Workers Daily Internet Edition Year 2003 No. 30

Year 2003 No. 30, April 9, 2003	ARCHIVE	HOME	SEARCH	SUBSCRIBE

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Stop The War Meeting At The Unison National Health Group Conference

At lunchtime on the second day of Unison's National Health Group Conference, about 50 delegates packed into a meeting room in the Moat House Hotel by the Conference Centre for a meeting against the war on Iraq. Bob Abberley, Unison Head of Health, addressed the meeting. After making some initial comments in which he said that it was entirely appropriate for Unison to take a stand on the war he read out Unison's National Executive Committee statement opposing the war on Iraq.

Among other points the statement said that Unison reaffirms its statements of 8 October 2002 and 26 February 2003 which stated that “any military action without the explicit authority of the United Nations Security Council would be unjustifiable and against international law and the requirements of the UN Charter”. Bob Abberley pointed out that even with UN support political and diplomatic solution should have been found. The statement also commented, "UNISON deplores the serious loss of life, mounting casualties, both military and civilian and the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Iraq." Concluding the statement Bob Abberley said that he was proud to be associated with a union that was taking such a stand. His remarks and the statement were received by warm applause.

There then followed a short speech by Clare Williams, Northern Regional Convenor of Unison, who in her remarks outlined the development and course of the massive people’s movement to stop the war and Unison’s important role in the Stop the War Coalition. Following her contribution, which was also received with warm applause, contributions were taken from the floor in which several delegates expressed the importance of the union taking a stand against the war which had assisted the members and activists to participate in the anti-war movement.

Delegates expressed outrage at the mass killings and injuring of the people of Iraq whether they were fighting to defend their country or civilians and it mentioned was the heavy toll on children as a result of sanctions. Delegates heard how 36% of Iraqi people are under 14 years old and how many people had died and would die from destruction of Iraq's infrastructure by the US and British forces. Hospitals were now under severe pressure unable to cope with the thousands of growing causalities.

Delegates pointed out the increasing disinformation about the war in the mass media. Nothing was said when whole families are wiped out as the US targets and obliterates several houses in a residential area, “because Saddam Hussein might be there”.

One of the delegates pointed out, "That these crimes are being committed against people, in a war that has no justification, that has no legality or support from the international community, that is opposed by the people of this country, has to call into question the legitimacy of this government."

She continued, "We, the movement of people against war are confronted with an urgent question of how we can move to a situation where our will, our values which are for humanity, not theirs for destruction determine what actually happens in our country, in the world."

"As people have been saying, the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people must be addressed. The issues confronting the movement against war could not be bigger. Not just the movement against war, but on other vital issues like our health service. If the US and Britain get away with what they are doing in Iraq, other countries will be next. What we are seeing is the armed wing of the World Trade Organisation agenda.”

The meeting continued for over an hour with many delegates foregoing their lunch to participate. At the conclusion of the meeting a number of suggestions were made to strengthen the stand of the union.

Conference Decision on Agenda for Change

Delegates at Unison's National Health Conference in Harrogate voted overwhelmingly yesterday in favour of recommending that Agenda for Change be implemented in 12 development sites across England, the union reports.

All Unison health members will be balloted in May when they will be asked if they wish to proceed with implementer sites designed to test and monitor the proposed new system.

The development sites would allow time for problems to be identified and ironed out ahead of a second vote next year to decide if it should be rolled out across the whole of the NHS.

Agenda for Change is the biggest shake-up of pay in the NHS since it was created over 50 years ago. The seriousness of the decision was reflected in the near four hour long debate.

Paul Marks, lead negotiator for Unison on Agenda for Change, told the conference:

"Agenda for Change re-establishes national bargaining for all members on trust contracts. It stops the drift towards local pay in the NHS, creates a single pay system and delivers equal pay for work of equal value. In addition the proposals will give the vast majority pay increases and lifts the minimum wage in the NHS from £4.47 to £5.17 - an increase of 70p or over 15%.

