful name, Iona Joy. She made two trips to South Africa to visit about 20 projects, whilst I've been doing the contextual research - on the extent of HIV/AIDS, it's impact on society, the government response, the outcomes of interventions to prevent the spread of HIV and to treat and care for AIDS patients and their children.

What has been shocking is the appalling way the SA government, particularly President Mbeki and Health Minister Tshabalala-Msimang, have refused to even discuss providing antiretroviral drug treatment. AIDS cannot be cured, but drugs can control the damage HIV does to a persons immune system, which can extend their lives by many years. The cost of drugs has come down greatly in the last few years thanks to campaigns against pharmaceutical companies by Oxfam, MSF and others. They will never be cheap, but it would be affordable for South Africa to provide treatment for around a million patients at an advanced stages of AIDS for under a billion pounds. South Africa is fiscally quite strong and could afford this within the existing budget, however AIDS campaigners such as the inspirational Treatment Action Campaign have had to fight long and hard even to get basic provision such as drugs to reduce the risk of transmission of HIV from mothers to children.

Last week there was talk of the South African Medicine Control Council removing it's approval for Nevirapine, the drug used to reduce mother-to-child transmission and a clause was removed from the Sexual Offences Bill which would have provided antiretroviral treatment to rape victims to minimise their risk of contracting AIDS. These were the latest of many backwards steps by the government. So the announcement by the cabinet yesterday, was completely unexpected. The statement was very measured, but did say "Antiretroviral drugs do help improve the quality of life of those at a certain stage of the development of AIDS, if administered properly... The Cabinet decided that the Department of Health should, as matter of urgency, develop a detailed operational plan on an antiretroviral treatment programme... by the end of September."

The SA government has broken it's word on AIDS in the past, so we'll have to wait and see what happens but, on the face of it, this is incredibly good news! Universal treatment programs in Europe, US and Brazil have transformed the lives of many people with AIDS, contributed to reducing the spread of HIV and actually reduced health costs incurred from the hospitalisation of people dying of AIDS.

The bad news for me is that we'll have to seriously rethink our report. We've just about produced the final version of the report are receiving feedback on the draft from experts in South Africa and were planning to go to print next week... Our report is entitled "From Rhetoric to action: a guidebook on AIDS in South Africa for grantmakers and donors", and the extra work this U-turn will cause for me is a very small price to pay if the government's latest rhetoric really dues turn into action which may begin to turn the tide on AIDS.