Deadline extended

As the clocked past midnight, Baghdad time, Al-Jazeera just aired new footage and a statement from the Swords of Righteousness Brigade extending the deadline for the execution of my friends and colleagues by 2 days. I have had a strange peace about the situation though I knew, rationally, that the original deadline might have been real. I pray that the new deadline is also flexible because 48 hours is not a long time.

CPT's guiding principle in conflict situations, a corollary of Jesus' Golden Rule, is never to dehumanise people. So perhaps it is not such a surprise that people demonised by society, such as Abu Qatada (referred to sometimes as "Bin Laden's Ambassador to Europe") should have spoken out in support of CPT. One might think it strange that an avowedly pacifist Christian organisation receives such heartfelt support from jihadist Muslims such as Hamas and the Al-Asqa Martyr's Brigade. Perhaps it is because they can see that CPTers like Tom Fox are among the few in the West who, while disagreeing with their actions, still treat them as precious human beings. My Iraqi friends tell me that people in Baghdad are beginning to refer to the CPT-four as the "mujahadeen" - of course that is a term that they would all reject because of its conitations of violence - but it is nonetheless a deep affirmation that Iraqis recognise them as being radically aligned with their struggle for freedom and justice.

Two articles out of the thousands published over the last week jump out. One is one of Jim Loney's final releases, describing one of our dear mutual Iraqi friends, a friend who has suffered unimaginably as a war-resistor and yet retains a soft heart. The other focuses on Tom Fox, who's steady radical faith has been a firm support to me much of this year in Baghdad and I'm sure will be sustaining the whole group through this trial. Inshallah when I will see Tom free in a few days I'm sure he we give me his shy half smile and ask in those gentle measured tones what all the fuss has been about during his little hiatus, given than dozens of Iraqis go through a similar experience each day.

CPT has issued a new press release:
Love Your Enemies. Free the Captives. End the War

We remain concerned about the well-being of our team-mates Harmeet, James, Norman, and Tom, and we ask for their release. We also remain concerned about the well-being of all Iraqis who are suffering under occupation.

Those who are with our team-mates have demanded the release from captivity of the Iraqi detainees held in United States’ and Iraqi prisons.

Christian Peacemaker Teams believes that no single person, no single nation can meet the demands of Justice.

No single person, no single nation can meet the demands of Peace.

But we believe that it is everyone’s responsibility to do their part to bring each combatant and each captive home to their families and to end the war and occupation.
December 10th is International Human Rights Day.

Christian Peacemaker Teams calls for all people of conscience around the world to initiate non-violent public actions for peace and for prayer on December 10
in support of international human rights and in support of ending war and occupation.

Massive support for the CPT Four

It has been an incredibly distressing week in many ways, but one thing which has kept many of us going has been the huge outpouring of support for our friends in Iraq. Not only have dozens of volunteers associated with CPT worked around the clock, but hundreds of others have organised vigils, written articles, attended prayer meetings and expressed their respect and concern for Tom, Jim, Harmeet and Norman. Independent initiatives have been launched including a visit to Iraq by a representative of the Muslim Assoication of Britain and the broader anti-war movement. Muslims held in detention in Canada for four years under anti-terrorism legislation have spoken out recipricoly for James Loney who has been involved in the campaign for their release. An new friend in Beirut is staying up late into the night translating press releases and statements.

There has been a groundswell of support from Palestine, where many appreciate the work of CPT over the last decade. There have been rallies in Tuwani, Khalil and Ramallah and statements from Sheikh Mehdi al-Karki and many of the political parties. Tomorrow my fiance (working with CPT in Palestine) will share a platform with the Mufti of Jerusalem who is holding a press conference calling for our friends release. Most importantly, the team in Iraq have recieved huge support from many Iraqi friends and neighbours, some who have even gone on TV, always a dangerous thing to do, to make personal appeals. Moreover there has been strong support from significant individuals and groups including Sheikh Abdullatif Humayem, the Association of Muslim Scholars and the Iraqi Islamic Party.

For more info see CPT and Indymedia Beirut

Second video

A second video was released by Jazeera last night showing my friends from CPT looking in worse condition and with a threat to kill them on Thursday unless all detainees are released. This is dreadfully ironic given that the primary work of CPT in Iraq has been helping detainees, both of the Occupation and of the Iraqi government.

In April I joined the Iraqi Islamic Party in a rally of hundreds of family members of detainees and many in the crowd recognised us for working on their cases. The first problem for Iraqis is that when relatives are detaineed in a raid or whatever, it can take months to find out where they are being held. The next stage is arranging family visits. In March I went all the way down to camp Bucca in Umm Qasr in March accopanying an Iraqi who had been twice turned away when trying to visit his brothers there, he got in on that occassion. The hardest step is encouraging the authorities to conduct a fair and quick judicial process or release them. Some of my close friends have been detained for really no reason for a year and then never even question or told the alleged charges against them. A number of people whose cases we've lobbied on (letter writing to authorities etc.) have been released and the families have credited us with the release (and invited us to joyful reunion parties) though to be honest its often hard for us to tell how big a role our intervention played in the release. Many others have not been release, but we continue to try and stand by their families. Also to document and report on the overall detainee situation to try and change policy.

I'm still in the cloths I was wearing last Sunday, which I've been sleeping in (for max 3hrs a night) as well. I'm in Jordan now but hopefully on my way to Baghdad soon. See www.cpt.org for arabic statements, petition, CPT's detainee reports etc. also see Tom Fox's blog.

Kidnapped but standing firm

It's now almost 24 hours since the video of my CPT friends appeared on al-Jazeera. Until that point I'd been rushing to try and return to Baghdad ASAP but since then I've been glued to the phone & net, not leaving my desk (and sleeping under it). I've been tangled up in some of Iraq's horrors before (Ghareeb, Enzo, Simonas, Marla, Khalid and my own death threat) but that's not really much of a preparation. Dozens of people across at least 7 countries have been working through the night and supporting each other through fear, exhaustion and frustration. In the intense flurry of activity (I've made more calls in the last day than maybe the last 3 months combined) its very easy to forget prayer but it is more valuable than anything else we (and you please!) can do. And not lose sight of the bigger picture. Wonderful and valuable though my friends are, they are no more valuable than the dozens of Iraqis who are murdered and kidnapped every day and may warrant no more than a nameless footnote in a newswire, if that.

CPT has now issued a full press statement in arabic and english. Also a Palestinian statement of support from Islamic forces in Khalil has been issued by people familiar with our work in the West Bank (english translation). Please circulate these. Many Iraqis friends are trying to get the word out on Arab TV. Here are some articles about CPT's work in Iraq over the last year.

In a published reflection a year ago, Tom Fox wrote: If I am not to fight or flee in the face of armed aggression, be it the overt aggression of the army or the subversive aggression of the terrorist, then what am I to do? "Stand firm against evil" (Matthew 5:39) seems to be the guidance of Jesus and Gandhi in order to stay connected with God. Here in Iraq I struggle with that second form of aggression. I have visual references and written models of CPTers standing firm against the overt aggression of an army, be it regular or paramilitary. But how do you stand firm against a car-bomber or a kidnapper? Clearly the soldier disconnected from God needs to have me fight. Just as clearly the terrorist disconnected from God needs to have me flee. Both are willing to kill me using different means to achieve he same end--that end being to increase the parasitic power of Satan within God's good creation. It seems easier somehow to confront anger within my heart than it is to confront fear. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right then I am not to give in to either. I am to stand firm against the kidnapper as I am to stand firm against the soldier. Does that mean I walk into a raging battle to confront the soldiers? Does that mean I walk the streets of Baghdad with a sign saying "American for the Taking?" No to both counts. But if Jesus and Gandhi are right, then I am asked to risk my life, and if I lose it to be as forgiving as they were.

Peacemakers kidnapped

On Saturday four people with Christian Peacemaker Teams, one a close friend I worked with in Iraq earlier this year and another an aquaintance, were kidnapped in Baghdad. CPT has issued this statement:

"International violence-reduction organization Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) confirmed today that the four humanitarian workers kidnapped in Baghdad on November 26 are associated with their organization. One of the hostages is Norman Kember, a member of the current CPT delegation to Iraq. The British Foreign office confirmed Mr. Kember’s name on Sunday. The names of the other hostages are being withheld in the interest of their security. Only two are members of the long-term Team.

CPT has been present in Iraq since October, 2002. The Team’s work has focused on documenting and focusing public attention on detainee abuses, connecting citizens of Iraq to local and international human rights organizations, and accompanying Iraqi civilians as they interact with multinational military personnel and Iraq’s government officials. Iraqi friends and human rights workers have welcomed the Team as a non-violent, independent presence and asked that the Team tell the stories of Iraqis.