"You have a choice kill Agenda for Change and stay with the past or accept Agenda for Change and build for the future."

Following the decision to recommend acceptance, Karen Jennings, Unison's head of health, said:

"This clear decisive vote mandates Unison to go ahead with early implementers and ensures that health service members will get their pay rise in their pocket as soon as possible.

"Unison is committed to putting resources into these implementer sites to ensure we get the best out of Agenda for Change over the next year and in further discussions."

Demonstration in Shannon on April 12

Anti-War Demonstration at US Embassy

On Saturday, April 5, a march to the US Embassy and a rally were held in Grosvenor Square against the continued Anglo-US aggression and occupation of Iraq. This was called by Stop the War Coalition. The march began at the offices of BBC in Langham Place, Oxford Street, at 1:30pm and ended in Grosvenor Square very near to the US Embassy. By the time it reached Grosvenor Square, the crowd had swelled to 2,500. The rally began with an introduction by the chairman of the Stop the War Coalition, Andrew Murray, who introduced numerous speakers including George Galloway MP. The rally lasted for an hour. At the end a call was given by Andrew Murray for the National Demonstration in London taking place on Saturday, April 12, to be a success, despite the continued occupation and aggression. He stressed that the anti-war movement has maintained its strength despite the attempts of the media to play it down.

At 2:45pm the protesters, though a lot had dispersed, marched down Duke Street and at the junction with Oxford Street 200 of them made a sit down protest lasting about half an hour. Oxford Street was closed to traffic. The police formed a ring around those sitting, and stopped others joining the protest. A police spokesman remanded those blocking the road that their action was illegal and they would have to move in half an hour or be moved forcefully. Eventually the police suggested that the protesters could march down Duke Street. Protesters were forced to march by being pushed from behind while police surrounded the protesters. There were many scuffles and some were arrested. In Grosvenor Square the police had built a pen of metal railings where all the protesters were put into. The police ratio to protesters was 2 to 1. According to police, the demonstrators had the right to protest as long as they liked, but it was pointless because of being trapped in one side of the square. At around 5:00pm, six protesters at a time were let out, filmed and escorted into Duke Street.

Iraqi People Facing Humanitarian Crisis

by Dennis Halliday and Scott Harris, Between the Lines, April 07, 2003

As US and British soldiers fight for control of southern Iraq on their way toward a crucial battle in Baghdad, civilians in large cities like Basra and smaller towns are confronting severe shortages of water, food and medicine. But with the American military insisting that they alone will control the distribution of aid, several international relief organisations are reluctant to participate, not wanting to be identified with a US invasion viewed by many as illegal and launched without UN Security Council authorisation. The fact that much of the territory now occupied by U.S forces remains unsecure, makes the distribution of supplies by the Pentagon itself that much more difficult and chaotic.

Aid agencies from around the world have demanded that President Bush place the humanitarian relief effort under the supervision of United Nations agencies and personnel with many years of experience in Iraq. With an eye toward post-war administration of Iraq, the Security Council recently voted to transfer control of Iraq's oil for food programme to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Denis Halliday, a former Under-Secretary General at the UN who administered Iraq's oil for food programme before he resigned in protest against economic sanctions in 1998. Halliday discusses the current humanitarian crisis confronting the people of Iraq and the legal obligation of the American and British invasion force to provide immediate aid to the desperate and frightened population under their control.

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Denis Halliday: Well, for me this war is of course unnecessary. It constitutes blatant aggression by the United States and Britain outside the bounds of the United Nations without any resolution under Chapter 7 of the charter in support. I mean it's an extraordinary adventure for two permanent members of the UN Security Council to undertake a war in complete breach of the charter, international law and without the support of the vast, vast majority of member states of the organisation. And for me of course the crisis now is, that it be stopped if possible and end the humanitarian catastrophe in the making. Failing that, at least those responsible – and that is Britain and the United States – respond to their obligations under the Geneva Conventions and meet the needs for water, food and other needs of the Iraqi people in their area of control.

