arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

They went to Baghdad as doctors, as links to the anti-war movements in their own countries, as "human shields" defend ing structures vital to the 5 million humans living in Iraq's capital.

Whatever they came to do, these solidarity internationalists are bearing witness to the crimes U.S. and British imper ialism are inflicting on Baghdad. And, by phone and email, they are chronicling the resistance of the Iraqi people.

Before the all-out attacks started, on March 16, Rosemarie Gillespie, one of five Australians in a human-shield team at the 7th of April water treatment plant on the Tigris River in the suburbs of Baghdad, messaged to the world:

"Preparations for the dreaded bombing raids are now being made in earnest. Everywhere windows and glass doors are being taped up. Crates of bottled water are being delivered in haste.

"The price of bottled water is going up. So is the price of a taxi fare to the border. Most people here seem to be dealing with the threat of bombing with a degree of stoic calm, going about their business, making the necessary preparations.

"As Asmaa said: 'We are not afraid any more. We're used to it. We're not afraid for ourselves, only for our children.'

"Asmaa has two small children, a 3-year-old girl, Meriam, and a 4-month-old baby boy, Omar. Will they survive the bombing?

"The thought of Australian Air Force pilots, as well as American ones, bombing Baghdad, possibly blowing up one of the five Australian 'human shields' or any of the other human shields for that matter, or little children like Meriam and Omar, seems not only cruel, but stupid too."

The Spain-based Committee to Support the Arab Cause has been organizing weeklong brigades to Iraq from different regions of the Spanish state over the past months.

'WE HAVE DECIDED TO STAY'

On March 18, they vowed: "We have decided to remain here in Baghdad once the military campaign against Iraq by the USA and its allies has begun and after the Basque Country Brigade has been evacuated." Their goal is to bear witness to events in Baghdad and to continue to link the now massive Spanish anti-war movement with events and people in Iraq itself.

The six who signed this statement were soon joined by three from the Basque delegation.

"Our decision should not be taken as one of foolishness or presumption," they wrote. "It is not for the nine of us that you should be concerned: concern yourselves instead with the fate of the Iraqi people, to whom we have freely linked our own."

And on March 22, in both a report and a message to the demonstrators back home: "From 7:20 p.m. yesterday until 10:00 a.m. local time, the attacks were very intense, especially in the Al Mansur district, a densely populated area in the center of Baghdad where institutional buildings (governmental and ministerial) are mixed in with residential
blocks of flats and houses."

Following a solidarity visit to a hospital: "Five brothers-two adults, a teenager, two children-all burned while they watched the missiles falling over the city early Thursday night. And so on: up to 36 in one hospital alone, all civilians, none of them living near any kind of military or government installation.

"You cannot imagine the impact of the cruise missiles falling on this sprawling, exposed city; the tremors they cause when they explode, unleashing a ball of fire and column of dark smoke.

"It is difficult to describe the ominous sound of aircraft flying over our heads and dropping their bombs. The aggressors are now determined to break the spirit of this people after trying to do so with hunger and disease over 12 years of embargo, as if this were a medieval siege." For more information, see http://www.nodo50.org/csca/.

TWO DOCTORS FROM BELGIUM

Two doctors from Belgium are now in Baghdad--Dr. Colette Moulaert, a pediatrician and surgeon and member of the Workers' Party of Belgium, and Dr. Geert Van Moorter, an emergency medicine specialist and activist with the anti-war coalition StopUSA (Stop the United States of Aggression). They both work with Medical Aid for the Third World and have been in combat situations in the past.

"We are OK here. Last night (March 20) there were air raids for about three hours," wrote Dr. Van Moorter. "Some of the attacks were only some hundreds of meters away, less than one kilometer. Hotel Palestine, our hotel, is on the banks of the Tigris and it was at the other side. We don't know what they targeted.

"According to Iraqi TV many were injured in Basra. But apparently the Iraqis put up fierce resistance and the U.S. soldiers had a hard time."

And later, "We tell everybody about the protests against U.S. aggression in Belgium and other countries. That is important for the morale of anybody here," writes Van Moorter. The "human shields" are receiving permits to work and began doing shifts at a Baghdad hospital. But they continue to send reports to the movement in Belgium, urging
demonstrations and strikes.

For more reports from them, see http://www.irak.be/ned/missies/medicalMissionColetteGeert/two_belgian_doctors_in_baghdad.htm.

MORALE OF THE IRAQIS

Of the ability of Iraqis to resist, the different observers agree: "Their morale is still intact," wrote Van Moorter on March 21. "People support one another. The foreign journalists are panicking more than them."

Gillespie, in a later communication, compared the Iraqis to the many in England who-while considering Winston Churchill a reactionary—rallied to him under the bombs of the Nazis, and noted the growing number of volunteers swell ing the ranks of armed Iraqis in Baghdad.

The group from Spain wrote: "Every morning, after every attack, these same people go out again into their streets and continue to smile at us, grateful that we are here, raising their fists or flashing the victory sign, warm and trusting in spite of everything, asking us to tell you of their will to resist even when that seems an unimaginable miracle in the face of the war machine closing in on them."

These internationalists, together with those from Voices in the Wilderness and independent reporters like videographer Mae Ying Welsh, are the flesh-and-blood evidence of the world's solidarity with Iraq's people and a heroic link between the global anti-war movement and the Iraqis who continue to resist U.S.-British imperialism.

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