In a “Statement of Conviction,” the long-term Team members stated that they “are aware of the many risks both Iraqis and internationals currently face,” and affirmed that the risks did not outweigh their purpose in remaining. They express the hope that “in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening non-violently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation.”

CPT does not advocate the use of violent force to save our lives should we be kidnapped, held hostage, or caught in the middle of a conflict situation.

Christian Peacemaker Teams places teams of trained peacemakers in crisis situations and militarized areas around the world. These teams host regular delegations of committed peace and human rights activists to conflict zones, who join teams in working with civilians to document abuses and develop non-violent alternatives. The CPT Iraq Team has hosted a total of 120 people on 16 delegations over the last 3 years.

In addition to the Iraq Team, Teams of CPT workers are currently serving in Barrancabermeja, Colombia; Hebron and At-Tuwani, Palestine; Kenora, Ontario, Canada; and on the Mexico-United States border."

The CPT-Iraq team does not want media speculation at this moment in case this is harmful. They may issue further statements on their website. Any media should contact them on +1 416-423-5525 (Canada) +1 773-277-0253 (US), offices being staffed 24hrs a day.

If anyone may be able to help with their release contact CPT on the above, or you can reach me at justinalexander@gmail.com or by phone currently on +0039 0831 23 2042 (until about 10pm Kuwait time, 3pm EST) or at my hotel + 965 5710301 ext. 237 (or ask the switchboard to see if I'm at the lobby internet cafe). You may be able to SMS (but not call) me on +962 796497506. My numbers are likely to change in the next few days as I am traveling, and I will post the latest here.

Use Googlenews for the latest on this issue sorted by relevance and date.

In any case, I welcome all of your prayers for their safety and for the many brave Iraqis suffering ongoing kidnapping, detention and violence, and struggling to make ends meet.

Remember Fallujah

Today marks an ignoble aniversary. On 8 November 2004 the US military, with approval and support from Britain, began the systematic destruction of a city of 200,000 people in an operation originally and appropriately codenamed "Thanksgiving Massacre". When I visited 5 months later the 1000+ bodies had been buried and the blood had been washed away, but the devastation remained.

Reading that 60% of the buildings had been seriously damaged is one thing, looking around a once populous neighbourhood and seeing only rubble in all directions is something else entirely. The people of Fallujah were promised large amounts of compensation and reconstruction but my friends at Christian Peacemaker Teams who visited a few days ago testify that a year on the situation remain dire.

http://www.rememberfallujah.org/... and Ramadi, Hit, Mosul, Qaim, Tal Afar, Haditha...

The first rains in Baghdad

There is a distant rumble and it is not a bomb
the rhythmic beat is not small arms fire
it is thunder and the first rains
to wash away blood and dust
an Iftar for the earth after a six months fast
drink deep
this year we need
new life
urgently

Settler attack on Tuwani averted

So I've just 3 days of travel getting from Tuwani to Baghdad. On route I've bumped into various friends (including finally meeting the elusive Azzam, the "capitalist dad" and only non-blogging member of the Jarrar family) and I've been on tender hooks worrying about Jenny facing attacks from Israeli settlers.

In Iraq the controversy continues over Saddam's trial and the referendum results. The violence also continues. This morning I got a call from a very close friend in great distress as there had been an explosion at his younger sister's school in Mansour. The scale of violence in Iraq today is so vast that this incident, which in any other country might have been headline news for days, didn't warrent a single dedicated news article focusing on it, only a few lines reporting that a mortar killed two a child and wounded four others. Thankfully his sister was ok. Rumours at the scene were that it was an American missile. Either way the school was probably not the target but an unfortunate miss.

Last night, as I was in Baghdad airport, Jenny had just texted me that 6 busloads of settlers drove through their village and that the settler's security guard had threatened that they were coming to hurt them and the villagers. The Israeli army and police said the situation was too dangerous for them to intervene, and so they were going to abandoning CPT and the Palestinians to the mercy of the settlers. I spent most of the night praying for them in the military chapel in Camp Striker, Baghdad airpot (a very unusal habitat!) and, hamdulillah, I learnt this morning that the attack was averted, or at least delayed. Jenny and team did a phenomenal job putting pressure on the Israelis (with dozens of internationals and Israeli activists phoning army officers) and so they finally turned up. However the IDF has refused to continue escorting children from the neighouring village of Tuba who have to pass close by the settlement in order to get to school in Tuwani. This violates a system established by order of the Knesset last year after CPTers were severely beaten by settlers while escorting the children, highlighting the issue in the international media. The upside of these new threats of violence is that once again both the Israeli and international media are taking an interest, and this may force the Israeli government to curb the settlers and ease the restrictions on the villagers.

Two final things (a lots's been happening today)...

Firstly many mutual friends have been asking after Joe Carr. He is recovering in Ramallah hospital after suffering a ruptured spleen. I was with him on Friday at the demonstration against the Apertheid Wall in Bil'in. Here is his report of trying to protect Palestinian childrenfrom rubber bullets and subsequently being grabbed and used as a human shield by an Israeli soldier and hence being hit in the ribs by a rock. I travelled to Ramallah hospital with him in a Red Cresent ambulance and as he lay there it was clear that for Joe, who saw his friends Rachel and Tom killed by the IDF in Gaza in 2003, to suffer this injury in the struggle for Palestinian rights was a very minor thing. We differ significantly in our politics and ethics, but Joe's courage and committment continuously inspire me.

Secondly it turns out that Kirsten Dunst will be playing Marla in the film about her life being produced by Marc Platt for MTV films. I wish that she was around to see it.

3 Funerals and an Engagement

So my life continues to be surreal. Lets start with the good (wonderful) news. Last night, as she sat shivering on a rock on a windy hillside shortly after sunset above the village of Tuwani in the southernmost part of the West Bank, I got down on one knee amidst the thorny shrubs and asked Jenny for her hand in marriage... remarkably she said YES immediately!

My cunning proposal plans had been slightly scuppered by the fact that I'd twisted my ankle the previous day and so had not been able to go on the hike into the wilderness that I'd planned to find the perfect romantic spot. Then she was exhausted, having been out walking the hills all day while I was recuperating, and so only very begrudingly agreed to wander with me just outside the village, and we missed sunset. Finally, in spite of all my subterfuge over the previous week as I got the ring designed in Jerusalem and asked her parents for their blessing, she'd somehow figured out my intentions from the most circumstantial evidence - huh, women's intuition! Anyway, although the proposal wasn't the grand cinematic gesture that I'd envisaged, it was certainly memorable in a quirky way and she seemed happy enough which is the important thing.

Typically for us, our personal moment of joy rapidly became tangled up with bigger and less happy events. About an hour after coming back down the hill, having used the last of our phone credits to inform our families, we heard the tragic news that 3 Israeli settlers had been shot earlier that day about 50 miles north of us. One of them, a 14yr old boy, came from Ma'on, the settlement just opposite our dear Tuwani, and the two women came from Carmel, the next settlement about two miles to the east. Our immediate reaction, along with sadness for the murders, was fear that there would be a very violent reaction from the settlers, perhaps even that night. The reason Jenny and others are living in Tuwani is because an international presence can sometimes deter, and at the very least document, settler attacks. In fact we'd been woken that morning by a hysterical shepherd from a nearby village who was attacked by 3 Ma'on settlers at about 6.30am, they stabbed one of his goats to death and seriously stoned a sheep (it later died).

Thankfully nothing happened last night. In the morning at 9am settlers from all across the West Bank gathered for the 3 funerals which took place at the Synagogue at Susiya, a settlement to the West (part of the chain of settlements and outposts, including Ma'on, on the hilltops across the South Hebron Hills, designed to control area and eventually annex it to Israel). The whole village watched in terror as perhaps a thousand settlers gathered on the settler bypass road near the entrance to Ma'on and drove slowly (we counted more than 150 cars, vans and buses) to Susiya, passing right below Tuwani. We gazed up into the thickly wooded hill towering above Tuwani in which an extremist outpost settlement is based and from which masked settlers often emerge (on 4 occasions in the last year they have seriously beaten up our international observers, not to mention the many occasions of violence against Palestinians). Thankfully the Israeli Army and Police had positioned themselves on the road at either entrance to the village and for once the villagers were pleased by their presence (which is often a harassment, as happened two nights ago when the army spent most of the evening surveiling the village with an infra-red camera). An attack, however, is unlikely to happen today, but perhaps tomorrow (on Succoth, a Jewish holiday, as settlers will not be working it is more likely that they will attack) or in a few days time when the army and police are not around.

