From Baghdad
by Sjur CP • Tuesday February 25, 2003 at 03:29 PM


Thanks for the enormous antiwar actions to you there at home, and here is a little from Baghdad.

February 15th went well here too. There was a large international
demonstration, and even big Iraqi demonstrations. We arrived on February 14th. We rented a car from Amman and were in Baghdad ten hours later. Enormously pleasant people, we were welcomed with open arms. As the ambassador in Amman said, this is their embassy. We are called ambassadors for peace here. And who, with their heart in the right place and in good mental health, would go to war against this country and these people?

Inside Baghdad we met people from different groups, Bridges to Baghdad,
Iraqi Peace Team and Voices in the Wilderness. There were also more people from the Human Shields Operation, even though the busses did not come until the evening after, and accordingly they missed the international demonstration day. They were definitely not in Baghdad. They were on the road to Baghdad through Syria, and crossed the border later. Afterwards, they had a difficult trip with more arguments, but experienced that people received them well everywhere, and they participated in smaller demonstrations that were already underway.

On February 15th we had our own demonstration, on the basis that
participation in the Iraqi demonstration could be misunderstood due to the international media. We were two to three hundred people. More are arriving each day now. They are people from all over the world. Japanese musicians with colours sang and danced, drumming through the streets, while Italians waved peace flags in rainbow colors. Iraqis stood along with the roads, waving and showing peace signs. Later the large Iraqi demonstration walked by, with banners, chants, Saddam photographs, children with rifles and so on.

It seems that the Iraqis have decided not to just sit down and cry, waiting for the war and feeling self-pity. Life here continues and people work thinking of tomorrow. Baghdad is a beautiful, cultural and varied town, even after many years with sanctions. At the water purification plant and the electricity production facilities, which were bombed during the Gulf War, people have sat up ten beds for the human shields. Working people still go to work while trying to come to terms with a coming war. These are people, or soldiers, who should be proud of what they have done. Many hospitals, shops, homes and so on are totally dependent on both water and electricity.

Yesterday we visited a bomb shelter in Baghdad where 408 civilians were
killed by bombs in 1991, a tragic place which Iraqis will remember, maybe for all future times. This is one more proof of how inhumane and uncivilized our society, led by the USA, is. Tariq Aziz, Vice President, spoke there yesterday. I have seen many people with rifles, but I see no basis for the Bush administration and its people to attack. Iraq is defenceless, it all seems total meaningless. One can only wonder what kind of bully would so such a thing, and at one who presses world society to join in such a despicable action.

I am happy to see so many people contribute to stopping this war before it becomes a reality, both through actions within Norway and all countries; we all struggle for the same cause.

If this war becomes accepted, we have simultaneously accepted, with or
without reason, that anyone can become the next victim. This will not be a little war, and it will affect not only Iraq. It is either fits from dreams about freedom, brotherhood and equality from the Renaissance, or return to a brutal, dictatorial control, or victory over all the force which has held humanity down and which has quickly led us down a completely false path.

Sjur CP