- BAGHDAD -- The Mongols stained
the Tigris black with the ink of the Iraqi books they destroyed. Today's
Mongols prefer to destroy the Iraqi teachers of books.
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- Since the Anglo-American invasion, they have murdered
at least 13 academics at the University of Baghdad alone and countless
others across Iraq. History professors, deans of college and Arabic tutors
have all fallen victim to the war on learning. Only six weeks ago - virtually
unreported, of course - the female dean of the college of law in Mosul
was beheaded in her bed, along with her husband.
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- Just who the modern-day Mongols are remains a painful
mystery of our story. Disgruntled students they are not. Baathist-hunters
some of them might be - all heads of academic departments were forced to
join Saddam's party - but none of the murdered Baghdad university staff
were believed to be anything more than card-carriers.
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- Even the former president of the university, Dr Mohamed
Arawi - a surgeon shot at his clinic a year ago - was regarded as a liberal,
humane man. But professors now watch the doors of their lecture theatres
as carefully as they do their students. And who can blame them? After all,
Dr Sabri al-Bayatiy of the department of geography was shot dead only a
month ago, just outside the arts department, in front of many of his students.
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- "He was gunned down just over there by the wall,"
one of his colleagues told me yesterday. "Many students saw his killer
but they could do nothing. Two bullets. That's all."
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- Talk to the academics at Baghdad University, and the
names roll out. Dr Nafa Aboud of the department of Arabic was murdered
just two months ago. Dr Hissam Sharif of the department of history was
sitting at the door of his Baghdad home when the killers came, shooting
him and two friends.
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- Dr Falah al-Dulaimi, assistant dean of college at Mustansariya
University in Baghdad, was shot in his college office last year.
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- "What can we do?" Saad Hassani of Baghdad University's
English department asked me. "Just a month ago, my son Ali - a student
in our biology department - was kidnapped. He walked outside the campus
on a hot day, took a taxi and the driver offered him a drink of cold water.
Then he lost consciousness. When he came to he was in a dark room, blindfolded,
and they beat him and tortured him with electricity.
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- "Then he heard two groups of men arguing, one lot
saying, 'You've got the wrong one'. They threw him out of a car beside
a road. But at least they didn't kill him. He will not leave his home now.
He flunked his exams. What am I to think?"
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- Other university staff suspect that there is a campaign
to strip Iraq of its academics, to complete the destruction of Iraq's cultural
identity which began with the destruction of the Baghdad Koranic library,
the national archives and the looting of the archaeological museum when
the American army entered Baghdad.
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- "Maybe the Kuwaitis want to take their revenge for
what we did to them in 1991," a lecturer said. "Maybe the Israelis
are trying to make sure that we can never have an intellectual infrastructure
here.
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- "Yes, you suggest it could be the 'resistance'.
But what is the 'resistance'? We don't know who it is. Is it nationalist?
Why should they want to get rid of us? Is it religious? The arts department
has become a pulpit for Islamism. But these people are part of the university."
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- In the southern city of Nasiriyah, many departmental
heads have received threatening letters, ordering them to leave Iraq. At
least one professor in the university has been murdered. The dean of the
college of law in Mosul, murdered last month, was the most gruesome killing.
"She was in bed with her husband when they came for her," a Baghdad
colleague told me yesterday. "They coolly shot both of them in their
bed. Then they cut off both their heads with knives."
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- Both arts and science faculty members have been victims.
Dr Abdul-Latif al-Maya was working in urban planning in the Baghdad University
geography department when he was killed at his home. Professor Wajih Mahjoub
was murdered in the College of Physical Education in April last year as
US troops were entering Baghdad.
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- "Dr Arawi told me only two days before he was murdered
that he had nothing to fear," a friend of his recalled yesterday.
"He said, 'I never hurt anyone. Everyone respects me.' On the day
of his death, the killers came claiming to be patients. They shot him in
his surgery."
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- In the early weeks of his occupation proconsulship, Paul
Bremer fired all senior academics who were members of the Baath party.
"They went home and tried to leave the country," another Baghdad
arts professor complained. "But those who stayed are now mostly too
frightened to return because they have been named - and they fear for their
lives."
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- Yesterday morning, I visited one arts department at the
university to find it entirely empty of staff. Each teacher's room was
closed with a large padlock.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=540648
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