I'm very worried for my fiance's safety, and was sorely tempted to stay with her, but she insisted that she could look after herself and that I must attend to my responsibilities in Iraq (I fly back on Wednesday) so I agreed eventually to entrust Jenny to her own good sense and to God's protection. I made my way back to Jerusalem after the funerals, a process which took 4 hours and required 6 changes of bus and clambering over numerous roadblocks because Israel has closed off most of the main roads in the southern West Bank - part of the collective punishment veiled as "security" in response to the 3 murders. Settlers leaving the funreal at about the same time as me would have been in Jerusalem after just 30mins on the US-funded settler bypass roads.

Refugees again - Palestinians flee Iraq

Before sunrise on Tuesday, 20 Palestinians (including 8 children, a 77 grandmother and two disabled men) piled into a delapitated bus in Baghdad and travelled the perilous Anbar road past Ramadi and Rutba (risking attack from Americans, terrorists, Iraqi security forces and criminal gangs) to the Syrian border town of Al-Waleed. They were accompanied by 3 friends from Christian Peacemaker Teams and an Iraqi peace activist from Najaf, part of the sister group Muslim Peacemaker Teams.

Everyone in Iraq is suffering these days, but the Palestinian community, most of whom have been born here (their families having fled Palestine in 1948), are among the lowest of the low. They do not have Iraqi citizenship and have to extend their residency permits (a complex process) every single month. Because Saddam exploited the Palestinian cause to try and gain prominence in the Arab world, Palestinians are often (incorrectly) viewed as having supported and benefited from his regime and as a result are persecuted. In fact Saddam did very little for the 23,000 Palestinians in Iraq. In addition, as a result of fears of foreign jihadists, any non-Iraqi Arabs are view with suspicion. There is no evidence that any of the Palestinian community in Iraq has been involved in terrorist activities, but none the less they are frequently harrassed and detained. Things have got so bad that Iraqi security forces have been turning up at the Palestinian ghetto in Baladiat (Baghdad) almost every evening. This is the reason that Palestinians are beginning to take the ultimate step of leaving their homes once again in search of a genuine place of refugee.

One of the Palestinians said: "By our action we want to make the UN aware of our situation and to be registered as refugees with UNRWA which provides assistance to Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza and other Arab nations but not in Iraq." I've been doing my best to alert people in the UN to the situation, and they are taking it seriously, however the decision on permitting them to enter Syria rest with the government.

For updates see the CPT_Iraq Yahoo Group. Their plight has been covered in the Canadian Globe and Mail (although this article exaggerates the support Palestinians recieved from the former regime).

Ramadan Kareem

So, for the first time, I'm actually out in the Middle East during Ramadan. Shia Muslims begin fasting today, while their Sunni cousins began yesterday (the lag is a result of slightly different methodologies in judging the beginning of the lunar month). I began fasting yesterday with the Sunnis and intend to carry on through to the end of the Shia period, so as to be in equal solidarity with both sects. I'm currently just doing the solids component of the fast between dawn and dusk and am drinking water through the day (I'm ill at the moment and getting dehydrated in this climate didn't seem wise), but may cut out water as well when I'm feeling better.

One of the things I appreciate about Ramadan, like so many aspects of Islamic devotion, is that it provides a connection with the natural world in an age when many of us live in cities and spend almost all of our waking hours indoors chained to a computer. In an age when few of us have time or inclination to study the sky, ever Muslim around the world pays careful attention to the phases of the moon, as the physical sighting of the new moon heralds the start of fasting. In an age when we often sleep in late in our environmentally-sealed houses and stay up late burning trillions of watts of electric light, those observing Ramadan wake up before sun rise for their first meal and know to the minute ever day when the sun sets behind the horizon - the time for iftar, the breaking of the fast. In an age of snack food and instant gratification, it is phenomenal seeing a whole nation choosing not to pass anything through their lips during the hours of daylight.

On Monday, unconnected to Ramadan, there was an eclipse of the sun. Even though it was not visible here in Iraq, all my observant Muslim friends were aware it was happening and made additional prayers at that time, in recognition of the majesty of the created universe. I am usually total ignorant of my geographical orientation, but Muslims must know this in order to be able to pray facing Mecca (in my office it seems that this about a 40 degree angle facing into the left hand corner).

To mark the beginning of Ramadan I emailed everyone in the office and invited them to meet at midday for an interfaith prayer meeting to intercede for the victims of the conflict and pray for peace in Iraq. I was amazed that about 20 people showed up and we had a wonderful time of prayer. I distributed news clippings of recent incidents and invited people to pray about them. By and large Islamic prayer - at least in group settings - is litugical, and therefore I think most of those present were unfamiliar with this model of group intercession, none the less they seemed to get the hang of it. Prayers were a mixture of english and arabic, and one lady began weeping as she called for God's mercy for the children of Iraq.

I started the meeting by reading the famous prayer of St.Francis "Lord make me an instrument of your peace..." and then recalling that Iraq is a holy land of prophets and martyrs, that the Tigris river flowing a few feet away from us (sadly hidden behind concrete blast walls) used to run through the Garden of Eden, and it was along this river that Ibrahim lead his family on the first ever pilgrimage in response to God's call. I received a wonderful email from one of the Iraqis present who wrote: "When you said your prayer at the beginning, I thought of my dearest friend who was assassinated few months ago, and ... and I said this prayer is for him, the words were so moving made me feel so near to GOD."

Back in Baghdad

Hi folks. Sorry for not blogging for ages - if its any consolation I haven't been calling my mum so often, and I'm afraid you guys are second in line... but I'll try to be more a more faithful blogaspondant in the future.

I've actually had three gorgeous, though hectic, weeks in the US & UK meeting my habibti's family and introducing mine to her. I was a few hundred miles north of New Orleans when the Hurricane hit, and my heart goes out to all those who have suffered. How strange that a large section of the Southern US has, as many have noted, been transformed into a situation of chaos reminiscent in some ways of Iraq.

On the course of my travels I was fortunate enough to attend the inaugural conference of the International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies (IACIS) and met many old friends and was impressed by the contributions of new faces. I presented a paper on the role of the IMF in Iraq (some of my Iraq colleagues in Jubilee Iraq will be attending the IMF Autumn meetings next week to argue the case of economic justice and self-determination) and read out a friend's paper on US involvement in the Constitutional process (as he was unable to attend himself). This created quite a minor diplomatic incident as it was reported by the media and made its way to the US Embassy in Iraq, who were not best pleased.

I left Iraq on the 17th August, by which time the Constitution was scheduled to have been completed, and learnt on my return that it was still up in the air... and even now its still not confirmed. We expect that tomorrow it will be formally agreed in the National Assembly (although of course significant segments of the population are unsatisfied with the drafting process) and then the printing and distributing of 5 million copies with begin in haste. The referendum is exactly 4 weeks away, and unfortunately almost any outcome in it is likely to be divisive. For this reason I'm working to support Iraqi initiatives towards reconciliation.

In the few days I've been here hundreds of Iraqis have died in bombs, not to mention assassinations and random shootings by Coalition soldiers. About a year ago I would have been able to list off the dates and circumstances of every major bomb and, whenever a new one went off, I'd be up on my roof looking for the smoke and desperately calling all my friends living near the area of the explosion. But these days I've got to admit I hardly notice the blasts, sometime a dozen a day, which are now a kind of routine background city noise like ambulance sirens. I'm surreally insulated from it all.

If any of you are coming out here this year, do get in touch, and I'm always willing to be of whatever small help I can to any organisations or individuals doing positive things for Iraq.

Consitutional guessing game

So we're sitting here in Baghdad on tender hooks waiting to see if a Constitution will be approved today. So far I get a different view from everyone I speak to. Apparently there is going to be a leadership meeting in about 30 mins to decide on whether to ammend the Transitional Administrative Law to get a week's extension. The Americans are furious of course and twisting arms to get it signed and sealed today. It's hard to know what's best. On the one hand if there's a week's extension they might be in the same situation next week but without the spur of an almost sacred deadline (to some). However if a text is pushed through today with major objections, including probably much of the Sunni Arab community, then that could generate big problems down the line. A third option is that everyone, including Sunni Arabs, will sign up to a text, which will form the basis of the referendum and elections, but with some of the outstanding elements being on a provisional basis. I'd always argued that there should have been an extension of a month or two made back on the 1 August, since then there would have been time to plan for more input from the Iraqi public, something which a rolling extension process does not really make possible, being geared just to the delibarations of the politicians. Anyway, it's anyones guess what will happen. In any case we'll probably know by about 4pm Iraqi time what the decision is.

