- This article was written in occupied Baghdad in the third
year of the 21st century, or in other words "The American Century."
-
- BAGHDAD (IslamOnline.net)
-- With power outages for long hours that could reach 20 to 23 hours a
day and people resorting to primitive methods to cope with backbreaking
hardships in the searing 50 degree celsius, the U.S. troops have turned
Baghdad into a Stone Age city.
-
- A water vat in the house's corner and a lantern barely
spreading its dim light through a lightening wick that helps children study
for tomorrow's exams though with drooping eyes, while the mother stand
cooking for her children with coal and the daughter fanning with fronds
in the stifling heat of July.
-
- This is almost the case in every house in Baghdad as
put by Maisaa, an Iraqi girl living in the elite Al-Khadra district in
Baghdad. In the near past, many houses in the war-scarred country was full
of state-of-the-art domestic appliances, but now that almost three months
have elapsed since <http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-04/09/article09.shtml>the
downfall of the Iraqi capital to the hands of the U.S. occupation TV sets,
radios electric ovens and other appliances have become something of a luxury.
-
- "Acute water, gas and fuel shortage together with
power outage forced Iraqis to use traditional things instead of such appliances,
however, these much sought-after basics are of sky-rocketing prices with
one lantern hitting 2000-4000 dinars (one dollar equals around 1300 Iraqi
dinars) compared to its original price of 250 dinars," said Ikhlas
Mohammad, a professor of psychology at Baghdad University.
-
- "When you pronounce words like electricity and water
you, no doubt, conjures up visions of civilization and life·But
we are no leading our lives without water or civilization," Thurayaa
Mohidin, a biologist, echoed the same feelings.
-
- She continued: "But such appalling conditions is
nothing new for Iraqis, who suffered for 12 years the same hardships under
the ousted Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein·The Americans only added
insult to injury."
-
- "Can anybody imagine that I daily read theses on
the dim light of lanterns with in the sweltering heat of the room·Is
this the freedom that the U.S. has promised us it would break the yoke
of 35 years of injustice? Are not these (U.S.) practices brazen violations
of the rights of oppressed and down-trodden people, who were born to find
themselves the people of the world's richest country?" She wondered.
-
- "Majority of Iraqis have already had their fill
of these conditions and I fear that it the lull before the storm,"
she said after a breath of relief.
-
- Diseases
-
- Um Radi, 39, a housewife and a mother of 7 children said
that power outage and Iraq's stifling heat afflicted her three-year-old
daughter with severe diarrhea, given that she could bear such temperatures.
-
- "When I went to the hospital I was shocked by the
large number of babies who suffered typhoid and dermatitis," she said.
-
- As for Abu Ahmad, an engineering graduate, circumstances
beyond his control forced him to work as a tailor.
-
- "We used to sleep on the roof to escape heat and
enjoy the night's breeze under the moonlight·But U.S. Apache helicopters
pace the night sky at lower altitudes and have the gall to step their shoes
out to our humiliation," he said.
-
- 'Honeymoon on Roof'
-
- Um Ahmad said that her nephew spent his honeymoon on
his house's roof which overlooks the Tigris River.
-
- "It seems as if the Iraqi people were predestined
to suffer all along starting from the U.K. occupation in 1917 till today·The
occupation is aimed at forcing the Iraqis to live under poverty, starvation
and oppression," said Walid Umar, a post-graduate student.
-
- "Can anyone imagine that the people of a country
like Iraq, which abounds in natural resources such as oil, depleted uranium,
phosphor and mercury, have now to drink from water vats to stay alive?
Even the Iraqi sand is now at great demand at the moment by giant corporations
because it is the raw material of the world's best ceramics," he added.
-
- Iraqis charged that the U.S.-led occupation authority
deliberately cut off electricity and water as a collective punishment in
retaliation for mounting resistance attacks, which have become more organized
as recently admitted by U.S civilian administrator Paul Bremer.
-
- http://www.islamonline.net/English/News/2003-07/06/article08.shtml
|
