News From Refugee Camp Outside Fallujah

"Please," he says. "Tell this tragedy all over the world. There are whole families who were buried under the rubble."

Children push to get closer. "Do you like George Bush?" one little girl asks. "Do you?" I respond. "No, I do not like him," she says.

How can the children go to school now that their classrooms are filled with clothes, dishes, blankets and people? Answer: They study in the backyard.

Gray-green tents fill the gravel playground, and desks and blackboards fill the tents. Children sit in the rising heat and try to concentrate as the teacher leads the lesson. A completely English sign hanging near the gate proclaims that this tent-school is "a joint project of Human Appeal International and The Ministry of Education, Government of Iraq."

Allan asks the assistant director of the school why the sign is in English and not Arabic. "It is just for show," she says. "They want the media to think that they are doing something for Iraq." Allan asks if she is proud of her government. She answers with a resounding "No!"

Classes change, children swarm around. I ask them in my simple Arabic if they would like to say anything to people in the U.S."God willing, I will go back to my house in Fallujah," at least five different children say.

Then someone hands the driver a note that says we must leave immediately. I can sense that our Iraqi activist friend, a woman not easily rattled, is frightened. Apparently, rumors have spread that "Americans from the American embassy" (referring to Allan, who is actually a Canadian, and myself) are at the school, and our hosts are worried that there could be trouble. Two men from the refugee camp, risking their own safety, drive us to the highway in an extra car, then wish us peace as we get back in our own car to return to Baghdad.. . . . . . . . . .

I will never forget the speed with which they shuttled us out of there. Nor will I forget the helplessness both Allan and I felt when we realized that, without well-established relationships of trust, our presence can draw danger rather than peace into an area. Because Americans inflicted damage, all Americans are suspect.

I do not doubt that Fallujah had its share of weapons caches and resistance fighters. I do not doubt the personal goodwill of many soldiers, some of whom, an Iraqi Red Crescent leader told me, gave their rations to help Fallujan civilians survive the siege. But I also do not doubt the testimonies of the Iraqi men, women, and children whose lives were irreparably traumatized (or ended) by the U.S. military's overpowering assault on the city.

The reality of a violent resistance cannot legitimize such an overwhelmingly violent response. What's more, the military response does not work--it only solidifies hatred and deepens resolve.

One young Fallujan who saw Iraqi women and children dead in the streets said to me,

"Please, tell your U.S. military families what their children are being ordered to do."


http://electroniciraq.net/news/1899.shtml