Iraqi joke

If it wasn't so incredibly serious I would say the constitutional drafting process is a complete joke, particularly now that the US Ambassador has bullied the Iraqis from taking the one month extension that most wanted. But it wouldn't be diplomatic of me too say too much, so I'll give you a joke that has been circulating in Iraq:

A Brit, an American and an Iraqi died in a carbomb and went to Hell. As they sat around talking about their situation, they began to think about their homelands, the Devil mentioned that they'd just got inter-dimensional dialing hooked up and suggested that they call home, but they'd have to pay.

The Brit said "I really miss England, and I need to call and find out how the cricket is going." So he called and talked for about 5 minutes and asked the Devil "So Satan, old chap, how much do I owe you for the phone call?" The devil replied wickedly "Five million pounds"... "Five million pounds!!!" exclaimed the Brit, but he handed over his credit card and went to sit back on his chair.

The American was soo jelalous, he starts screaming: "me too, I wanna call the US and, I wanna hear what's happening in the NFL." So he called and talked really quickly for about 2 minutes, and then he said: "Well, Devil, how many bucks is it." and the devil goes "For you habibi, just ten million dollars."... "f$&k, Ten million dollars!!!!!!" he cursed, but he handed over his credit card and went to sit back on his chair.

Finally the Iraqi gets to call home and, being Iraqi, he talked and talked for about twenty hours. Finally he finished and said "So how much is it?" And the devil says "One dollar". "Only one dollar?!" the Brit and American exclaim together. "Yes" replies the devil, "From Hell to Hell, it's a local call."

Expanded Kurdistan claim

A few days ago the Kurds unveiled an expanded Kurdish region which they want enshrined as an appendix to the new constitution. As I understand it the claim represents not simply areas which currently have a majority Kurdish population, but areas which they believe did so at some point in the past 50-100 years.

I'm afraid I only have this low resolution photo of the map which is confusing as it changes the boundaries of the existing Kurdish governorates while adding in new regions. I've drawn in a red line which roughly represents the current boundary of the existing Kurdistan Regional Government region (Dohuk - the top brown region, Erbil - the central green region and Sulimaniya - the brown region on the right).

Working from top left to bottom right: A chunk of Nineveh governorate has been added to Dohuk (the brown area below the red line, and another large section of Nineveh is coloured as a new (mid-green) goverorate including Sinjar and part of Mosul, I think just skirting the large Turkoman city Tel Afar. The whole of Tam'im governorate (with Kirkuk at the centre) has been included with parts of Diyala, Salahadin and Sulymania added to produce the large dark green region. A large slice of Diyala along the border has been marked as a sixth region (light green) and finally a chunk of Wasit (including the towns of Badra and Jassan) is the seventh and smallest region in the expanded Kurdistan. In all this would represent a doubling of the Kurdish region and include areas which currently have majority arab, chaldo-assyrian and turkoman populations.

For some background, here is a Google image search for maps of Kurdistan. Some of the most ambitious mark out a region reaching to the Meditaranian, Black Sea, Caspian Sea and the Gulf. Edinburgh University has an interesting linguistic map which matches reasonably well with the most detailed map on kurdistania.com. There are excellent summary maps on Globalsecurity.org showing past claims and autonomous regions and a rough guide to the Kurdish percentage of the population in different areas on Globalsecurity.org.

P.S. In case you haven't heard the good news, Khalid Jarrar is now free, after 10 days of interrogation. Sadly he had to shave his beautiful beard which seems to have been the main reason for his arrest. He'll promises he'll write about his ordeal shortly.

Free Khalid!

Ashkur-allah! Thank you for everyone who prayed for Khalid. We heard the good news this morning that he is safe, albeit in a mukhaberat (secret police) cell. He was picked up from university on tuesday as he arrived there to collect his final exam results. We don't know why he's been taken exactly, perhaps for what he writes against the occupation on his blog. Whatever the reason, I am sure it is unjustified and if he is not release swiftly then his friends and family will launch a campaign for his freedom.

Missing in Baghdad

Please could you urgently pray for a freind, K, who vanished in Baghdad yestarday. We were due to meet today and he was going to bring a supply of chocolate he had bought for me in Jordan. His family have searched hospitals and morques, thankfully without result. The most likely explanation is that he has been detained by one of the many branches of the US army, Iraqi Police, Iraq National Guard, Iraqi Special Forces etc. We are in the process of checking with all of these to see if they are holding him, something which may take some time as they generally have poor and uncoordinated records of detainees. Please pray for his safety wherever he is, and that he can be returned to his family soon.

Clarke is wrong about the bombers' motive

Home Secretary Charles Clarke told the BBC: "There is no evidence [it] had anything to do with the Iraq war." But he went on to assert, without giving any evidence himself and in very Bushian language: "the people who make these kind of attacks are about destroying the very essence of our society: our democracy, our media, our multicultural society and so on. That's not about Iraq or any other particular foreign policy issue, it's about a fundamentalist attack on the way we live our lives."

If indeed this was the work of an Al-Qaeda style group (which seems likely, though far from proven) then, as I argued yesterday, their motive is not to destroy "our democracy, our media, our multicultural society... the way we live our lives." A few bombs clearly have no power to destroy any of these things (except perhaps the multicultural society if we succumb to a racist backlash). Although Bin Laden and his associates do indeed have a critique of the decadence of Western society, the explanations for their terrorist attacks have always been expressed in terms of very clear foreign policy objectives (The end of occupations in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan, the removal of foreign troops from the Middle East, the ceasation of support for dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia etc.).

The only hope we have of preventing future attacks is not a further shift to the right in immigration policy and an increasing erosion of our civil liberties through surveillance, detention and ID-cards, but rather cleaning up our foreign policy. Fortunately the foreign policy objectives of Al-Qaeda, unlike its actions, are by and large just. Even if Al-Qaeda didn't exist we should be working towards the things, because they are actually a reflection of the Christian values of justice, peace and freedom which are (or should be) the true "essence of our society".

P.S. The help line for information about missing friends & family is 0870 156 6344. BBC news coverage here. Mil Rai of Justice not Vengence is doing a sterling job providing a daily analysis of the UK media coverage of the aftermath and challenging any tendancies to Islamophobia. You'll also find good analysis on Juan Cole's blog, and listen out for anything by Michael Scheuer who is speaking a lot of sense on this. Also keep an eye on Arab Media Watch and CAABU.

The answer to terrorism is justice

I stood hypnotised by BBC World, part of my brain knew people in the room were trying to talk to me but I couldn't resolve their words while I struggled to comprehend what was happening. I was sitting in Baghdad, on a remarkably calm day (with a coolish breeze and little background small arms fire) watching scenes of devastation back home in London. I tried to call my sister but the mobiles network was down (it turns out she was in Kings Cross when the bomb there went off, but in a different underground tunnel, and didn't even hear it). Bombs and broken communication are part of the daily routine here, and you take them in your stride but when its happening at home, which you thought was safe, it's a different kettle of fish. An Iraqi friend called me to express his deep concern for my family, almost forgetting to mention that there was a gun battle raging outside his home in Mansour neighbourhood.

9-11 gave Americans an opportunity, sadly wasted and perverted, to ask themselves the question "why do 'they' hate us". Instead of admitting to the uncomfortable reality that Al-Qaeda's grievances, about which it has been very open, relate to American aggression against Muslims and support for oppressive Middle Eastern kings and dictators, all we got was this unsubstantiated rushish from Bush about "they hate our freedom" and then a serious of wars which have made things much worse. No less an expert than Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA Counter-Terrorism Centre’s Bin Laden task force (1996–1999), wrote: "Bin Laden has been precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. None of the reasons have anything to do with our freedom, liberty and democracy, but have everything to do with US policies and actions in the Muslim world." If America had admitted that, although the actions of Al-Qaeda are deplorable, theigrievanceses are justified, and seriously addressed them, then there would be thousands of more people alive in Baghdad, Kabul, Madrid and London. There would be no motivation for terror and no need for an unending unwinnable War on Terror.

So now it is our turn in Britain. As we mourn our dead and seek to bring the culprits to justice, let's not respond with racism, aggression and an incorrect analysis (see my friend Mil Rai's excellent critique of the British media's initial coverage of the bombings). Let's review our policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world. Let us make some historic steps towards tackling poverty and injustice and promoting genuine freedom - from dictators who are allies as much as from those we consider enemies, from the economic imperialism of the IMF as much from territorialal imperialism. As Noam Chomsky explains: "The answer to terrorism is justice, not more terrorism. London and Washington must also stop practicing the terrorism of the powerful - invasion, occupation, and indirect terrorism via oppressive states." Jesus, who both Bush & Blair claim to respect, put it even more strongly "Love your enemies as yourself."

Much of Blair's rhetoric in the run up to the summititt was supportive of the aims of the Make Poverty History coalition, but already it is looking like this summit, of countries with a combined GDP of nearly $25 trillion, is not living up to expectations. We make not be able to persuade Bush to act rightly, but we can at least get our own house in order.

