White-collar Iraqis targeted
by assassins By Brian Conley and Isam
Rashid
BAGHDAD
- White-collar professionals such as doctors
and academics are being targeted in the violence sweeping Iraq.
"Really we don't know exactly who they
are, but I am sure these criminals are not normal
and they get training in other countries,"
said
Ali al-Obeidi, a doctor in Mosul. "They know very
well what they are doing ... Their purpose is to
destroy Iraq from the inside."
Dr Isam al-Rawi, a member of
the Association of Muslim Scholars and head of
the Teachers Association of Iraqi Universities, suggests
that both Iran and United States-led occupying
forces are responsible for the killing of educated and
influential Iraqis.
Since the end of the
Gulf War in 1991 and the implementation of
sanctions, academics, doctors and other professionals
in Iraq have experienced hardship.
Scholarly journals, research equipment and medical instruments
were all banned from shipment to Iraq under the
sanctions.
The
limiting of these and other "dual-use" items
devastated academic institutions and stunted
Iraq's progress in keeping pace with other nations
in technological advancement. Literacy in
Iraq dropped from more than 90% before the Gulf
War to about 50% today, and it is much lower in
the outlying provinces.
But now Iraqi
professionals are facing a newer, deadlier
difficulty. Since the US-led occupation began in
2003, Iraqi professionals have been regularly
killed, sometimes on a daily basis.
"This is tyranny. We live in
the worst tyranny in all of human history," Rawi
said. "Every hour in
Iraq there are killings, kidnappings, arrests,
house raids and more. And all of that is because
of occupation and our weak government. When I say
that, I don't mean Saddam [Hussein] was good
leader. No, he also was bad, but Iraqi streets
were clean from these crimes, especially the
crimes against professionals."
Rawi
said, "I charge occupation forces and the
Iran government because both want to destroy Iraq.
The Iraqi Ministry of Interior helps Iran to do
their crimes, and the Iraqi government hides
the statistics of assassinations, but we have
our statistics." The Shi'ite-led government in Iraq has
close ties to Iranian religious and political leaders.
The accusation that the Ministry of
Interior is involved in these assassinations is in
line with findings by the US military. Twenty-two
men were arrested recently for running a death
squad in Baghdad. They have repeatedly claimed
that their actions were carried out under the
orders of Interior Minister Bayan Jabr.
The Association of Muslim Scholars says
only about 2,000 Iraqi doctors are still working
in the country, and that more than 300
professionals have been assassinated since the
occupation began.
Rawi and
other officials from the association are
calling for civil-disobedience actions to draw
attention to the issue. "We don't have enough power
to stop these crimes because we don't have the guns
of the military forces, but we try to pressure
the government and US troops to stop it. We must
be careful, and work very hard to stop [the
assassinations] by demonstrations, sit-ins, and
civil disobedience."
Disobedience actions
have begun already in an effort to force the
government to take these concerns seriously.
Doctors in Mosul joined a large demonstration on
February 14 to demand security. They warned of
civil disobedience throughout the city.
"We don't know what we can do to protect
ourselves," Obeidi said. "Every day people are
killed and kidnapped. I wish this disobedience
will make enough pressure on our government to
find a way to protect us and all professionals."
As in Baghdad, citizens of Mosul say they
never saw crimes like these before the occupation
began. Many say the occupation bears a large
responsibility for the assassinations of doctors,
teachers and other professionals in the Mosul
area.
Obeidi was born in Mosul and has
been a doctor since 1990. "For many years I didn't
hear about any accidents happening to doctors.
This problem started after the war. It became
bigger and bigger over these days; two of my
colleagues were killed. I don't know when I will
get killed. Many doctors have left Iraq to go to
another country, and one day soon it will be very
difficult to find doctors in Iraq."
On the
day before the demonstration in Mosul, Haithem
al-Azzawi, a teacher from the Islamic University
in Baghdad, was killed. His death brought the
number of professors and teachers killed since the
beginning of the occupation to 182.
"Dr
Haithem was my close friend, we were friends for
15 years," Dr Omar Abdul Rahman said. "He was a
teacher at the Islamic University, he was 35 years
old, married, and he lived in Habibiya area in
southeast Baghdad. On February 13, when he
finished his work at the university he was on his
way back home when some armed men stopped him and
killed him on the road to his house."
Abdul Rahman said Haithem al-Azzawi had no
long-standing problems with anyone in his
neighborhood. "He was a quiet man and everyone
liked and respected him. The criminals who killed
Dr Haithem are the same criminals who killed the
other doctors and scientists. Really it's a
secret, organized war. Many different sides work
in this war against Iraqi professionals, for many
different purposes."
Rawi said the goal of
these assassinations is the eventual destruction
of Iraq.
A former general in the Iraqi
army said the killing of professionals was
intended to have a long-term effect. "Occupation
forces focused on Iraqi scientists who worked in
military plants. They arrested many of them, and
some of them were assassinated," he said. "That's
why Iraqi scientists sent an appeal for help over
the Internet. They are asking the UN to help them
with their situation in Iraq and to save them from
the arrests and raids by occupation forces."
There is a clear design behind the
killing, the former general said. "Many of them
get killed near their houses or on the way to
their work, and others get kidnapped, and we find
their dead bodies in the street. When you follow
these crimes you will be sure that the criminals
have special training and their purpose is to make
Iraq empty of any professionals."
Many
such killings in Mada'ain, Al-Shula and Al-Iskan
have gone virtually unreported in the Western
press.
