Bericht aus Bagdad

Dienstag, April 01, 2003
Von Uzma Bashir in Baghdad

Wir besichtigten heute morgen das Yarmouk Krankenhaus. Dort lag eine Frau, die bei der Bombardierung des Sha'ab Bezirkes in Nordbaghdad verwundet wurde."Ihre verweinten Augen, erzählten eine schreckliche Geschichte. "Es gab nicht ein trockenes Auge unter irgendwelchen von uns, als sie die Geschichte der Bombardierung erklärte, in der ihre drei Söhne getötet wurden." Ein Flugkörper schlug gestern früh in den Sha'ab Bezirk ein, als die Leute zur Arbeit gingen. Es ist ein Zivilwohnbereich mit kleinen Geschäften und Märkten.

Warum wurde er bombardiert?

Wo anders lag ein alter Mann. Auch er wurde verwundet bei der Bombardierung des Sha'ab Bezirkes. Er erklärt mir, daß alle seine 10 Kinder getötet worden waren.
Ein Junge von ungefähr 12 Jahren liegt regungslos in einem Bett. Ohne irgendeinen Ausdruck, ausgenommen komplette Verwirrung. Er hatte seine Mutter verloren, die bei der Explosion getötet worden war.

Ein anderer Mann, Blut, sickert aus seinem Gesicht, erzählt wie er von Syrien mit dem Bus reiste. Als er sich Baghdad näherte, sah er drei Busse, die durch die Luftwaffe der Vereinigten Staaten beschossen wurden. Geschätzte 70 Zivilisten wurden getötet.

Ein blinder Mann ging den Gang entlang, gestützt von einem Freund. Er suchte jemand, der Englisch verstand. Der Mann war offenbar sehr verärgert. Er zog seine Schuhe aus und hielt sie herauf. Er sagte: "Dieses ist George Bush! Dieses ist Tony Blair!" Wütend warf er seine Schuhe auf den Fußboden und trampelte auf sie, um seine Verachtung zu zeigen.

Ich sah einen kleinen Jungen ungefähr 10 Jahre alt, wer soviel Schmerzen hatte, das er kaum stehen konnte
Nachdem wir das Krankenhaus verließen, gingen wir zu einem Platz ca 500m entfernt, wo wir einen Bombe Krater mitten in fünf Häusern sahen. Die Häuser waren offenbar Teil eines Wohnbereichs mit einer Schule am Ende der Straße. 11 oder 12 Menschen wurden in ihren Häusern getötet, als der Flugkörper einschlug.
Einer der Überlebenden dieses Bombardierungsüberfalls, der zwei oder drei Tage zurückliegt war auch im Krankenhaus mit großem körperlichen und emotionalen Schmerz.

Obwohl sein Bein oben angehoben und verbunden wurde, sickerte Blut durch die Schichten der Verbände. Er erklärte uns, daß sein Haus zerstört worden war und seine Familie in der Bombardierung getötet wurde.
Nun sahen wir den Platz im Sha'ab Bezirk in dem die Bombe einschlug. Es gab einen tiefen Krater in der Hauptdurchgangsstraße, eine geteilte Landstraße mit Service-Straßen entlang jeder Seite. Auf beiden Seiten der Straße gab es Tod und Zerstörung.
Das Geschäft eines KFZ-mechanikers war zerstört worden. Wände waren getrennt und durchgebrannt worden; Autos waren zu verdrehten Fracks verringert worden. Ein Heizkörpergrill wurde verbogen, als ob irgendein Riese ihn mit einem Holzhammer bearbeitet hatte. Teile von verbrannten und verdrehten Reifen waren zerstreut. Ein Stück eines Auspuffs, und andere Trümmer lagen herum, wo zuvor eine beschäftigte Autoreparaturwerkstatt war.
Wände der Wohngebäude auf beiden Seiten der Straße wurden zerrissen. Auf der anderen Seite der Straße schrie eine Frau etwas auf Arabisch über George Bush. Ihre Wut kochte über, als sie in Tränen ausbrach. Bush immer noch verfluchend legte sie Ihre Hand auf meine Schulter.
...
Die Grausigkeit hat gerade erst angefangen.
Die Raketen fliegen weiter. Die Unschuldigen sterben weiter als ob die Angreifer von aller Menschlichkeit beraubt wurden.
Ist die ' Demokratie ' verrückt geworden? Oder haben die ÖlKriegsherren das Weiße Haus übernommen? Nur internationale Ziviler Ungehorsam und gewerkschaftliche Kampfmassnahmen können den Wahnsinn des Krieges stoppen!
Uzma Bashir

Howard, Bush und Blair fungieren wie Diktatoren. Sie hören nicht auf die Leute, sie empfangen ihre Marschbefehle von den grossen Ölfirmen.