As a final note, to caution us against kneejerk Islamophobia, the National Association of British Arabs, which condemns the attacks, points out "the bombing at Edgware Road was in the heart of London's Arab community, as the bombing in Aldgate East was in the heart of a Muslim community."

Marla film

So it seems that Paramount is planning a film about my friend Marla Ruzicka's life. I find the idea that millions will see her story at the cinema quite surreal (and reliving the horrible day of her death will be really painful). But then Marla's life was surreal in the extreme, and perhaps this could be a great memoral for her, particularly if it stimulates real international action for the ordinary people who are victims of conflict in Iraq and worldwide. Her family support the project which is encouraging.

Israeli settlers seek asylum with PA

"If the state of Israel doesn't want us, we don't want it," 28-year-old Drori Stuan told Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot. His family has lived in the Kadim settlement in the northern West Bank since 1983. It is one of four small settlements in the West Bank that the Israeli government is planning to evacuate later this year. Drori's family has applied for political asylum in the Palestinian Authority: "We are people who intend to carry on living in Samaria under Palestinian rule and not under Israeli rule." He continued: "Palestinian sovereignty does not scare us. We believe that everything will be OK and we will live in security like other Jews around the world."

I think this is an incredible positive development, though I doubt the PA will be able to grant the request, given that its authority is heavily limited by Israel. The desire of religious Jews to live in areas of historical significance is understandable - providing they do not do so at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian population, as is currently the case. If the Stuan family is truely prepared to live as Palestian citizens, rather than as agressive and exploitative colonialists, then this is the attitude which could finally bring a lasting peace.

The only long term solution, in my opinion, is a single pluralistic state, perhaps called something like"The Holy Land of Palestine & Israel", in which all citizens have equal rights and a fair distribution of wealth. There is a precedent in the 1 million Israeli Arabs, decendents of the Palestinians who remained within Israel during the Naqba (the 1948 war), who in theory have the same rights as Jewish Israelis. The barrier to the establishment of this state has always been Isarelis democraphic fear of living in a country with a majority Palestinian population, as well as the economic benefits they gain from exploitation of Palestinian land and water. But it looks like some settlers are finally realising that their ability to live in the Land depends on a good relationship with Palestinians, and that it is okay even to live under the authority of a majority Palestinian governmetn.

Please pray that the Stuan family could indeed become citizens of the PA and thereby demonstrate to other settlers and Israelis that there is nothing to fear from Palestinians when they are treated with justice and respect. May this lead to a lasting peace in which Palestinians are granted full citizenship rights in a new united state.

Addicted to Iraq

Apologies to friends/readers for not posting for a while. I've had a hectic month, a week in Basra for a trade union conference against privatisation, a week back in Palestine supporting people being terrorised by settlers and the apartheid wall, a few days back in the UK (sadly for a funeral)... and now, of course, I'm on my way back to Iraq!

I'm afraid I'm hooked on this bleeding, welcoming, disastrous, cultured, impoverished, wealthy, hopeless, hopeful country. I'm sure my family would prefer it if I took up a safer and more socially acceptable addiction like crack cocaine, but I'm afraid I'm already suffering from withdrawal having been away for only 3 weeks.

I can't say too much about what I'm doing this time, as I need to keep a low profile and don't want to endanger the people I'm working with. But I'd appreciate all your prayers that I can find ways to usefully support and empower Iraqis doing positive things and contribute in small ways to promoting genuine self-determination, ending the occupation and restoring a healthy economy.

I helped organised a 2 week Fast for Economic Justice in Iraq, which is happening right now in Geneva in the run up to the final meeting of the UNCC, the body which awards war reparations against Iraq. It was opened on Thursday by Hans von Sponek, the courageous former UN Humanitarian Coordinator who resigned in 2000 to protest the sanctions regime.

Free Burma and Kim's mum!

Today Burma's democratically elected leader, Nobel prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, turns 60, after 15 years under almost permanent house arrest. Her party won a landslide 82% victory in the 1990 elections, but the military dictatorship refused to recognise it and instead increased the repression of their rule.

My international focus has been largely orientated towards the Middle East, but many of my close friends at university were very actively involved in the Free Burma campaign. I was busy with other campaigns and never learnt in depth about the situation in Burma, but the photos of Aung San that many friends had on their walls are fixed in my mind. Typically she is photographed with arms crossed and often a flower in her hair. Firm and defiant of injustice and at the same time gentle and open. Of all the iconic portraits of heros and revolutionaries I find Aung San's the most human and the most inspiring.

When in 1999 Aung San's English husband Michael Aris died in Oxford, I realised that I had actually been at school a decade before with their younger son Kim. We were contemporaries at the Dragon School, a boarding school designed originally for the children of Oxford dons. My memory is pretty awful so I only have a few snapshots of him in my head. For whatever reason we both kept pet gerbils in the school's biology classroom, and I can remember discussing with him the intricacies of constructing elaborate runs for our rodents. I certainly had no idea that his mum was under house arrest at the time in a country I'd probably never heard of. Probably the anonymity was a good thing designed to give him a degree of normality at school, but I seem to remember he was treated quite badly at school, and I wish I had shown him friendship. Today he is receiving the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh on behalf of his mother. I don't know how long it is since he saw her last, probably 3-4 years. I haven't seen him now for almost 14 years, but he's in my prayers.

Please pray and campaign for freedom for Aung San and freedom for the people she has come to represent. As she says: "Please use your liberty to promote ours".

Happy blogday to me!

So this blog is 2 years old as of 7.08pm today. I turned 27 (ich, that's ancient!) last week. A lot has happened in the last two years: I've been to Iraq four times (and met many groovy Iraqi bloggers) and also to Germany, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, France, America and India campaigning on Jubilee Iraq; I've made two trips out to central africa to research HIV/AIDS; changed jobs three times; fallen in love with a wonderful American girl; and made 130 blog entries, just over one a week. Here's my not very exciting first entry.

Smell the jasmine

"Marhaba. Smell the jasmine and taste the olives. Jawwal welcomes you to Palestine," said the automatic text message as my phone roamed onto the Palestinian network, and the welcome has already been echoed by dozens of impoverished, abused and occupied people who have piled me with tea, food and kind words in the 24hrs I've been here. I had a marathon trip on Monday, driving from Basra to Kuwait, flying to Amman, flying to Tel Aviv and (after 3 hours of interrogation) driving to Jerusalem. Yesterday morning I came down to Khalil (Hebron) where I'll be staying for a few days.

I've just returned from a morning visiting families in Wadi al-Ruz, a beautiful fertile valley which is now surrounded on all sides by illegal Israeli settlements (Kiryat Arba, Harsina - here is the settlers' website, a scary read) and army and police posts. Palestinian cars have been bared for four years from the one remaining road into the village (and a chunk of the road has been fenced off and annexed to Kiryat Arba), meaning that the people have a half hour walk to get to the nearest shops. It gets more serious when there are medical emergencies. We visited one family which suffers daily abuses and rock throwing from the settlers across the street and the military checkpoint next to their house. The 75yr old grandfather had fallen while praying at the mosque and broken his arm and leg. He was unable to go to hospital because he can't walk and no doctors will come to him because they are afraid of the soldiers. His wife has diabetes and had just been to hospital after an attack. We met her sitting by the roadside in the blazing sun, exhausted and shaking having only walked about 20% of the distance to her home. I stopped a passing police car which luckily turned out to be driven by a Palestinian mechanic who had fixed it and was returning it to the station, and he agreed to give her a lift home. [PHOTO: The road to Wadi al-Ruz. The red-roofed buildings and everything to the right, including all the construction sites, are the settlement of Kiryat Arba. Many of the houses are empty but they are building at a frantic rate to grab more land. The concrete blocks on the road are U-shaped sniper posts, while the camo-netting of the first military checkpoint is visible. The Palestinian village is still half a mile walk away.]

We carried along on foot but were summoned in for tea and breakfast when we past the old lady's house. Her 2yr old granddaughter was terrified of me, but after about 15mins of her father reassuring her "mish Yahud" (he's not a Jew) she finally came over and greeted my shyly. How horrible that her entire life experience (the children get stoned by settlers if they step outside their front door) has taught her to quiver in fear at the sight of Jews.

Another family we drank tea with, further down the valley, told how their 15yr old daughter had stopped going to school after being searched and repeatedly groped by the soldiers at the checkpoint she has to pass every day walking to school. Their 8 yr old son had huge cauliflower ears (bent so they are perpendicular to the face, as some Rugby players develop from scrums). Two days ago the soldiers grabbed him by the ears and picked him up so his full weight was hanging from them. The same family regular gets raided at night by the military post overlooking their house, 5 days ago soldiers were banging at their door at 3am and firing off gunshots.

