CPTnet
27 June 2005
IRAQ DIARY: Karbala, the city of peace
by Joe Carr
[Note: the following is an excerpt of CPTer Joe Carr's diary that he sent to
his supporters. It has been edited for length.]
14 June 2005
I just spent two days in Iraqi city of Karbala, about seventy-five
kilometers south west of Baghdad. Getting there was a bit of trick; we had
to drive through the dangerous "Sunni Triangle" and dozens of checkpoints.
It was particularly bad the day we left because the U.S. was beginning
"Operation Lightening," where the Iraqi police planned to surround Baghdad
and "sweep" the city in an attempt to test the new Iraqi security services
and apprehend insurgents. We tried for over an hour to get through on the
main highway but eventually had to go around another way.
Karbala is an incredibly significant city in Shiite Muslim history. After
the death of the Prophet Mohammed, Islam was split over who would be the new
leader. The Sunni elected a successor, while the Shiite believed Mohammed
had appointed his cousin Imam Ali to be successor. Ali's son, Imam Hussein,
led an army to challenge the Sunnis for control of Islam in 680AD and was
killed in Karbala.
The Shiite built two elaborate, ornate shrines in Karbala to commemorate
Imam Hussein and his brother Abbas. An official at Imam Hussein's shrine
explained that the Shiite have always had a spirit of resistance, inspired
by the "revolution of Imam Hussein." This has brought them much trouble from
Arab leaders who want to dominate and control them.
Karbala is now allowed to police itself; the U.S. only controls the
perimeter. During the invasion, the U.S. dropped cluster bombs all over
Karbala, which explode before they hit the ground and spread thousands of
small bombs in all directions. However, many do not explode on impact and
kill or maim unexpected passersby. A human rights worker told us about an
Iraqi man who worked tirelessly to find and defuse unexploded cluster bombs
in Karbala because U.S. forces refused to deal with the situation. "He found
and defused over 5200 in Karbala" he explained to us, but was eventually
killed when some went off while he tried to remove them from a school.
"U.S. military officials visited his family to acknowledge his service" he
said, "but they didn't give them any compensation because they claimed the
U.S. didn't kill him directly."
Human Rights Watch of Karbala was the first organization to discover mass
graves in Iraq and have now documented forty-two in and around Karbala. Most
are from the uprisings in 1988 and 1991 when lack of U.S. intervention
allowed Saddam to massacre thousands of Shiite and Kurdish rebels. "I'll
never forget seeing the bodies, one piled on top of the other" the human
rights worker said, "and we will work to keep it from happening again by
embodying principles of peace. We are proud to stand side-by-side with CPT
as we work towards true democracy in Iraq."
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