Monday, March 13, 2006

Note: All names have been changed to protect privacy

Morning Report

The sun shines brightly behind the veiled woman sitting in the hotel chair.  Amman is hilly, and the one out the window is covered with white square buildings. Across from the hotel is a vacant dirt lot, with scattered weeds poking up and bordered by a field planted with some kind of vegetable.  Later, during an interview, two men will appear with about 30 goats and herd them into this vacant lot.  The only people who think this is remarkable in the middle of a city of 1.7 million inhabitants are Tara and myself. 

S.A. wears a golden bracelet, a necklace with two charms that hang below her scarf, and a watch with a simple black leather band.  She is dressed all in black, wearing a long skirt with a black on black design and a long sleeve top with a  maroon and ochre floral motif that develops into large rose shapes at the bottom.  Her black scarf is pulled down over her hair crossed under her ample chins, and thrown over her shoulders.  She has a beauty mark under her lower lip.  Her skin, the little that shows on her face is well cared for, with neatly plucked eyebrows, a faint hint of rouge and subtly applied lipstick.  What little hair I can see seems to be died auburn.  She is good humored.   She was born April 28, 1959, but looks younger.  (I do not mention that my male partner of 20 years + was also born on April 28. Somehow I feel that there is more than just 6 years that separate them.)

S.A. is an accountant, and worked for the ministry of culture prior to the war.    Now, after the war, the ministry has no money, so she also does accounting for a furniture store.  She is worried because her son A. is in prison.  She went to one of the most prestigious in Baghdad, near her parents’ home.  She has been divorced since 1995.  Other than A., her husband has custody of all 7 children, including a son who was 3 at the time of the divorce.  She sees the other children in secret; if her husband knew that the children saw their mother, he would beat them.  She asked for the divorce, and he demanded in return that she give up everything, the children, the house, the bank account, everything. 

Despite what was probably by western standards an awful marriage, she seems to have had many privileges in her life including a very good education, which may reflect the fact that she is Sunni, the group that most benefited under Sadam.  Most if not all of the victims of prison abuse that I have talked to are Sunni.

The Arrest

I was arrested with my son.  They told me I was a terrorist, that my hair was the color of a terrorist. The interrogator was Egyptian.  And remembering him, I hate all the Egyptians for what he did.  He said confess, or I will send you to a place where you will be raped and they will play with you like a boy.  I have always had trouble because I was very pretty and I liked to look nice; I wear perfume and die my hair.  He looked at me like I was dirty.  It made me doubt myself.  (Here she started to cry.  T. said, “I know just the look they gave you. Like you were beneath contempt, like you were soiled, dirty, dirt.”  “Yes, yes.”  “I know that look.  It is worse than the insults.”  “Yes, yes.”)

When the Americans first came we were happy because we had suffered under Sadam.  I saw the soldiers in our neighborhood and I cooked for them, and would bring them food in the street.  I would bring them food not because they fought Sadam but because they were foreigners in my country and they were so young.  I would make the best Iraqi food.

Here in the hotel I am scared of the other prisoners and even of you because my son is still in prison so I am scared of everyone.  I am not accepted by many Iraqis.

S.A. gave us the following recipe, one of the dishes she made for the American soldiers at the beginning of the war, before she was arrested and her son was arrested:

Kebab

• Finely chop 1 large onion, 1 tomato, a handful of parsley, 1 green pepper
• Mix together with 250 gm of chopped meat (veal), ¼ cup of flour (or less), 1/8 tsp. of tumeric, salt, and a mixture of the following spices or whatever you have that might be good: paprika, cumen, curry, pepper, etc.
• Form into paddies (either flat or round) and fry them in a vegetable oil in a frying pan. 
• Eat with bread or French fries and pickles.  Can be eaten with tomato sauce.

Break

Please Note:  The following report contains disturbing imagery, and should not be read by minors or persons for whom this material will be too upsetting.

Interview at noon with A.A.S.

This man does not want to be drawn; he is afraid of what could happen to him in Iraq, and refuses to let me draw him.  He does not want to talk if T. is writing a novel or a movie.  He wants the writing to be serious.  It takes a while to negotiate the interview. 