These stories are just a tiny sample from the lives of Palestinians in Hebron, the only city in which settlers have stolen houses in the centre of town (normally they just ring around the outside, as at Bethlehem, turning the town into a big prison), as a result life is particularly hard for the local people as they are terrorised not just by the settlers but the police and soldiers as well (who steal yet more land for their bases). Nevertheless I still get greeted in the street with a "shalom" by Palestinians who assume I'm Israeli, and receive a kings welcome when they discover I am here in solidarity with them. The hospitality of the Palestinian people is the jasmine which I can smell everywhere I go.

Arabs want peace

Graffiti on the wall of an Iraqi shop in Madaba, a mainly Christian town in Jordan.

Report on HIV/AIDS in Central Africa + random updates

The guidebook for donors that I wrote last year, on HIV/AIDS in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, has been published by New Philanthropy Capital. Please pray that it can result in many new grants to the excellent organisations profiled in it who are tackling HIV/AIDS in a really dire situation of conflict and poverty. UNAIDS says the infection rate in the Middle East and North Africa has risen to 1/2 million, I hope governments here get their act in order quickly and don't ignore it out of embarrassments as was done for far to long in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Other recent bits and pieces:
* I wrote a little bit about the brave Iraqis who refused to fight in Saddam's wars (and had their ears cut off) as part of the defence for the US refusniks Pablo Paredes and Kevin Benderman. You can sign the petition for Pablo.
* Jubilee Iraq, together with Voices in the Wilderness and others, is planning a 2 week fast for economic justice 15-30 June in Geneva in the run up to the final meeting of the UN Compensation Commission, awarding reparations against Iraq, on 28-30 June. First announcement of this in Gulf News.
* For friends reading this blog you might be surprised to hear that amid all the termoil of the last few weeks I've managed to fall in love. Email for more details as I'm not going to blog about my new habibti (arabic for girlfriend) for the time being.
* See my friend Jonty's report of the Protect Sudan demonstration in London, I was shocked by the casualty figure he quotes - 400,000 - if the reality is even half of this the genocide is worst than I'd been led to believe from the media.

Shia peacemakers help in Fallujah

Yestarday something wonderful happened. At a time when Iraqis are being increasingly polarised along religious and ethnic lines, a courageous group of people stood against this. In its first public action the recently formed Muslim Peacemaker Team (MPT) arranged for a group of 15 Shia from Najaf, Kerbala and Baghdad - including 3 women - to visit Fallujah and show solidarity with its vilified Sunni inhabitants. Only two members of the team had visited Fallujah before (I was with them on this exploratory trip in March, another trip 10 days ago including accompanying in medicial aid from the Jarrar family). The flyer which MPT distruibuted explained: "We are among our brothers and sisters in the city of Fallujah to demonstrate our solidarity with you. Our action today is symbolic but... God willing, this project will be . . . the beginning of many projects that will show the world that we are truly one people."

MPT donned orange jump suits and yellow helmets (provided by the city's department of public works) and worked alongside Fallujans to clear streets of rubble and rubbish left over from the US assualt last November. Many passersby and children were excited by the activity and joined in enthusiastically.

Later the MPT members joined in Friday prayers at the Furqan mosque. Earlier they had discussed among themselves whether they should pray in the Sunni or Shia style (which involves a slightly different positioning of the arms and the use of a clay cylinder to rest one's forehead on during prostration). Their conclusion was to use their traditional style because, they said, we are not pretending to be Sunnis, rather we are Shia Iraqis praying alongside our Sunni Iraqi brothers and sisters. Sheikh Abdul Hameed Al-Jumaily presented everyone with inscribed Qu'rans and the Fallujans treated MPT to a generous lunch and they shared an afternoon of fellowship together.

More photos from the trip should be posted here shortly. I am overjoyed that the project went so well and I wish I could have been there myself. I should explain that the project was envisage, organised and paid for by Muslim Peacemaker Team. We merely helped make the connection between Kerbala and Fallujah and went along for the ride.

Media may contact MPT for more information: Sami Rasouli (Najaf) +964-7801-003326, rasouli264@gmail.com and Hussain al-Ibrahemy (Kerbala) +964 7801-076862

"The British don't care about us"

I watched the first depressing few hours of UK election results with some fellow Iraqi refugees here in Jordan, who have fled here following death threats. We cried as we watched the British people endorsing the Blair regime, despite the devestation it has wrought in Iraq. The only real controversy in the last few weeks, and generally in our media, has been whether Blair lied to the British people about Iraq. But the real issue is the 100,000+ Iraqis who have been killed, and many more injured and traumatised, over the last two years. This demands a radical change in policy and a dramatic increase in aid so that Iraqis have genuine freedom and reconstruction. When I was in Basra a few weeks ago I saw the infrastructure still in chaos, the hospital poorly stocked, the university still lacking most of the looted equipment. People told me again and again that although the British were committing few direct human rights abuses, they have broken all their promises of rebuilding even the little corner of Southern Iraq they have been alotted.

"The British people don't really care about us," said one of my friends. "Sure, 2 million people turned out in Hyde Park on 15 Feb 2003, but they only stood there for a few hours and then went back to their comfortable homes feeling self-righteous. If they really cared they would have all sat down outside Parliament and refused to move until Blair committed not to invade. If they really cared then they would have been loudly challenging the government for the last two years. If they really cared they would have visited Iraq to stand alongside us. If they really cared then the smallest thing they could have done was vote Blair out, but they wouldn't even do this."

The UK election must be a referendum on Iraq

The upcoming British election is presenting a big moral dilemma to many of my friends who opposed the war and the ongoing policy failures in Iraq since the main opposition party, the Conservatives, supported the war as enthusistically as the Blair government. While the third party, the Liberal Democrats, has been more critical of the war, the general perception is that it couldn't get the large swing needed to win, although if everyone opposed to the war voted for them this would be possible. The most firmly anti-war party is the Greens, while some of the regional parties like Plaid Cmyru in Wales have also taken strong stances. In a few constituencies independent candidates are standing, including the wonderful Rose Gentle in East Kirbride and Reg Keys in Tony Blair's home constituency of Sedgefield; both have lost sons in Iraq.

The situation would be easier if we had a proportional representation system, but under the existing first-past-the-post system the choice appears to be between two pro-war parties. As a result many people are tempted to ignore Iraq and vote on purely domestic issues. Having just spent 6 weeks in Iraq and seen the mess we have made of that country, I believe that voting in pro-war candidates, whether Labour or Conservative, would be a dreadful betrayal of the Iraqi people. Whoever wins, the clear message of the election needs to be that British governments cannot participate in the killing of around 98,000 people (Lancet estimate) and get away scot free.

More importantly the government which is formed must be compelled to make Iraq a policy and spending priority. A fortnight ago when I was in Basra & Amarah, the British controled regions of Iraq, I heard again and again how little we are doing to even repair the damage caused in the war and looting, let alone rebuild Iraq's tattered infrastructure. I know some wonderful people working for DFID and the FCO in Iraq, but the truth is they have not been given the mandate or the money to do a decent job.

An essay by Milan Rai, who lead the campaign against the sanctions, is helpful in clarifying our voting options. Here is a partial list of pro/anti war candiates. However you vote, please make it clear to your candidates that Iraq policy is the critical issue.

Goodbye Iraq

This is the most painful thing I've ever done and it breaks my heart in pieces, but I have left Iraq.

It turns out that my name has appeared on a Black List of priority kidnap targets. I'm not an important person, but with the British elections coming up I am the only Briton left who does not live behind concrete barriers and armed guards, and so am easy target. The fact that I stongly opposed the invasion of Iraq and am urging people to vote out the Blair government does not matter to the people who want to kidnap me.

I am ready to risk my life to help the Iraqi people, but having such an acute and imminent threat endangers all my colleagues and friends. I also know that if I was taken people would risk their lives and perhaps use violence to secure my release, no matter how strongly I have insisted that I would not want this to happen. So, after agnoising prayer, I decided the right thing to do was to leave Iraq.

This feels like a betrayal coming only a few days after the murder of my friend Marla. I had intended to help, alongside her friends in America, to pick up the pieces and continue her work for the innocent victims of this conflict.

This feels like a betrayal because I know many Iraqis who have also received death threats, and yet they do not have the option of leaving.

This feels like a betrayal because I have made commitments to help people here. Commitments to friends in Kerbala to support their pioneering work developing a Muslim Peacemaker Team; commitments to friends in Fallujah to clear rubble, mix cement and join them in rebuilding their homes, and to draw international attention to the continuing injustices there; commitments to friends in Baghdad to work for the release of family members detained unjustly in Abu Ghraib and Bucca.