Between The Lines: Denis Halliday could you give us an assessment of the humanitarian crisis that the Iraqi people are now faced with after the first week of the conflict?

Denis Halliday: Yes, when I was in Baghdad in January and February, the government had distributed three or four months of its basic food supplies – that's wheat, rice, flour, cooking oil, sugar, tea – all the very minimal, but basic needs of the family, including powdered full cream milk and cheese. I think what's probably happened is some of the poorer families have sold some of these (food items) in order to buy fresh vegetables, meat, chicken, eggs and fruit. There seems to be some shortage now of food, we understand at least, in Basra in the south of the country, although they also receive these supplies. I understand from the Iraqi Minister of Trade a few days ago that they are actually still trying to send food to people in Basra.

The immediate crisis, however, other than food – which (may happen) in a matter of weeks perhaps – is the immediate problem of water. Iraq is one of these countries that does not have natural potable water supplies. It needs to be treated, it needs to be distributed – that requires of course a system, an infrastructure, but also electric power. Now, when these systems collapse in times of hostilities, whether it's deliberate or not deliberate, the consequence for the children in particular is catastrophic.

As UNICEF was telling us just recently, in the south of Iraq 25 percent or more of children under 5 years of age are already malnourished. When you're malnourished at that age and you get unclean water, just simple diarrhoea is enough to take your life. And of course, dysentery or other more serious problems, waterborne disease, is an absolute killer. So that I think is the absolute immediate crisis that several millions obviously are facing in Um Qaser, Nasiriyah, Basra, Najaf or Karbala to the south of Baghdad.

Between The Lines: Could you summarise for our listeners what international law says, and the Geneva Convention states about the responsibilities of invading forces such as the United States and the United Kingdom at this moment when increasing numbers of Iraqi citizens are falling under their control in occupied zones in their own country?

Denis Halliday: Well, the Geneva conventions are quite specific. They establish that the responsibility for the humanitarian care of civilians and of course those military types who surrender fall squarely on the shoulders of those in aggression, the combatants – in this case the United States and Britain. That of course presents a huge challenge to the United States in the south of Iraq today, given the difficulties we've described with regard to water, and the violence of the response and the difficulty of bringing in food and water to people under these hostile conditions. But their responsibility is there. This responsibility in fact goes way beyond the hostilities per se, understanding it's the fourth protocol which says that this obligation extends up to one year. And therefore for the United States to (search for) other sources of funding – although of course any part of the so-called coalition I guess (may be) willing to put in some money – is really negligent of its budgetary and other responsibilities in this connection.

Between The Lines: Do you see any sign that the United States and Britain are taking seriously their obligations and making distribution of food, water and medicine a high priority in this war?

Denis Halliday: No, I'm very sad to say, despite the television coverage, what I'm seeing is propaganda. A lot of hoopla about bringing in one ship into Um Qaser. It wasn't an orderly system, it looked more like looting to me. But nevertheless, it was distribution from the back of a truck to aggressive young men who came out of these places to look for food and took the packets and the water. But that does not guarantee that the food gets to orphans, to single mothers, to families. This is a humiliation, in my view, of the Iraqi people who are being forced to beg, in a sense, in their own country under these terrible conditions imposed upon them by the United States and Britain. It's tragic. To watch it I find it absolutely awful and it must humiliate, not just the Arabs in Iraq, but throughout the entire community.

Between The Lines: Denis Halliday, there seems to be a palpable fear that terrorists will strike in reaction to the US war against Iraq. The Bush administration, on the contrary, basically says that this war in Iraq will make the United State safer. But of course there are others who say that this inflames an already desperate hatred of the United States and its policies – particularly in the Middle East, particularly around Israel and now with this war in Iraq. Do you think that in the end the Bush administration will be vindicated in executing this war to make America a safer place?

