CPTnet
11 July 2009
IRAQ UPDATE: June 2009

Team members working in Iraq during this period were Craig Kite, John Lynes, Michele Naar-Obed, Hilary Scarsella, and Chihchun Yuan.


Summary
As temperatures consistently remained over 100 degree Fahrenheit, the team worked on advocating for the immediate needs of the people in the Zharawa IDP (Internally displaced person) camp.  These basic needs include shade and electricity—the latter primarily for refrigeration of food.  The Kurdish villagers in the camp are particularly afraid that disease and illness could wipe out the camp if they do not have access to these resources.  The team developed a media plan to raise international awareness of the plight of the IDPs at the Zharawa camp and continued to pursue permission to move into the camp.


3 June
Craig Kite and Michele Naar-Obed attended the U.N. NGO monthly coordination meeting.  Naar-Obed raised the issues of shade and electricity for refrigerating food and the concern that the IDPs expressed regarding disease.  The representative from UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees) responded, “We will provide shade structures but we will not provide a generator, as we are not contracted to build them a nice city.”  None of the other NGO representatives responded to the issues relevant to the Zharawa IDP camp.

Following the coordination meeting, Kite and Naar-Obed met with a UNAMI (United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq) human rights officer from the humanitarian branch of the U.N. who advised pushing the immediate needs of the IDPs through high level KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) authorities, the political branch of the U.N., and the U.S. State Department representative in the KRG.  Kite and Naar-Obed were then whisked over to the office of the political section where they were encouraged to speak with the U.S. State Department.  “The U.S. has the ability to make the villages safe for return if they have the political will,” a U.N. political officer told Kite and Naar-Obed.

4 June
Chihchun Yuan, Kite and Naar-Obed accompanied two spokespeople from the Zharawa camp to a meeting with Mr. Adnan Mufti, the head of the KRG Parliament.  The two spokespeople presented a letter to Mr. Mufti regarding the conditions at the camp.  CPTers and the camp spokespeople appealed to Mr. Mufti for safer conditions and protection of the villagers.  Mr. Mufti promised to raise these issues with the Deputy Prime Minister of the KRG and the KRG Parliament.  Mr. Mufti invited the two spokespeople to discuss the immediate needs of the camp more fully in a meeting the next day.

6 June
Yuan, Kite and Naar-Obed met with the U.S. State Department representative in the KRG regarding the Zharawa IDP camp.  The CPTers showed the representative pictures of the camp and shared the personal stories of the IDPs in hopes of bringing a human face to the situation.  The representative asked for CPT’s written reports, saying, “I can put these reports into bigger hands that might be able to do something more concrete.”  He also offered the team a number of political and humanitarian contacts.

7 June
The team began to develop the idea of moving into the Zharawa IDP camp and calling for international media to publicize the plight of the IDPs.  The team spoke with a number of local advisors who gave their approval for and blessings on the idea.

14 June
Yuan and Naar-Obed packed up supplies to move into the Zharawa IDP camp.  Before arriving at the camp, the team paid a courtesy visit to the Mayor of Qaludze (the camp is in the Qaludze district) and the subdistrict Mayor of Zharawa to tell them that they would be living in the camp and arranging for media coverage regarding the plight of the IDPs.  With a smile on his face, the Qaludze mayor commented, “So you are the people who have been causing all this trouble…everyone, including Parliament, has been calling us about the camp,” he went on.

The Qaludze Mayor invited CPT to raise awareness of the political situation regarding the bombing of the IDP villages by Turkey and Iran through international media but asked the team to let the local government authorities take care of the immediate needs of the people.  He advised CPT not to contact the local media and to get permission from the Governor of Suleimaniya to move into the camp.  After seeking further counsel from the camp spokesperson, Yuan and Naar-Obed decided not to move into the camp without the permission of the local authorities.

17 June
Craig Kite, John Lynes and Hilary Scarsella attended a meeting at the Kurdistan Center for Strategic Studies in Suleimaniya and engaged in a discussion of the political complexities regarding the ongoing attacks against Iraqi Kurdish villages inside Iraq's borders by Turkey and Iran.

21 June
The team began a two-day workshop to prepare a group of men and women from the IDP camp to speak to international media.  Kite and Naar-Obed helped the adult group develop their stories, focus on important points, and maintain control of an interview.  Scarsella, Lynes and Yuan worked with the children to develop their stories through artwork.

23 June
The team attended a workshop given by the Mine Advisory Group (MAG) in order to learn how to identify and deal with land mines and unexploded ordinances safely.

25 June
Scarsella, Kite and Yuan produced the video “Zharawa Tent Children: Joy” and submitted it to YouTube:

28 June
Naar-Obed and Scarsella met with the Governor of Suleimaniya and received his approval for CPT to move to the camp on an intermittent basis.  “The work you are doing is very important,” the Governor said.  “Please raise this issue of the IDPs and attacks on their villages with the international community.”  The CPTers showed the children's video to one of the Governor's council members, who watched it with tears in his eyes.

29 June
The team visited the Zharawa camp to interview some of the children.  While at the camp, the team witnessed a flurry of activity.  All the materials for the shade structures arrived, a local NGO arrived to offer women’s rights training to the women of the camp, and a fresh fruit and vegetable truck arrived.  The team learned that the generator for the camp had been ordered and that a U.S. military unit offered to dig a well at the camp.

The team visited with the camp spokesperson, who was very happy to hear that CPT had received permission to move to the camp.  The team also visited the director of the Rania Youth Center who continued to offer advice about raising the awareness about the IDPs at the camp.  He also offered pictures of various villages bombed by Turkey.

30 June
The team learned that a massive truck bomb exploded in a Kurdish neighborhood in Kirkuk killing over thirty people and injuring more than seventy.  Many more were still buried under rubble.  One of the dead was a relative of the team's translator.