While I am away from home (I feel Iraq is my primary home now, Briton was just where I was born) I will continue to devote my time, energy and prayers to Iraq until it is free from Occupation, free from terrorism, free from poverty and filled with peace & justice. I have seen the true character of the Iraqi people and have faith that in the long term their good nature will prevail over those who choose the path of violence.

Marla's memorial

Jill reads memories of Marla emailed from friends around the world at the memorial service in Baghdad today. Some of her favourite music from Neil Finn, Sinead O'Connor and the Beach Boys was played and a collection was taken for Faiz's widowed wife and children.

There is now a lot of good information on the CIVIC website: articles about Marla, a place you can write messages and make donations and details of memorial vigils around the US.

I had the great privilage of talking about Marla on her home town radio station and too some other media. It was a kind of therapy being able to talk about her and urge people to remember the cause she lived for. Sometimes I was so overwhelmed I just babbled cliches, but occasional I found myself expressing things the way I understood them. One quote was: "Marla was so full of laughter and life. She was the social center of our life as well as being its conscience." Also the San Francisco Chronicle printed this which expresses the way I hope Marla will inspire people to pick up her cause (and other causes) with the same love and energy: "Although there have been many nice things said about Marla, I don't think she would want to be held up as this unattainable ideal, She would want people to know that if she, this California girl, came to Iraq with no money and no contacts, and made a difference in a conservative Middle Eastern country, then anyone could [with a bit of gumption]."

The Innocent Victim

Last night I went to the Hamra hotel, home to most of the foreign journalists working in Baghdad, to attend one of Marla Ruzicka famous parties. She'd told me 8.30pm, but there was no sign of her in her room or elsewhere in the hotel and I couldn't get through to her phone. I spotted some journalists sitting by the pool and shyly enquired "Do any you know Marla?" They turned to me and laughed "Are you kidding. Of course we know Marla, everyone knows Marla!" But no one had seen her.

As the evening drew on, fashionably late turned into worryingly late. The last sighting of Marla was in the Green Zone at midday, and she'd been heading off to visit an Iraqi family with an injured kid. Then at 1am I head the dreadful news, she had been killed. The initial reports were confusing, so I quizzed everyone I could thing about for information and then started searching for contact numbers and emails to inform her friends and colleagues back in the US. Most people had gone to bed so I sat up alone in the Washington Post house and they kindly let me use their phones to call the US. A big hearted guy, Colin, had already gotten the PalmPilot from her room and called her family, who had already heard the news from the US State Department. I finally went to sleep on a sofa for a few hours at 4.30am, unclear on the precise circumstances of her death or the fate of her Iraqi colleague Faiz.

At 9am this morning I learnt that there had been a carbombing on the Airport Road, near Hay al-Adil district, about 4pm, and it seemed likely that this was what killed Marla. This was confirmed when I talked with someone who had been in the private security convoy which was the target of the attack. She told me that she'd seen a Mercedes car, fitting the description of Faiz's car, completely incinerated in the blast. It is a small mercy that her death was instantaneous. A friend visited the hospital in the Green Zone and helped me talk to the chief nurse there. They had received two badly burned bodies but had no ID on them. I considered going in to do this, but the bodies had already been moved elsewhere for biopsies and DNA tests. Someone else IDed them and the US embassy issued a press release a few hours ago confirming this.

I started emailing with Marla in June 2003 when I learnt about the pioneering work she was doing identifying and trying to secure support for civilian victims of the war and their families. When we met in Baghdad in 2003 I could see the energy, compassion and charisma bubbling out of her.

This gutsy 27yr old Californian had started the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) while working in Afghanistan in 2002. She entered Iraq immediately following the fall of Baghdad, and rapidly began organizing a survey of civilian casualties along with my friend Raed. This is still the most detailed attempt to gather specific data about specific victims, and whenever I have read out lists of the dead at protests, such as in Chicago in January, I have always used this data.

But this was not data collection for its own sake. Marla held a belief which one who think uncontroversial, that innocent victims in conflict or their families should receive some kind of restitution. Any country that claims to be fighting a "just" war for "moral" reasons, as the US and allies did in the 2003 invasion, should as a matter of course care for those caught in the crossfire. However this is not the case and Marla had an uphill struggle to secure even the most basic assistance for the victims. The US doesn't do bodycounts, and the White House lawyers would never permit an official to talk about compensation for victims and risk opening up the way for liable suits. With the help of Senator Leahy, Marla managed to persuade Congress to set aside a tiny part of the $18.4bn Iraq appropriation as aid for victims rather than for US corporations. In addition Marla helped families to secure the salacia (blood money) payments from the US army, though there are capped at a paltry $2500. She was also involved in helping seriously injured children get treatment overseas and undoubtedly many other projects of which I'm unaware.

Marla's colleague in the US just sent around an email: saying: "One of Marla's favourite quotes from Ernesto che Guevera was: 'The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.' Marla had enough love to cover the planet." Marla was a normal person not a saint, but she was driven by this great feeling of love and it was indeed leading her to try and cover the planet -certainly all the warzones on the planet - almost single handedly! A few months ago she visited Nepal with a view to expanding CIVIC's work to that wartorn country, and many other parts of the world would have benefited from her gumption. It is critical that Marla's work continues.

In the short term, along with her many other friends, here I am trying to find out about individuals she was helping her and ensure they are not abandoned. In the long term I pray that Marla's life may be an inspiration to many people to carry on CIVIC's work. We are in a stake of shock about her tragic death but Marla would be the first to remind us that she chose to put herself in risk. Much more tragic, she would say, are the thousands of civilians victims in Iraq and many other countries, particularly children, who never had any choice about being in a conflict zone. We mustn't forget Marla and we mustn't forget them.

Search Googlenews for stories about Marla

Reflections on experiencing another carbomb

So I'm not going to write about all the bombs which go off while I'm here. In part this is because I don't want to worry my parents who'll be reading this blog, and in part because the violence here is just so routine that they hardly register. But this one time I'm going to try and give you a feel of what its like to live through these events on the ground.

So it was about 9.30am this morning and I'd just got a call from an Iraqi friend saying there was a rally happening over in Kharkh (the other side of the river) for the families of detainees. While waiting for her to arrive I was talking with my CPT team mates about our plans to go back to Kerbala to support our friends in the newly formed Muslim Peacemaker Team there.

Suddenly the room shock and we gave each other that "not again" look. "I guess someone better go up on the roof and check" said Sheila. We all assented but no one got up to move, willing that someone else would volunteer. I always crack first in these situations so I sprinted up the 4 flights of stairs. As I reached the third floor the second bomb went off (if you read the BBC report this is the car which flipped over in the centre of the street). "Get away from the windows" someone shouted, since there is a danger of flying glass if the shockwave is powerful enough. However I could see that the windows were open, which means that they'll swing on their hinges with the blast and so there isn't much danger from glass (often you'll see in houses that people leave windows slightly ajar for precisely this reason).

As I reached the top of the stairs I saw our landlady and her housekeeper in a huddle looking South West. This is the direction of the university and, as I emerged with foreboding onto the roof, there was the dreaded plume of black smoke belching forth from the vicinity of Baghdad U, about a mile away along the river. The housekeeper was in floods of tears as her son was over there studying. She fumbled with her phone and called his number. Thankfully he answered, "Mum, I'm in an exam now, not allowed to talk, bye" and hung up. I had a picture of a hall of exam students scribbling away, looking up briefly as the building shock and then returning immediately to their papers until they were disturbed a second time by the ring-tone cacophony of worried parents. This is Baghdad, you've just got to carry on regardless.

I look down from the roof as the activity and sounds of the city continue: the metallic tap tap tap of a man on a donkey cart advertising his gas cylinders for sale, the kids in the park who haven't even paused their game of football, the annoying synthesised jingle (always to the tune of "It’s A Small World" for some unknown reason) played by cars as they reverse, horn honking by drivers stuck helplessly in the vessels of Baghdad's capillaries, narrowed and clogged like a smoker's lungs.

In a spinal reaction I fumble for my camera and take a few snaps of the smoke cloud. I know this is a completely futile gesture, and the photos will be indistinguishable from dozens of similar ones taken over the past two years, but somehow it always feels necessary to reverently document these things. I sink to my knees on the roof and try to concentrate my thoughts enough to pray coherently - for the injured, for the families of the dead and for a change of heart in the people who planned this attack. By the time I look up the smoke cloud has already dispersed, petrol tanks burn up quickly.