Denis Halliday: No, of course I don't see it that way. In my view the pre-emptive strike that was 9-11 in New York City was the beginning of a process and to respond with the sort of violence that Mr. Bush responded with in Afghanistan and now very falsely in my view linking al Qaida to Iraq – and now with the Iraq war – is of course exactly the wrong way to go about it. This is a guarantee of recruitment of many into terrorist organisations, if that's the way it works with al Qaida or others. It's exactly the way to maintain the frustration, anger and poverty and the neglect and interference that so upsets the Arab community as represented by the people who think like bin Laden, and of course, most Arabs do not, happily.

But that sort of thinking, which is very comparable to Mr. Bush himself, you know good and evil, black and white – it's a very simplistic sort of messianic way of going about things. I think it's terribly dangerous and I think we're helping, sadly, the process of more terrorist involvement because we are perpetuating the presence of our Christian, western ideals, our corruption of their culture and Islamic values in the Middle East. And you know, what on earth are we doing there? Haven't we learned from the colonial past in this part of the world that we have no competence and no place in the Middle East?

The Real Face of War

By Maria Tomchick, AlterNet, April 8, 2003

The televised face of this war is a lie. It's a flickering screen with a Fox-TV newsman's macho boast that US troops are in the heart of Baghdad and are "here to stay”. It's a Pentagon press conference assuring us that another city has been "taken," but not yet "secured”.

Occasionally, however, we catch glimpses of the reality: descriptions of incidents that reflect the real impact on both sides.

A US Marine in a medevac unit outside Al Kut, unable to save a dying American soldier, buries his resuscitation equipment in despair. I'm reading this in my morning paper. I close my eyes and try to imagine where this Marine came from, what he did before he was shipped over to Iraq. Maybe he worked in an inner-city hospital where gunshot wounds are the norm, but the hospital's emergency room has the equipment and personnel to save lives and patch together even the worst cases. But the stripped-down, gritty, sweltering reality of a battlefield after three days of non-stop fighting with bullets still whizzing overhead and not enough clamps to stop the bleeding and not enough hands to patch all the wounds fast enough has finally broken his will. What will be left of this man when he returns home?

I read a quote from soldiers who've shot up a van full of women and children. The soldiers' initial, agonised question, "Why did they do it? Why did they try to run the checkpoint?" will eventually, with the passage of time, become "Why did I do it? Why did I shoot them all?" The soldiers will remember that brief scene over and over again in their nightmares for the next 20, 30, 40 years.

These soldiers weren't the only ones who prepared for the worst, only to realise that war brings on the worst in spite of their best-laid plans.

Ibrahim al-Yussuf's parents thought they could save their 12-year-old son by sending him to live with relatives in Zambrania, a small, rural village outside of Baghdad. The city was too dangerous, they thought, as loud explosions and fireballs lit up the skyline at night. After all, a US HARM missile demolished a busy market, killing 67 people and wounding dozens more. If Ibrahim left the city he'd be out of the way of stray missiles.

But soon after the war started, US military planners set up "kill boxes" in the region south of Baghdad, a largely rural area, where Zambrania and several other villages lie. Kill boxes were used in Afghanistan; they're grid-like areas on the military planners' maps that are designated as free-fire zones. US fighter pilots are allowed to shoot anything that moves within these zones. But, just as in Afghanistan, there is no way that civilians on the ground can know when they've entered a kill box until a bomb falls on them.

Ibrahim and his 17-year-old cousin, Jalal, left home to have lunch with Abdullah, a friend who owned the neighbouring farm. They were torn apart by a US bomb because they were outside, walking, and a kill box had been superimposed over their home.

