CPTnet
IRAQ UPDATE: May 11-15, 2004 Tuesday, May 11 A Sheikh and father of one of
the Iraqi detainees in the CPT detainee campaign visited the CPT apartment.
He told the team that the Coalition Provincial Authority (CPA) should
release the innocent Iraqis held in prison, focus on the huge unemployment
problem in Iraq, and talk to the tribal Sheikhs who are close to the Iraqi
people. The CPA, he said, should not talk to the exiles that have been out
of the country for thirty years. The Sheikh also expressed his sympathy for
U.S. and other foreign soldiers killed in Iraq. The Sheikh appreciated
receiving photos of the vigils and a list of participants in the CPT
detainee letter-writing campaign. Matthew Chandler and Greg Rollins visited
with a priest at a church the team occasionally attends. The priest,
surprised to see CPT in Baghdad when so many other foreigners had left,
offered his guidance and support to CPT. The priest explained that he was
trying to maintain good relations with the Muslim community. He said he had
gone to all the mosques in his neighborhood and gave them food and clothes
to distribute. When the CPTers asked if there was anything in particular he
thought CPT could do in Iraq, the priest replied, "It is enough that you are
here." In the evening, a friend of the team's from the Iraqi human rights
group Human Rights Organization in Iraq (HROI) came by and asked the team
for a reference letter he could take to the CPA. He had many testimonies
from Iraqis tortured and abused while in prison, and his organization wanted
to offer to help the CPA investigate cases against U.S. soldiers. Wednesday,
May 12 A friend of CPT's from Kerbala was supposed to come to the office in
the morning and take the team back to his city, but he called to say he
could not come. The situation between the U.S. army and militant forces of
the Shi'a leader Sayyid Muqtada Al-Sadr had closed most of the roads in and
out of Kerbala. Around 10:00 pm, the air filled with gunshots from multiple
locations. The team found out Iraqis were celebrating the victory of the
Iraqi soccer team which just beaten the Saudi Arabia soccer team and
advanced to the Olympics in Greece. Thursday, May 13 At 8:30 am, the team
heard three loud explosions come from several blocks away. Later, a U.S.
soldier told the team that a group of militants had blown themselves up by
mistake when they tried to fire mortars at the Green Zone, the Coalition
headquarters in Baghdad. During an interview with Newsday, a reporter told
Sheila Provencher about an idea he had to begin an art exchange between U.S.
and Iraqi primary school students. Several schools in New York were
interested and the reporter wanted to know if any Iraqi nongovernmental
organizations (NGOs) would want to help. Provencher referred him to Al Ataa,
an NGO dedicated to the needs of women and children. Friday, May 14 In the
evening, a friend who ate with the team talked about the 3000 Iraqi
detainees the CPA wants to release. It was his belief that these prisoners
would be criminals and the CPA would release them just before the transition
date of June 30. These criminals would cause a large wave of crime in Iraq,
justifying a U.S. presence. Around 9:00 pm, U.S. soldiers set up a
checkpoint in front of the CPT apartment and searched Iraqi vehicles.
Rollins talked to one soldier at the checkpoint. The 53-year-old reservist
from Denver, Colorado acknowledged that the majority of Iraqis were peaceful
people who did not want any trouble. He believed most militants were not
from Iraq but were from other countries and part of groups such as Al-Qaeda.
The soldier said the pictures of abuse and torture from Abu Graib prison
disgusted his unit and that he personally had an interest in the topic
because he was a criminal lawyer back home. Saturday, May 15 In the morning,
Chandler and Provencher went to HROI to take the testimony of an Iraqi man
who spent the winter of 2003-04 in Abu Graib prison. The man gave a long and
detailed account of his time, telling of multiple abuses. He identified his
abusers as some of those in the infamous photos seen in the news.