I stumble back down to our apartment and my Iraqi friends have arrived. Their main concern is whether the roads will be open, as the bridge we need to cross isn't far from the epicentre of those explosions. They decide to give it a go and we drive towards Jadriya. The traffic is dense but it is moving. Some motorcycles weave through the lanes and I notice that the passengers have video cameras out, so these are the journalists rushing to record pictures which you may have seen today on TV. Our driver is actually a part-time journalist himself and asks me to load up a new film into his camera. My nails are pretty blunt and I'm having difficulty unwrapping the awkwardly wrapped tapes. Eventually I succeed and pass him the camera, by which time we are driving over the bridge, which is open for the time being. There are no obvious signs of the explosions nearby so he decides to drive onwards to the detainee meeting as we'd arranged.

Throughout the day I hear garbled second hand rumours about what happened. Firstly the news is that 10 students were killed; next I hear that no, the blast was at the office of the Badr Brigades (a militia group attached to one of the main Shia parties) and the casualty figure is more like 12. Eventually someone sets us straight that the Interior Ministry seems to have been the intended target and by now the bodycount has risen to 15. After the rally (which was really productive as it happens - we saw old friends who we'd helped in the past and took details of some new cases including a 14yr old kid locked up in Abu G) we try to head home. We hear that by now the bridge has been closed and we wonder what to do. There's a possibility of a lock down on all the bridges, essentially cutting Baghdad in two and marooning us on the wrong side of the city. Our Iraqi friends (naturally) invite us to come and stay at their home on this side, but we still have some important meetings today so decide to try and break through. Heading north and weaving through a maze of back streets (which by now all Iraqi drivers have come to know better than the freeways) we manage to find a bridge which is still open and get back home.

Finally, hours after the event, I wait until the electricity comes on and am able to check the precise details of the attacks on the web and see some photos - there's a good chance that you saw this on the news hours before I did. In the street people discuss the attacks, but in the bored and formulaic way people usually discuss the weather - all you can do about it is moan and just get on with your lives.

So this is not the first and unfortunately I'm sure it won't be the last bombing I experience. But I probably won't blog about them much because they just are a background noise, albeit a painful one. Be aware of the psychological effect they have on the city, pray for the victims and perpetrators, but don't let them drown out the other news. This is the news of Iraqis knuckling down and trying to build lives for their families in spite of the Occupation. This is the news of the guy who's started welding signal-boosting aerials out of scrap metal in order to set up a wireless internet business. This is the news of the family squatting in an abandoned building who's kids nonetheless have the biggest smiles I've ever seen. This is the news of Iraqis who have spent time in detention, have had family members killed or abused by my government, and yet who nonetheless greet me with the traditional "peace upon you" and insist that I drink endless glasses of sweet tea.

Boating in Basra

I'm being chivied to leave the internet cafe, so can't write much now, but here are some photos from the Shat el-arab (the river Delta between Iraq and Iran which has been the focus of many wars). The ship lying on its side was one of Saddam's yaghts (help i can never spell that word!) and I'm am standing on a boat with an oil worker from the local trade union.

Zeynab back home

This is Zeynab, maybe the most famous Iraq 11yr old in the world. 17 members of her family were killed by an American bomb in March 2003, which also destroyed her right leg. A Palestinian friend paid for her to go to London to get a prothetic leg fitted, which is where I met her. She is pictured with her father (her only close relative still alive) writing messages to friends in England. The Islam TV Channel in Britain had an appeal a few days ago, in Zeynab's name, which raised $200,000 for the Basra hospital.

In Basra

So after a grueling 10hr journey, being stopped at about 30 checkpoints, I arrived in Basra. Typically for Iraq none of the contact phone numbers I had were working, also typically for Iraq within 30 minutes I had dozens of new friends! A couple of them are looking over my shoulder as I type this (and they owner of the cafe won't accept any payment of course!). One of the people we wanted to meet was the Catholic Archbishop, who we'd heard is an energetic peace & justice activist. It turned out that the Cathedral was around the corner and so we walked there... arriving just as a service of rememberance for the Pope began. Most of the hundres of people present were Muslim clerics - what an amazing sign of brotherhood and hope.

Iraqi Christians join Shia to mourn Imam Hussein

The Iraq TV channels have been showing footage of hundreds of Iraqi Christians, dressed in white, participating in the mourning for Imam Hussein. Many people here in Kerbala have mentioned this in very positive terms. I've walked all over looking for them, but in a crowd of millions I've had no luck. Nor have I been able to find any mention of it in English language media - so you heard it first here. Here is a quote from Shiite scholar Mohammed Mohammed Ali a few weeks ago: "Who do you suppose cooked for Shiites during the recent Ashura celebrations in Kerbala? Christians... they do this every year."

Here are some of my photos, I'm having problems posting more using blogger in the terminally slow internet cafe here, so I've uploaded most of them to my fotopage - including pictures of the crowds, preparing food for the pilgrims, processions, self-flaggalation etc.


[left] Millions march from Baghdad, Najaf, Basra and other cities
[right] Drama of prisoners from the battle taken to Syria, in-front of Imam Abbas Shrine

Ya Hussein

It was pretty apocalyptic stuff. Millions of pilgrims dressed in black, the giant mosques of Imam Hussein and Abbas lit up in red, Muqtada Sadr's Madhi army drapped in white indicating a willingness to die chanting loudly, groups of hundreds rythmically beating their chests (and, though I haven't seen it yet, some self-flagilating with chains and swords). And to top it all off there were dozens of bursts of lighting flashing across the sky and earthing behind the mosque! (Apparently common weather for this time of year). Unfortunately I didn’t have the equipment, position or skill to get any meaningful photos of it last night, hopefully I will get some tomorrow morning to show you.

So what is this all about? Tomorrow is the Arba'een, the 40th day of mourning after the death of Mohammed's grandson and heir Hussein. He small family group was surrounded by a vast army, outnumbering them maybe 500-to-1, and slaughtered tragically. Now the inconspicuous patch of desert where this happened, about 100km south of Baghdad, has become the site for perhaps the biggest pilgrimage in the world. Maybe a quarter of Iraq - some say 8 million people (though is is probably an exaggeration) is gathered here. On Tuesday I drove past a human sea of marchers from Baghdad, walking for three days to get here, others make a 12 days march from Basra in the south. What is amazing is that most only bring the clothes on their back - all their food and lodging on the march and in Karbala is provided for free by local people - this is arab hospitality on a massive scale.

Unfortunately I haven't got time to write more now, but check out the piece in the Washington Post, and I'll write more and post some photos in a day or two. Also I've wrote a reflection last year on the significance of Hussein's martyrdom and parallels with the Christian understanding of Jesus' sacrifice.

P.S. A new UN report today says that 8% of Iraqi children under five are malnurished, twice the number under Saddam Hussein 2 years ago. This is a serious inditement of the US Occupation.

Eid Mubarak - Happy Easter

Our phone lines are flooded, would you believe, so I haven't been able to email or blog easily for almost a week. In the meantime I've managed to go to 4 Easter services here in Baghdad, one Chaldean, one Roman Catholic, one Anglian and one ecumenical. I've started teaching myself to read arabic, and was able to semi-sing along with some of the hymns (well, at my current speed i managed about 1 word a line, but it's a start!). Hamdullilah that there have been no attacks on churches over Easter. Also the churches are much fuller (I'm told) than last year, indicating that Iraqis are feeling slightly more secure now. Sadly there have been attacks on Christians in Lebanon today, so please pray for them and for all the Lebanese, that the country which had finally begun to recover from the civil war of the 70s and 80s could be spared a relapse into conflict over the issue of Syrian and US interference.

I spend yestarday traveling around US army bases with a sheikh from Mahmoudia, south of Baghdad, who hosted some Marines for breakfast on Thursday (typical Iraqi hospitality) and they repaid him by searching his house and stealing $2600. Anyhow every military base we went to passed the buck onto another base, so no luck so far. Interestingly some Army grunts we talked with agreed that the Marines might have indeed stolen the money. Whereas US Army units tend to be based in a particular area and so are in some sense locally accountable, the Marines will helicopter into areas that are often far from their home bases, and so they are very hard to trace and it's easier for dishonest Marines to steal with impunity. Of course there is rivalry between the Army and Marines, but there is some good logic in this argument and it fits with the numerous testimonies of theft and other abuse CPT has heard from Iraqis.

I'm going down to Kerbala next week for the arba9een, the end of the 40 day period of mourning for Iman Hussein. This is one of the principal Shia festivals, and we've been invited to attend by friends there. All the roads from Baghdad have been packed for the last few days with pilgrims walking the 3 days route to Kerbala. I'll try and post some photos up soon. Anyhow, I have lots of stories to tell you, and even a couple of humourous anecdotes, but I'll wait until tomorrow when, inshallah, I'll have wi-fi broadband installed in my flat!

P.S. Congratulations to my old classmate Acer Nethercott who was coxing the victorious Oxford boat today!