Zambrania and the neighbouring village of Talkana have lost 19 people because of US fighter planes. In Manaria, a village 30 miles south of Baghdad, 22 people have died and 53 have been injured in air raids. Most of the dead and wounded are children and women. Many of the wounds look suspiciously like those caused by cluster bombs, anti-personnel weapons that release a spray of deadly shrapnel that can cut through flesh, bone and even the soft, mud-brick walls of Iraqi houses. The U.N. has condemned the use of cluster bombs, a key component of the US arsenal, because so many more civilians are killed by cluster bombs than any other kind of ordnance except land mines. And like a land mine, a cluster bomblet can lie unexploded, waiting for a victim to brush by it or a curious child to pick it up.

The use of cluster bombs in these rural areas is, surely, a war crime. As the daughter of a farmer, I feel physically ill at the thought of a rural landscape littered with these little packages of death. And then I read about the Hilla massacre.

The Red Cross reported 61 civilians killed and 450 people injured over two days – March 31 and April 1 – by cluster bombs dropped in the Hilla region south of Baghdad. Described as "a horror," two nights of US bombing produced babies cut in half, dozens of severed bodies, and scattered limbs. The victims were farmers and their families. There were no Iraqi artillery, Republican guard troops or military installations within miles.

And the horrors continue to unfold. Patrick Baz, a veteran photographer for Agence France Presse who covered the war in Beirut in the 1980s, was shocked when he stumbled upon a farm torn up by US missiles in al-Janably. Inside the farmhouse were the remains of a family of 20 people, 11 of them children.

Children make up the largest number of civilian victims in Iraq; they are, after all, an estimated 60 percent of the population. There really is a good reason why Al Jazeera TV broadcasts so many pictures of suffering Iraqi children.

Dimitrius Mognie, a Greek doctor and humanitarian aid worker, recently visited a hospital in Baghdad, where he described the shortage of antibiotics, bandages and even anaesthetics. He was struck by the enormous number of children in the hospital beds and the heartbreaking lack of resources available for them. He witnessed doctors amputating a child's limb using only local anaesthetics; the doctors had to give the child a new shot every five minutes. Nearby lay a 9-year-old boy suffering from a horrible abdominal wound that he sustained when he "had picked up something that exploded" – clearly, an injury from a cluster bomb.

Meanwhile, on the urban battlefield, families with young children have been caught in the crossfire in Basra, Nasiriya, Najaf, and Baghdad. Eyewitness reports of civilians killed in those cities evoke memories of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the No Gun Ryi slaughter in Korea. George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld have told us that few civilians will be killed. But the real face of this war is inescapable: hundreds, if not thousands, of civilian dead, and most of them children.

Maria Tomchick is co-editor and contributing writer for Eat the State!, a biweekly newspaper based in Seattle, Washington.

Some of the sources for this article:
www.Iraqbodycount.net
"Thousands Flee Baghdad as US Troops Edge Nearer," Matthew Green, Reuters, 4/5/03
"Cluster bombs liberate Iraqi Children," Pepe Escobar, Asia Times online
"'Kill box' policy reflects intensified onslaught," Owen Bowcott and agencies, The Guardian, 3/27/03
"I saw the heads of my two little girls come off," Sydney Morning Herald, 4/2/03
"Samar's story," Kim Sengupta, The Independent, 4/4/02
"So this is what war looks like?" Tim Wise, Znet, 4/2/03
"Barrage of Fire, Trail of Death in the Capital," Steven Lee Myers, New York Times, 4/6/03

WHO Health Briefing on Iraq

UN humanitarian briefing, 7 April 2003

Children

Today to mark World Health Day and its theme of "Healthy Environments for Children" we want to focus on the 12 million children in Iraq (half of the population) and the impact war is having on their lives. The fundamental right of any child is the right to life and that right is under serious threat in Iraq. Wars inevitably have a major impact on civilians, and particularly on children. We have all seen some very disturbing pictures of child victims of this conflict – children with burn injuries, a young boy lying in a hospital bed, both his arms blown off. And away from the cameras, these scenes are being repeated every day. The World Health Organization again reminds of all sides in the conflict of their obligations to avoid injuries to civilians.

