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Cardiff Remembrance Day - Remember Fallujah

Cardiff anti-war activist | 06.11.2006 15:27 | Anti-militarism

REMEMBRANCE DAY

Assemble 2 pm, Nye Bevan Statue, Queen Street, Cardiff
Saturday 11 November

Tony Blair has consistently refused to meet the families of British soldiers who have died in Iraq. When he joins the royal family, other politicians and religious leaders at The Cenotaph in Whitehall on Remembrance Sunday 12 November to remember the millions who have died in war, we can be certain that there will be no two minute silence for the hundreds of thousands who have died as a result of the Bush/Blair wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Stop the War Coalition believes the anti-war movement must ensure that those who have been killed in current wars must also be remembered on Remembrance weekend. Remembrance day events will be held across the country on Saturday 11 November at local war memorials and in town centres.

REMEMBER FALLUJAH

On November 8 2004, after more than two months of aerial attacks, the US - with British support - began its second major assault on Fallujah, devastating it and killing hundreds of civilians. UK forces supported the attack, with hundreds of troops redeployed to form part of a “ring of steel” around the city.
The scale of the attack - and its effect on civilians - was unprecedented in the bloody history of the invasion and occupation, yet the crimes committed in Fallujah received little attention here and have quickly been forgotten.

A year after the attack the New York Times described Fallujah as 'virtually
a police state, with random checkpoints and frequent street patrols by
marines and Iraqi soldiers, largely Shiite Arabs' and Sunday Times reporter Hala Jaber found it 'impossible not to be shocked by the devastation' with '[f]ields of rubble stretch[ing] for as far as the eye can see.' This July the rubble was still there and an estimated 50,000 people had yet to return to the city. Moreover, more recent US military offensives in Ramadi, Haditha, Qaim, Tal Afar and elsewhere, have killed many more civilians and created thousands more refugees. Indeed, according to the recent Lancet survey on excess deaths in Iraq, "coalition" forces were responsible for one-in-four violent deaths in Iraq during the period June 2005 - June 2006.

Since Fallujah the US has continued to attack other towns and cities in Iraq, including Ramadi, Hit, Baghdadi, Haditha, Qaim, Karabila, Tal Afar and Sadah. During the period 1 Oct 2005 – 28 Feb 2006 US warplanes under the control of US Central Command attacked at least 22 Iraqi cities - twice the number struck during the same five-month period one year earlier.

Two years ago, 300 people marched in Cardiff - at 3 days notice - to oppose the massacre at Fallujah. On Saturday 11 November we will be paying tribute to the memories of all the victims of Bush & Blair's "war on terror" in the Middle East, Asia, Africa & Latin America.

 http://www.rememberfallujah.org/

Cardiff anti-war activist
- e-mail: cardiff_troopsout@hotmail.com

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