"The arc of brutality and provocation of the US troops in Abu Ghraib town goes from killing a boy of 12 years old, dead some days ago by the shots of a military vehicle while crossing the highway with a gas cylinder, to the dead of a dog during a house searching; after receiving two shots and be finished off in the head, the soldier showed up his thumb in front of the family with satisfaction".

In south west of Abu Ghraib there is a wide agriculture and cattle area which beauty of irrigated green countries and palm trees, dispersed houses and animals strongly contrasts with the dusty plain in which the endless four corners of the prison expands. The heartrending view is that of an open war in the highways network to access to the capital, a scenario of burnt vehicles in the berm, of holes blacked by the explosions, and road surfaces devastated by the US armored tanks to avoid ambushes.

This unforeseen area, closed to the foreign presence is called Zaidan, and its rural calmness and beauty is deceptive. 30% of the Resistance operations in the capital are launched from here, including the mortar and missile attacks against the international airport, no far away. That's way the US troops have occupied 40 houses in a wide radio in order to guarantee the control of the zone: the outraged neighbors explain to the Delegation "the US troops have simply enter in the chosen country houses, have obliged the families to lodge in a single room and have taken the rest of the houses locating snipers in the roofs". At night, while having dinner in Baghdad near the Tigris river, an old Iraqi friend would confirm us that this is a practice that is being applied by the US Army in other places, at least, in the center of Iraq: in Eufrates, in al-Ambar province and in south Baghdad, in the Latifiyeh and Mahmudiyeh corridors, both of them areas of intense combats.

The US troops have organized a deployment and self protective system consisting of setting up several coordinated operative centers in the rural area, each one of them protected by a circle of houses separated between each by some hundreds meters. The presence of the occupiers in the chosen houses is obvious when crossing by car near them: warning of prohibited access, parked cars and flamboyant antennas in the terraces. On the contrary, one can hardly perceive their presence in the houses where three or four soldiers are hidden. The neighbors inform the Delegation on which houses are occupied.

Provocations and killings

The indignation of the people living in this area close to Abu Ghraib is immense. The homonym town of the infamous prison is located 35 Km. south of Baghdad.
We are received in a house 500 meters far away of the prison, in the other side of the highway hardly used by Iraqi cars but constantly crossed by US military vehicles. This building of one floor from which porch can be seen the vigilance towers of the prison and the Mosque of the town, serves for the familiars of prisoners to be at night if they come form other provinces before starting the queue at 8.00 am to try to see their relatives or getting the confirmation by the occupiers that they are there. The building belongs to ad-Dari family which patriarch, Daher Jamis ad-Dari is the tribal sheij of Zawbaa. The porch we are has the marks of the shootings the US soldiers launch from time to time.

Several relatives of prisoners and neighbors narrate to us the drama suffered because of the violence of US troops who have incremented the collective punishment measures against the habitants of the town. The black Apache helicopters fly over the neighborhood permanently and their sound hinders to listen the voice of our interlocutors, all of them farmers dressed with clear 'alabeyyas and covered by red or white headscarf.

Ahmad Mubarak tell us that he has lost two brothers, one during the fall of Baghdad two years ago and the other by a shot of a US soldier in al-Mansur neighborhood in December, 2003. Few weeks later, on 13 January, US troops assaulted his house in Abu Ghraib detaining all the men, more than ten. All of them were released except the minor of them, 12 years old, that would be detained for seven days. The lawyer Aman Sweidan, that centers her professional activity in searching and defending detained women, showed us in her house in Baghdad last Wednesday the pictures and documents of Iraqi minors imprisoned in US detention centers, a frequent practice by the occupiers.

Awad Azoiba told us that two of her nephews, 24 years all, were detained in an operation carried out by the US in February 2004. On of them was liberated in Camp Bucca, near Um Qasr Port, in Basora region. The family does not have news on the other. Azobai has lost a third nephew, a father of four children, while the military assault to his home.

Abderrahman ad-Dari pays attention to Javier Couso presentation [on his brother José, a Spanish journalist killed by the US troops in Baghdad while reporting with his camera from Palestine Hotel on 8th April 2003]. He offers to Javier a masbaha at the end of the meeting; he has also lost a brother by US shoots. In the same place where we were sitting, his brother Abdesarrak was coming back home and when living his car he got the impact of a bullet shot from the prison.
The arc of brutality and provocation of the US troops in Abu Ghraib town goes from killing a boy of 12 years old, dead some days ago by the shots of a military vehicle while crossing the highway with a gas cylinder, to the dead of a dog during a house searching; after receiving two shots and be finished off in the head, the soldier showed up his thumb in front of the family with satisfaction.

The highway, a mousetrap

Coming back to Baghdad, an attack of the Resistance against a US convoy made up of two vehicles of the National Guard and another five used by the US special corps and mercenaries makes the highway becoming a mousetrap for the Iraqis. The vehicles are yet stopped in files, some of them with marks of fire from machine guns and grenades. Eight Apache helicopters fly over the place while several Abrams tanks close the way in the highway in three points; as it is usual, other armored vehicles stay on the network. Iraqi cars, trucks and vans hardly cross the way without pushing trying to reach alternative routes: all of them know that the US soldiers shot indiscriminately after an attack and the best is to get far as soon as possible. This is the only relation the occupiers and Iraqis have here: to avoid each other frightened.
In one of this lateral roads, near an abandoned and almost destroyed installation, a piece in the wall says in Arabic: "Do not dump rubble: martyrs buried". This is one of the common graves of the liberators.