Hundreds of civilians are being injured, every day. And civilian injuries have a double impact on children – whether or not they are the direct victims, they may find themselves without a mother, a father, brothers or sisters. And don't forget that many of the "military casualties" we hear about are men whose children will now have to grow up without them.

Those who are injured and survive may end up in hospital needing treatment for third degree burns, or having limbs amputated and never again being able to run properly or play. Hospitals in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq are being overwhelmed by the numbers of injured people being brought in for treatment. Many are reported to be running short of supplies of medicines, anaesthetics and basic equipment. Some hospitals and health centres have also been affected by the damage to electricity and water supplies. Even those with functioning back-up generators may not have access to regular supplies of clean, safe water. Treating people and particularly conducting surgical operations under these circumstances is extremely dangerous for the health of patients.

Even before this conflict began, the children of Iraq were suffering from the combined impact of poverty and international sanctions. Infant mortality rates before the war began were twice as high as those in 1990. One in eight Iraqi children dies before reaching the age of five, one in three is undernourished, one in four begins life as an underweight baby. The three biggest child killers are acute respiratory infection, diarrhoeal diseases and measles.

Damage to electricity and water systems, combined with rising temperatures, will only increase the risk of diarrhoea and other diseases, add to the difficulties of women giving birth, and kill even more children.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is also extremely concerned about the psychological impact of conflict, fear, and the loss of family members or neighbours on Iraqi children. The physical and psychological damage of conflict could take years to heal, and are likely to leave many permanent scars.

The United Nations humanitarian agencies have appealed for US$ 325 million to cover the immediate health, nutrition, water and sanitation needs of the most vulnerable populations, particularly women and children. With half of the population representing the future of the country, it is absolutely imperative for all to ensure the rapid reinstatement of a safe environment for children to grow up in.

Health is a fundamental right of children. It is our responsibility to create conditions for children that safeguard their health.

What UNICEF Said at the UN Briefing

Briefing note: April 7, 2003

Press Centre

Today's convoy brings to more than 60, the number of trucks UNICEF has sent into Southern Iraq – each day with more supplies, each day further into the country.

Briefing by Wivina Belmonte, UNICEF

Good Afternoon

On this, World Health Day, one can only wonder what an 8-year-old child in Baghdad might be imagining about the daily nightmare he or she is witnessing.

That child is living in a home without electricity. A city where hospitals are reportedly taking in hundreds of casualties every hour. Where schools, and the idea of a normal routine have been suspended for days now, and where a night's sleep is interrupted by the sounds of shelling and gunfire.

The pictures we see on our televisions, show us the most immediate, most stark images of children – hurt and injured in the conflict. What is more difficult to show, but which has its own devastating impact is the lack of water, the poor and deteriorating health conditions, and the trauma each child is living.

UNICEF is not only deeply concerned by this – we are active – on the ground in Southern Iraq on the ground in Northern Iraq, and with supplies in Baghdad, placed there before the conflict.

Today, UNICEF sent a convoy of 11 trucks across the border in Kuwait to towns in Southern Iraq, including Basra, Safwan and Zubair.

Each truck was carrying urgent supplies – thousands of litres of clean water and life-saving medical supplies, including Oral Rehydration Salts – all destined for those who need them most.

Today's convoy brings to more than 60, the number of trucks UNICEF has sent into Southern Iraq – each day with more supplies, each day further into the country.

Clearly, we still need to reach many more children, in many more places.

With each passing day, as the conflict continues, a humanitarian clock is ticking – it's a question of access, it's a question of distribution, it's a question of time, and it's a question of the lives of Iraqi children.

UNICEF concerned about Iraqi children

- Statement Attributable to UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy -

Press Centre

Official Statement

AMMAN / NEW YORK, 6 April 2003 – With a large-scale assault on Baghdad now underway I want to remind all parties to the conflict of their legal and moral obligation to protect the lives of civilians, especially children.

