CPTnet
7 May 2005
IRAQ UPDATE: 26-30 April 2005
Tuesday, 26 April 2005
Sami Rasouli, the president of the Muslim Peacemaker Team (MPT), arrived for
a stay at the CPT apartment. CPT members discussed with Rasouli their plans
for a trip to Fallujah the following day.
A young Iraqi man came to the CPT apartment to deliver medical supplies,
which his family purchased to meet the needs of the Fallujah hospital after
the heavy battle in November 2004. Rasouli agreed to deliver the supplies
to the Fallujah hospital, and CPT team members agreed to accompany him,
since they were all planning to travel to Fallujah anyway. The young man
stayed for supper and enjoyed conversation about MPT.
Wednesday, 27 April 2005
Tom Fox, Sheila Provencher and Rasouli traveled to Fallujah for a series of
meetings.
Rasouli delivered the medical supplies to the Fallujah hospital, and then
all three had a meeting with the director of the hospital. The director
said that the hospital was seeing an average of 1,500 outpatients each day.
His main concern was that because the new travel restrictions, people who
live in the villages outside Fallujah could no longer come into the city.
U.S. and Iraqi authorities made exceptions for emergency cases, he noted,
but others have to drive long distances to receive medical care.
Fox, Provencher and Rasouli then made a visit to the family of Latif Ali
Hamoud, who, the last his family had heard, was detained at Camp Bucca.
They interviewed the family and agreed to put the family's testimony on the
web.
Following that visit, Fox, Provencher and Rasouli had a meeting with a
cleric at a mosque in Fallujah. Rasouli introduced his idea to bring a
delegation of MPT and CPT members to clean the streets of Fallujah in a show
of solidarity, rather than an earlier proposition to help rebuild a house
destroyed by U.S. Forces. The cleric welcomed Rasouli's idea.
Fox, Provencher and Rasouli then went to meet the director of the Fallujah
Department of Public Works (DPW). He was concerned that little or no
money allocated for much needed projects like sewage and water line repairs
had reached the city.
As Fox, Provencher and Rasouli were leaving Fallujah they had to wait at a
temporary U.S. checkpoint for more than fifty minutes.
Thursday, 28 April 2005
Fox, Rasouli and their driver returned to Fallujah for a second series of
meetings. They first went to a mosque where they were to meet several
artists from Fallujah. Rasouli presented to them his idea of taking art
works from Fallujah, Kerbala and Najaf to the U.S. when he visits there in
May 2005. He would sell or auction the art to raise money for relief work
in Fallujah. The three artists expressed enthusiasm for the idea.
Fox and Rasouli then wandered around a while looking for the Fallujah DPW.
They finally found the temporary office in the Fallujah library. The
assistant director of the DPW apologized for the confusion and said that the
Multi-National Force (MNF) is occupying the DPW building. He also noted
that with the stalemate in forming a Transitional General Assembly there had
been a breakdown of funding from Baghdad. This had in effect shut down
garbage collection in the city.
Rasouli and Fox clarified the details of the symbolic clean-up action to
take place on 6 May. The DPW agreed to provide a truck to follow the
delegation on their rounds, as well as shovels, brooms, uniforms, trash bags
and some gloves.
The driver for the day had relatives in Fallujah. Since he was not a
resident of Fallujah, the MNF and Iraqi National Guard (ING) had forbid him
to enter the city on his own. Fox and Rasouli went with him to his
relative's house in one of the hardest-hit areas of the city. The driver's
relative was formerly an official with the Fallujah Police Department, but
after the first assault on Fallujah in April 2004, he, along with the rest
of the Sunni officials, were removed and replaced with Shi'a officers from
outside of Fallujah. About half of his home was destroyed during the
assault in November 2004. It had bullet and shell holes in all areas, and
one wall in the living room had buckled badly. The driver's relative had
received compensation (about $2,500), but other families in their
neighborhood had received nothing. They shared a delicious lunch and then
took a tour of the adjacent homes, which were also badly damaged.
Friday, 29 April 2005
Rasouli departed Baghdad for Najaf in the morning. About thirty minutes
after he left, the first of nine car bombs in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq
detonated. He called in the afternoon to say that he was delayed by road
closures related to the bombings. He also said that about twenty miles
outside of Baghdad he and his driver went past the burning remains of a fuel
tanker truck. It appeared to him to have been hit by a roadside bomb.
Saturday, 30 April 2005
Provencher and Chandler visited an Iraqi Dominican priest in the evening.
Provencher gave him a copy of the American Catholic theological journal that
carried an interview she did with him last fall. He commented on the
current situation in Iraq, saying that the solution to his country's
problems is education and dialogue.
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