At night, the bombers flies over Baghdad have been constant.

English A delegation of the Spanish Campaign against the Occupation of Iraq and for the Iraqi Sovereignty travels to Iraq

English First message from the Spanish delegation of CEOSI in Iraq: A resistant and integrated country against occupation, confesionalism and sectarism
- Reporting on the Spanish delegation of CEOSI in Iraq (#1-5, April 18-22)

:: Reporting on the Spanish delegation of CEOSI in Iraq

Once their program has been developed as previewed, the Spanish Delegation of CEOSI made up by Manuel García Morales, Miren Karmele Colera, Javier Couso, Francisco Ramón Esteban, Pedro Rojo, Houmad El Kadiri and Carlos Varea, left Iraq and come back Spain through the Iraqi-Jordan border without incidents. The Delegation arrived to Madrid on 26th April.

Report #7: April 24
IraqSolidaridad: 26-04-05
The Delegation got to enter in Falluja. Entering the city they were welcomed the representatives of the city Reconstruction Committee. The Delegation could cross the check point of the occupiers forces. The fact that they were carrying on medical equipment has facilitated the entry. It has been a very emotive visit; people have received the Delegation with a deep kindness and affection. In fact this is the first foreign group visiting the town after the US attack last November 2004. Falluja is destroyed in 70% but despite of it is slowly recovering normality of the daily life: one can see a destroyed building and in the first floor a shop open to the public, or a family installed on the rubbish of a destroyed house; a building that was going to be a mosque has become an improvised school for more than 2.800 students under the tents with 40 grades temperature. They have also visited Jolan, one of the most punished neighbourhoods during the assault against Falluja. Later they have gone to the General Hospital and have met with the Director, to whom they have delivered the medical equipment. The Director has given a receipt of the material and has also given a new list with the supplies the Hospital needs the most. He has outlined the relevance of this visit since there was not international press in Fallujah since last November.
Later they have met with the local committees in order to evaluate their necessities. Their representatives have informed that the people will only received 12% of the value of what was destroyed during the attacks of the city. The US authorities draw a red cross in front of the houses they visit in order to confirm that is clean of "terrorists". There is an absolute desolation but the Delegation has been walking by the city , in between the US Army patrols, with not incident. In the evening, back in Baghdad, the Delegation has visited the headquarters of the Muslims Experts Association that has offered to the Delegation the opportunity of participate in the press conference they organized in relation with the recent incidents in Madain. The members of the Delegation have explained in the press conference the aims of the trip to Iraq and the outcomes and have expressed their grateful for the opportunity of participate in this international tribune, since there ware many Arab media.
The Delegation has also walked by al-Mansur neighbourhood, where they have say good bye to the persons that have attended them while their stay in Iraq. It is also worthy to say that the Spanish Government representative in the Spanish Embassy in Baghdad, Mr. Marcos Vega, has contacted the Delegation several times and has been surprised by the fact that the Delegation could come in Falluja. Summarizing, the Delegation has observed in Iraq the presence of an plural interlocution that recall our support; the perspectives for developing a work of solidarity are enormous. All the aims of the Delegation have been covered.

Report #6: April 23
IraqSolidaridad: 26-04-05
The day has been very interesting with no relevant problems and with multiple contacts in the central area close to Baghdad. It is worthy to stress the overwhelming and massive patrols of the National Guard that seems to be mixed (Iraqis and of US soldiers): they cover their faces, a sign that they have not trust in the population. Without apparent reason they made deployments, cut the traffic and provoke chaos in urban areas.
The first meeting of the day was with the responsible of Public Relations and the Communication Director of the Muslims Experts Association in the mosque of Um-Qura. Both of them reviewed the current affairs as well as the participation of the Association in the assembly of the Iraqi national Foundational Congress next May.. They assure the Association rejection to participate in projects while the occupation of a foreign army remains in their country. They also stressed the strategy of recruitment that foment the unemployment of the population and pays to the members of the National Guard a triple salary.
Later, the Delegation held a meeting with Hanna Ibrahim, head of the association 'Women's Will' and other representatives They explained the back wards in the situation of women after the war and the occupation of the country, as well as the determined will of the Association to insert women rights in the fight of the Iraqi people for liberation. The members of the women association also criticized the performance of many American NGO swarming in the women ambit in the current Iraq. In the evening the Delegation had an interview with trade unionists representatives as the President of Iraqi Framers Union, the Vice President of Iraqi Workers Union (a confederation of trade unions) and the responsible of the Executive Board of South Oil Trade Union, who will testify in the Barcelona Session of the World Tribunal on Iraq next May. They spoke on the agricultural and cattle farmer developments and the pernicious effects of occupation due to the destruction of the irrigation system by the tanks and the use of transgenic seeds by the US in Iraq. The responsible of the South Oil Trade Union invited the Delegation to extend their stay in Iraq to travel to Basora and visit the area as an example of the wish of the Iraqis to denounce and show up the negative situation they are facing.
After that meeting, the Delegation came back to the neighbourhood where they are lodged, al-Qadimiya, where they were invited by the religious authorities in the Shi'a Mosque to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Prophet Mohammed. In this commemorative act there were also members of Sunni community, what illustrates the unity of the Iraqi people against occupation. It is very surprising the high associative level of Iraqi society and the multiple social actors that express their wish of meeting with the Delegation. Next day the members of the Delegation will travel to Falluja with the medicines and medical equipment that CEOSI has collected from January to March and destined to the central Hospital. The local authorities will wait for them tomorrow in order to facilitate the access through he US control to the city.