Baghdad is a city of 5 million people, half of them under the age of 18. Over the past two and a half weeks there have been increasing reports of civilian casualties, with many graphic accounts of children killed, injured, and traumatised.

Our extensive experience working with children in conflict has taught us that in addition to the immediate effects, there are other profound and debilitating consequences that last for years to come. The scars of war do not easily fade. Physical and psychological trauma, fear, and the loss of loved ones continue to plague the lives of those who have endured such horrors.

Take for example, the three boys between the ages of five and six who were severely maimed this week when playing with a landmine at Garagow, near Dohuk. One boy had both his hands blown off, another may lose an eye. The lives of these children and their families will never be the same.

However sophisticated the methods of waging war, the end results are as bloody and tragic as they have been throughout the centuries. But there is at least one thing that has changed: increasingly, women and children are the principal victims.

UNICEF is particularly concerned about reports in the last few days of the use of cluster bombs in densely populated urban areas. These cruel and clumsy weapons are already reported to have claimed the lives of Iraqi children and their use must end.

The taking of a child's life is never an acceptable cost of war.

Stop the War Coalition Media Releases

“What Don’t The Americans Want Us To See In Baghdad?” MP Asks after TV Office Bombings

8 April 2003

At a Stop the War news conference earlier today, Alice Mahon MP insisted that the targeting of hospitals and TV facilities, which was a clear breach of international law, “took away America’s right to call itself a democracy”.

Mrs Mahon was joined by Sabah Jawad from Iraqi Democrats Against War and Sanctions and Stop the War Coalition Convenor, Lindsey German.

Alice Mahon MP said: “The targeting of Al Jazeera’s offices in Baghdad is a clear and obvious breach of international law. The bombing of Arab TV facilities won’t stop the world getting to hear about the civilian slaughter that is going on in Iraq. But it puts a big question mark over the United States right to call itself a democracy. What is it the Americans don’t want us to see there? We already know that heavy arms are being used in residential areas and that US forces are considering the use of stun gases like those used against the Chechen seize of a Moscow theatre, when hundreds of hostages lost their lives.”

Sabah Jawad, Iraqi Democrats Against War and Sanctions, said: “Over 40 per cent of Iraq’s population are children, who are traumatised by the bombing. Friends and relatives report that many children simply cannot sleep at night and are crying all the time. The war on Iraq is a war against our children. This is something that no nation that claims to be civilised should engage in.”

Lindsey German, Stop the War Coalition Convenor said: “Most images of war on Iraq being sent around the world are different that the ones we have been seeing in Britain. But now some of the devastation and slaughter of civilians is getting through. As a mark of respect, our national demonstration on Saturday will pause at Parliament Square to commemorate all the dead of the Iraq war.”

Journalists Pay the Price of War

8 April 2003

"I don't understand why they were doing that. There was no fire coming out of this hotel - everyone knows it's full of journalists. They knew exactly what this hotel is. They know the press corps is here. I don't know why they are trying to target journalists. There are bound to be casualties but that tank shell was aimed at us. This wasn't an accident. This seems to be a very accurate shot. What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to carry on if American shells are targeting Western journalists?"

David Chater, Sky News correspondent, who was inside Baghdad’s Palestine Hotel when it was hit.

More and more evidence is emerging that US forces are at best careless in firing on positions in Iraq that are sheltering journalists attempting to report the war.

TODAY

At least five journalists were injured when a US tank fired on the Palestine Hotel in central Baghdad where many members of the international media are staying. Four Reuters staff have been taken to hospital. Some reports also say that a Spanish reporter was killed.

US aircraft appear to have bombed (it may been a missile strike) the Baghdad office of Al-Jazeera TV killing journalist Tareq Ayoub and injuring at least one other staff member. The office was almost completely destroyed.

US aircraft hit the Abu Dhabi TV office in Baghdad where injuries have also been reported.