A.A.S., sitting before me in an innocuous hotel room, epitomizes the look of a traditional Arab.  He is wearing a long dark blue robe, and a white doubled over head scarf, held on by a twisted black rope.  His hair is white.  Other than his hands and his face, he shows no skin.  He is playing with a string of dark beads, which he nervously changes from hand to hand, and wraps around his fingers.  He has a thick closely cropped moustache, which seems to be “just the thing” among these men.  His face, with a broad nose, large dark eyes and ruddy skin describes the years he has seen, and the tragedy that has befallen him.  His skin is almost a pelt, it is so thick, and his fingers and hands too seem swollen from years of hard labor.  He looks about 50.  He has glossy sandals, and the toenail on his right big toe is damaged. He does not seem to trust us.

Outside the window the cars continue to pass by on this highway.

A. was born 1951, though he does not know the exact date of his birth.  Many of the Iraqi’s have the 1st of January marked down as their date of birth. 

A. is interested in talking because what happened hurt and pained him a great deal.  Two of his sons were killed.  It needs to be said aloud.  He lives in Abu Ghraib, a city of 500,000, 35 km west of Baghdad. He lives on an old farm in a village in Abu Ghraib. He does odd jobs and tends his farm.  He plants his land -- wheat, or vegetables -- depending on the season.  He has some cows, a couple of sheep, no chickens.  He owns a two sweet shops 30 meters from his house. He tells us he tried to get damages from the American army, and was refused, twice.  The US army does not allow lawyers to help in claims of this sort.

The Arrest:

12 November 2003, during the holy month of Ramadan.  After breaking my fast, in my house, the electricity went off, so I asked my family to take a chair for me outside.  My two stores are close to my house. T., 23, one of my children told me that they would like to go open the shop.  I told him that the electricity was off.  My son told me that the neighbors wanted some sweets, so they went to open the store.  My son and their friends went to the store. 

I saw a helicopter. It circled around the house and the stores. It was one helicopter. It went around twice. When the helicopter was about 50 meters from the store, air-born but very low, it shot at the stores.  When I saw the shooting I started screaming “T., T. (19)!” No one answered.  I ran towards the stores. The helicopter flew towards my house as I ran to the stores.  It came back to the place where it shot from.  I found two of my sons dead, A. 1986 A. 1994. A. was killed and his body was lying on A., his dead brother.  T. and T. were wounded.  I thought the helicopter would shoot again.  I carried my youngest son, A., in fourth grade, and held him up towards the helicopter to show the pilot that he was dead, and pointed to myself, my son and my house to show the pilot that this was my son and my house that you have bombed.  My eldest son T. was wearing white and as he came outside his back was covered with blood. It was dark inside the store so I called out for T.  He said, “I am here but I am hurt.”  Two other children were seriously injured.   Others came out but were not injured.  I could not carry my children back to the house because the helicopter was circling around us.

After 20-30 minutes American forces arrived, and they surrounded the house and stores. I started screaming for a translator. No one answered me. They made us lie down with our faces to the ground. One of the Americans spoke a little Arabic.  I told him that this is my house, these are my stores and these are my dead children.  He started screaming at me. We became very cold, lying face down on the ground.

One of the soldiers with a light on his rifle was looking around. He picked up something from the ground. My dead children were two meters away from me. The thing he picked up from the ground was my son A.’s head, and he put it between me and my children.  I screamed for a translator, no one answered.  Some soldiers were standing over us, others were in the house and the stores.  More lorries and hummers came.  The helicopter came and took some of the wounded, but they did not take my wounded son. I ran towards the house.  I was still screaming for a translator.  They started searching the stores.  The electricity came back.  They searched the fridges.  They took the money from the stores, and all the drinks and the sweets, and carried them to the hummers.  After screaming for a translator, someone with an Egyptian accent said “what is it that you want?”

I said, “You can see the situation we are in. One of my sons is wounded and two others are dead and we are very cold, and I want to get help. The voice answered “You have Ali Baba why would you want to get blankets?”

Six or 7 Americans took me to my house to get blankets and my special quilt.  I covered everyone with a blanket and put on my coat and they made me lie down again. The soldiers got nylon bags from the hummers and put my dead children in them and they put them in the trucks.  Later, we were told to sit up, and they tied our hands behind our backs, and put us in the truck with my dead children.  They drove us to Abu Ghraib hospital where they left the dead boys and then drove us to prison.

End of Interview, we hope to meet again tomorrow, as we have not even heard about the prison abuse at Abu Ghraib.

The third interview was with a man named J.A.

I did not take any notes other than the ones written on the two large and two small drawings I did during this interview.

-Daniel