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English Original (Auszug) - oben in Teilen ins deutsche Übersetzt

We visited the Yarmouk Hospital this morning. A woman, who had been wounded in the bombing of the Sha'ab district in North Baghdad, was lying in a ward weeping uncontrollably."When I first saw her," Uzma said, "She looked up at me, and her tearful eyes told of a terrible story. She broke down in paroxysms of grief, her loud wailing bringing tears to our eyes. "There was not a dry eye among any of us as she told the horrible story of the bombing in which her three sons were killed." A missile hit the Sha'ab district yesterday morning, as people were going about their business. This is a civilian residential area with small shops and markets.
Why was it bombed?
In another ward, an old man, also wounded in the bombing of the Sha'ab district, told me that all his ten children had been killed. A young boy of about 12 lay in bed without any movement or expression, except complete bewilderment. He had lost his mother who had been killed by the blast.
Another man, blood oozing from his face as he lay on his hospital bed, told his story. He had traveled from Syria by bus, that is, by public transport. As he was nearing Baghdad, he saw three buses fired upon United States Air Force planes. An estimated 70 civilians were killed.
A blind man was walking down the passage, helped by a friend. He was looking for someone who understood English. The man was clearly very angry. He pulled his his shoes off and held them up saying:" This is George Bush! This is Tony Blair!" Throwing his shoes down on the floor in a rage, he stamped on them to show his contempt.
I saw a little boy about ten years old who was in so much pain he could barely stand. He had been wounded in the abdomen and in the crotch.
After we left the hospital, we went to a place about half a kilometre away, where we saw a bomb crater in the middle of five houses. The houses were clearly part of a residential area with a school at the end of the street. Elevan or 12 people were killed in their homes when the missile struck. One of the survivors of this bombing raid, which occurred two or three days ago, was also in the hopsital in great physical and emotional pain.
Even though his leg was raised and bandaged up, blood seeped through the layers of bandages. He told us that his house had been destroyed and his family killed in the bombing.
I saw the place in the Sha'ab district where the missile hit, There was a deep crater in the main thoroughfare, which is divided highway with service roads along each side. On both sides of the road there was death and destruction.
A motor mechanic's shop had been hit. Walls had been blown apart; cars had been reduced to twisted wreackages. A radiator grill was bent as if some giant had taken to it with a mallet. Bits of burnt and torn tyres were scattered about. A piece of an exhaust pipe, bits of twisted metal and other debris were scattered where once there was a busy car repair shop.
Walls of residential buildings on both sides of the road were blown apart. On the other side of the road a woman was yelling something in Arabic about George Bush. Her rage boiled over as she burst into tears, stil cursing him, and then embraced me sobbing on my shoulder.
Today we saw the 'teeth' of the grief and suffering imposed on civilian Iraqi people, on men , women and children.
The horror has just begun.
As the missiles keep flying, the innocent keep dying as if the attackers are bereft of all humanity.
Has 'democracy' gone mad? Or have the oil warlords taken over the Whitehouse and Whitehall too?? Only international civil disobedience and industrial action will stop this madness, before the mounting corpses come back to haunt us.
Uzma Bashir
Last night the United States bombarded Iraq with 1000 missiles. Three hundred and twenty of them hit Baghdad. One of them landed near the April 7 Water Treatment Plant where I am living. The missile struck at about 10pm. There was a deafening explosion, shaking the building where we sleep. One of the other human shields, Donna Mulhearn, also from Australia, was nearly blown off her feet from the impact of the blast.The missile explosion set off a major fire, which sent a great cloud of smoke spreading across the sky above us, in much the same way billowing clouds of smoke spread across the sky during the recent Canberra bushfires. The fire spread. It took hours before the fire was brought under control. We could still smell the acrid smell of something burning as the night turned into dawn.The missile had landed little more than a kilometer away from where we were standing. Just a small difference in the trajectory would have had the missile heading straight for us. There are thirteen Human Shields living at the site, three Australians, one American, two from Britain, three from Japan, one Norwegian, one Belgian, one Italian, and one Dane. If the US tries again, misses again and hits us instead, we will be just become an unrecognizable mass of bits of concrete, human flesh and broken furniture. Not only would the missile kill all of us, it would also destroy the water treatment plant, which processes water for three million people. To hit the site would also destroy the special unit run by the International Committee of the Red Cross which processes water for use in the hospitals of Baghdad.The United States, by firing the missile that landed so close to us last night, close to a Red Cross installation, has committed an act of criminal recklessness. These missiles are themselves clearly weapons of mass destruction, part of a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction ready to be hurled at Iraq, its people, and us.Howard is not listening to us. Blair is not listening to the people of Britain. Bush is not listening to the American people. They are living in a fantasy world of make believe that the war will be a quick act of penetration and Iraq will surrender. That is nonsense. How many people will die before they realize that, no matter how many weapons of mass destruction they throw at Iraq, the people will continue to resist the invasion? Howard, Bush and Blair are acting like dictators. They are not listening to the people, they are taking their marching orders from the big oil companies. The only thing that will stop this war will be civil disobedience. FRIENDS AND COMRADES, WE ARE DOING OUR BIT HERE, PLEASE DO YOUR BIT AND STOP THIS WAR BEFORE ITS TOO BLOODY LATE!6:19 AM




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