DURING THE WAR

The death of Tareq Ayoub (see above) brings the death toll of journalists and others working for media organisations to eight in just 19 days. Others are missing and presumed dead.

The following are the other seven confirmed dead:

Terry Lloyd, ITN correspondent
Paul Moran, freelance Australian cameraman
Kaveh Golestan, freelance BBC cameraman
Michael Kelly, American journalist and Washington Post columnist
Kamaran Abdurazaq Muhamed, BBC translator
Gaby Rado, Channel 4 News foreign affairs correspondent
David Bloom, NBC TV correspondent

The following are another five that are still missing:

Fred Nerac, French ITN cameraman who went missing in the ambush that killed Terry Lloyd on March 22.
Hussein Osman, Lebanese translator who went missing in the ambush that killed Terry Lloyd.
Wael Awad, Syrian reporter working for the Dubai Arabic TV station al-Arabiya. Not seen since March 22.
Talal Fawzi al-Masri, Lebanese cameraman working for the Dubai Arabic TV station al-Arabiya. Not heard from since March 22.
Ali Hassan Safa, technician working for the Dubai Arabic TV station al-Arabiya. Not heard from since March 22.

Some non-mainstream reports say that either earlier today (Tuesday, April 8) or yesterday an Iraqi missile hit the headquarters of the USA Army’s 3rd Infantry Division to the south of Baghdad. Among the dead were two reporters – one from Spain and one from Germany – and at least three US soldiers. Many other troops were injured in the attack and 17 military vehicles were destroyed. According to the reports the US military has placed a ban on coverage of the incident.

The US military is continuing to target both television and radio transmitters in Iraq, which is illegal under international law. Casualty figures of Iraqi journalists as a result of the bombing of radio and television facilities are unavailable.

Luis Castro and Victor Silva, both reporters working for RTP Portuguese television, were held by the US military for four days at the end of March, had their equipment, vehicle and video tapes confiscated, and were then escorted out of Iraq by the 101st Airborne Division. They were also beaten up and deprived of food and water. Despite possessing the proper "Unilateral Journalist" accreditation issued by the Coalition Forces Central Command, both journalists were detained as they were travelling towards Najaf.

According to Castro:

"We were ordered down on the ground by the soldiers. They stepped on our hands and backs and handcuffed us. We were put in our own car. The soldiers used our satellite phones to call their families at home. I begged them to allow me to use my own phone to call my family, but they refused. When I protested, they pushed me to the ground and kicked me in the ribs and legs.

“A lieutenant in charge of the military police told me, ‘My men are like dogs, they are trained only to attack, please try to understand.’

“I have covered 10 wars in the past six years - in Angola, Afghanistan, Zaire, and East Timor. I have been arrested three times in Africa, but have never been subjected to such treatment or been physically beaten before. The Americans call themselves liberators and freedom fighters, but look what they have done to us. I believe the reason we were detained was because we are not embedded with the US forces. Embedded journalists are always escorted by military minders. What they write is controlled and, through them, the military feeds its own version of the facts to the world. When independent journalists such as us come around, we pose a threat because they cannot control what we write.

“The Americans in Iraq are totally crazy and are afraid of everything that moves. I would have expected this to happen to us at the hands of the Iraqis, but not at the hands of the Americans. This is typical of the American attitude, as related to us by British forces. The attitude is ‘shoot first and ask questions later'."

When asked by Arab News what he intends to do next, Castro replied:

"Return to Iraq as soon as possible to tell the truth to the world about what is happening there."

Lindsey German, Convenor of the Stop of the War Coalition, commented:

“Evidence is mounting that US forces in particular are at best casual in their attitude to targeting buildings containing journalists. Luis Castro’s evidence suggests that some US troops have treated journalists with violence and threats.

“This behaviour is a clear breach of the Geneva Convention. It is utterly unacceptable that journalists are being made to pay the price of this brutal and unlawful war.”