CPTnet
7 September 2005
IRAQ REFLECTION: Making it safe
by Maxine Nash
"You can't come in through this checkpoint," the U.S. soldier tells us.
"This checkpoint is only for government, military and contractors." We, a
small group from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and a friend from the
Muslim Peacemaker Teams here in Iraq, were trying to get into Falluja. A
doctor in Falluja had invited us to come for the day to see the conditions
in the city. We got our first taste of them as we tried to enter.
We went on to another checkpoint, which actually consisted of about three
smaller checkpoints. At the first, soldiers checked our ID's and our reason
for being in Falluja. At the second, soldiers inspected the car for bombs,
and at the third, soldiers checked each person in the car. For the third
check, we had to get out of the car, walk about 200 yards in the dust and
the hot sun and submit to a search of our bags and our person by U.S.
soldiers.
The doctor who invited us has a small office in a commercial area. His
building used to house the offices of twenty-five other doctors. Recently,
an Iraqi soldier was shot outside the building. In response to the
shooting, many people close to the area were detained by the Iraqi and
American armies. Some remain in detention now. Many of the other doctors
have now left the building and some have left the country.
Our friend showed us holes in his office ceiling that had come from the
recent shooting of the Iraqi soldier. While we were in his office we heard
two separate incidents of gunfire outside. I was trying to imagine seeing
my doctor at home and having gunfire coming into the exam room and frankly I
couldn't even fathom how I would feel if that happened.
The streets of Falluja reminded me of a scene from a western movie in which
someone tells the townsfolk the villains are about to arrive, and everyone
boards up the shops and homes and goes inside to wait out the trouble. A
local shopkeeper told us that so much criminal activity occurs after the
10:00 p.m. curfew (some, he alleges, occurs at the hands of the Iraqi army)
that he takes all the merchandise from his shop home at night.
The doctor also introduced us to a family who told us that U.S. troops
entered their house, and shot the father in the head and then shot two
sisters. The father and one sister died instantly, the other sister died
the next day. They came back on the third day, and shot and killed a
brother. A surviving sister said in the lead-up to the assault her father
had said, "Don't worry, they (the American soldiers) won't hurt us; we are
just a family."
Is Falluja a safer place because of U.S. actions there? Maybe for U.S.
soldiers, but not for Fallujans.
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Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) seeks to enlist the whole church in
organized, nonviolent alternatives to war and places teams of trained,
peacemakers in regions of lethal conflict. Originally a violence-reduction
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