It is believed that the death toll of the Fallujah massacre was 600, with another 1,000 injured. Local hospitals reported that the majority of the victims were women, children and the elderly, and that more than 60,000 women and children fled the city in panic. After the attack many of bodies were buried in the city’s football stadium because the US forces had blocked the road leading to the cemetery.
Unfortunately, the Fallujah massacre was not just an isolated incident and the atrocities committed there will never be forgotten by the Iraqi people. The words of the US government that they were there to help ‘liberate’ the Iraqis seems to be slipping away into oblivion to reveal the crude reality of foreign occupation and violent oppression.
In the remote village of Mukaradeeb, wedding celebrations had only just finished on 19 May, 2004, and at 10.30 p.m. the guests were hurrying back to their homes at the end of a lovely day. The wedding was the biggest event to take place that year in the small village of just 25 houses, and it had brought a lot of people together. The bride and groom, Ashad and Rutba Rakat, had already settled in their tent for the night when they heard the first sound of a fighter jet in the sky above. Then some of the guests saw the headlights of what appeared to be a military convoy heading their way.
The bombing started at about 3.00 a.m. and the first place to be hit was the tent that had been used for the ceremony. People started running out of the main house where the wedding took place as bombs fell, destroying the entire area. By this time, the armoured vehicles had reached the village and started firing machine guns at the people outside the house.
Just before dawn, two large Chinook helicopters dropped off many more soldiers. They set explosives in the main wedding house and the building next door. Just a few minutes later, the two buildings exploded, leaving just a pile of rubble. Everywhere lay bodies of women, children and men, all badly mutilated. By sunrise the death toll was 42, with 27 of them being members of the now extended Rakat family. Remarkably, the bride and groom were among the survivors because they had been sleeping in tents away from the main house.
The explanation by the US military was that they had been targeting a ‘suspected foreign fighter safe house’, during which time they had come under hostile fire. Despite the fact that there was no evidence to back their story, the US military continued to claim that the Mukraradeeb was a legitimate military target. At the end of the day, 27 small mounds of dirt and one crudely cut marble headstone bearing the words ‘The American Bombing’ are grim reminders of what once again appears to have been a pointless attack on innocent civilians.
Previously, in early April, night-time raid on a farm in the Al Janabin suburb on the edge of Baghdad killed 20 civilians, including 11 children. The following day Al Jeezera television showed footage of a predominantly Christian town, Bartallah, having received heavy civilian casualties after a night of intense bombing.
Just three weeks into the war, the Americans dropped bombs on a residential area of Baghdad. This killed 14 civilians, most of them members of a Christian family. The wanton destruction of cities and villages went on and on, leaving a trail of carnage behind them.
In a way it was an unusual war because US President George W. Bush announced on 1 May, 2003, that it was all over – the American mission had been accomplished – and yet three years on it is obvious that the conflict is far from over. It is obvious that the struggle is losing credibility if it is used to justify acts that would otherwise be deemed as offensive, such as the killing of innocent people who are in no way involved in the hostilities.
Camp X-Ray: Guantanamo Bay
The US Naval base at Guantanamo Bay is the oldest and only detention centre in Cuba. The primary job of Guantanamo Bay is to serve as a stratetic logistics base for the Navy’s Atlantic fleet and to support counter drug operations in the Caribbean. In 1991, the base was expanded as some 34,000 Haitian refugees passed through Guantanamo Bay. The refugees fled Haiti after a violent coup brought on by political and social upheaval in their country. In May 1994, Operation Sea Signal began and the naval base was given the job of supporting Joint Task Force 160, providing humanitarian assistance to thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants. In late August and early September 1994, 2,200 family members and civilian employees were evacuated from the base as the migrant population climbed to more than 45,000 and the Pentagon began preparing to house up to 60,000 migrants on the base. Separate camps were erected on the south side, each one being given a name to correspond with the phonetic alphabet used for official military radio communication – Camp Alpha, Camp Bravo, right up to Camp Golf. When additional sites were added on the north end of the base, they were named using letters from the opposite end of the alphabet, and this included Camp X-Ray.
Following the attacks on the Twin Towers on 11 September, 2001, and military operations in Afghanistan, numerous individuals who were alleged to be members or fighters associated with al-Qaeda were taken captive. It was decided to transfer these detainees to Cuba to the Camp X-Ray facility. The base was to serve as a temporary holding prison under the jurisdiction of the USA during their war on terrorism.
Since Camp X-Ray was closed on 29 April, 2002, it has drawn strong criticism both in the USA and worldwide for its alleged mistreatment of the detainees. Although officials from the Department of Defence stressed that the holding conditions at Guanatanamo Bay would be humane and in accordance with the Geneva Convention, the validity of this claim has since been in dispute. Foremost among the issues raised was the question of the detainees legal status. While the majority of the people felt that they should be given the status of prisoners of war, which gave them certain rights under the Geneva Convention, the USA refused to give them that designation, preferring instead to hold them as ‘illegal combatants’.
When the detainees arrived at Guatanamo Bay they were given jumpsuits to wear made out of reddish cloth, which, in the Arab world, is a colour reserved for condemned men. It is alleged that the US guards at Camp X-Ray played on the men’s fear and took advantage of their ‘freedom from restrictions’ to abuse basic human rights.
After their arrest, prisoners were taken to the camp, blindfolded, ear-muffed and gagged. Their arms and legs were tethered, their hands covered with mittens, their beards shaved off and their heads covered by masks. The US Army later stated that these measures were ‘for the prisoners’ own safety and well-being’.
Two accounts of Afghanistan arrests given to Amnesty International read as follows:
They were beating us on the head and back and ribs. They were punching us with fists, kicking me with their feet. They said: ‘You are a terrorist! You are al-Qaeda! You are Taliban!’ I was down on my knees, bent over, and they kicked me in the chest. I heard my ribs crack. Then I was lying on my side and they kicked me in the back, in the kidneys and I fainted.
The prisoners were allegedly detained in conditions that amounted to cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of a fellow human being. The open-air cells were approximately 2 m (6 ft 8 in) by 2.4 m (8 ft), and surrounded by barbed wire. This at least afforded the inmate the luxury of being able to lie down. They were given a bucket for their toilet needs, a paper-thin foam mat to sleep on, a single blanket, one bucket for water, two red/orange jumpsuits, one pair of flip-flops and a towel for bathing. According to British newspapers, more than 30 of the inmates were driven to pathetic lengths to commit suicide, even to using a plastic spoon to slit their wrists.