arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

EMERGENCY CALL FOR SOLIDARITY WITH THE IRAQI PEOPLE

April 8 2004

Eman Ahmed Khammas
Director, International Occupation Watch Center

The Iraqi people call for international solidarity as they resist attacks by US-led Occupation Forces. It is clear that these attacks are designed to terrorize entire populations of Iraqi towns and neighborhoods.

According to reports, in Falluja alone, over three hundred Iraqis have been killed and hundreds more injured since attacks began on Sunday, April 4. There is fighting in Baghdad, particularly in the neighborhoods of Sadr, Adaamiya, Shula, Yarmok, and the cities and towns of Falluja, Ramadi, Basrah, Nasiriya, Kerbala, Amarah, Kut, Kufa, Najaf, Diwaniya, Balad, and Baquba. Residences, hospitals, mosques and ambulances trying to transport the injured are being bombed and fired at by Occupation
Forces' guns and tanks.

Falluja and Adaamiya are currently under siege, surrounded by Occupation Forces, in contravention of the Geneva Convention that prohibits holding civilian communities under siege. Hospitals do not have access to sufficient medical aid, essential medicine and equipment or blood
supplies. In Falluja, the hospitals have been surrounded by soldiers forcing doctors to establish field hospitals in private homes. Blood donors are not allowed to enter; consequently, mosques in both Baghdad and Falluja are collecting blood for the injured. Water and electricity
have been cut off for the past several days.

In Sadr City US helicopters have fired rockets into residential areas destroying homes. Although no curfew has officially been imposed, US soldiers have made a practice of aiming tank fire on cars they find moving through the streets after dark. On Tuesday night alone, at least
6 people were killed in this way. US forces continue to occupy and surround all the police stations and the Sadr municipal offices.

While these attacks have escalated sharply over the past week, they are in no way a new phenomenon in occupied Iraq. The indiscriminate killing of civilians and the refusal to provide people with security, electricity and decent medical infrastructure have characterized the 'freedom' that Occupation Authorities have brought to Iraq.

We call on the international community, civil society and the anti-war/anti-occupation movements to respond to this US-led war of terror with tangible displays of solidarity and support for Iraqi people facing this gruesome manifestation of the occupation.

Please take to the streets to demand an end to the US-led aggression. Organize protests in front of US consulates and embassies around the world and demand: an immediate end to this massacre; an immediate end to the siege of Iraqi cities and neighborhoods; immediate access to humanitarian and medical aid organizations seeking to provide assistance
to Iraqi people who are living under attack; and an end to the occupation of our nation.

Cities in which demonstrations have already been organized include Milan, Montreal, Paris, Tokyo, Istanbul, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and New York City.

To contact the International Occupation Watch Center in Baghdad, please call 001 914 360-9079 or 001 914 360-9080. You can also email eman@occupationwatch.org