By Dana Visalli
Baghdad, Iraq
Christian Peacemaker Teams

The village of Abu Siffa is every bit as exotic as the name might suggest to the mind of a westerner. It is a small Iraqi farming community resting tranquilly on the banks of the Tigris River, some 50 miles north of Baghdad. The town consists of modest brick and stucco homes scattered almost randomly among citrus groves, all inter-connected by narrow, winding roadways and paths. Inside, the homes are spare and comfortable, with little in the way of furniture, but graced with wall-to-wall carpets and pillows that evoke childhood images from Arabian Nights. Women in black abayas chatter and laugh as they pass along the paths, and flocks of children flit about from field to town. Overall it is an exceptionally bucolic scene, and one suspects that it has changed little in the 5000 years that agriculture has been practiced on this fertile crescent of land along the Tigris.

At 2 AM on the night of December 16, 2003, the people of Abu Sifa were startled awake by the roar of tanks and trucks, humvees and helicopters, as the U.S. Army entered the village. The 4th Infantry Division was paying a house call. Acting on a tip, the Army was trying to catch members of the armed resistance that has been confronting the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. Every house in the village was surrounded, front doors were broken down, and the terrified occupants ordered out into the yards in their nightclothes. All the men present were handcuffed, hooded with plastic bags over their heads, and taken away. Women and children were herded together in the dark night while soldiers ransacked the homes, searching for weapons. Few were found, but $17,000 in Iraq dinars-savings belonging to the villagers-was taken by U.S. soldiers as they rummaged through the villager’s belongings..

On succeeding nights U.S. tanks returned and, after warning occupants to vacate their homes, blasted several of them with tank shells and machine gun fire. The house of the one suspected insurgent in the village was torched by lighting a barrel of kerosene in the living room. Apparently this dwelling belonged to a Baath Party official with links to Saddam Hussein.

The 83 Iraqi men taken from the village (which included 3 human rights lawyers, 3 juveniles 14-16 years old, 10 secondary school teachers, and the remaining 67 farmers, 14 of whom are 60-80 years old) were arrested either because they were suspected resistance members, or in an effort to intimate people in the area in order to dissuade them from collaborating with opposition forces. They have never been charged so it is not known what their criminal offense was thought to be. It has to date proved impossible even for family members to visit these men.

When queried, the commander in charge of the operation, Colonel Nate Sassaman, initially indicated that the raids and detentions were necessary for “national security.” Now, two months hence, U.S. forces admit that the detainees are only guilty by association, that is, they live in the same village as the Baath official. Nevertheless, none of the men have been released, so that at this time the mothers and children are missing their husbands and fathers, the school is missing its teachers, and the fields are left untended.

Our delegation of Americans and Canadians from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) was understandably anxious about how we would be received in Abu Siffa when we visited, which we did on the 23rd of February, two months after the U.S. army raids. CPT works to persuade nations to resolve difference by means other than armed conflict. When war does occur, CPT strives to reduce violence against civilians and to safeguard human rights and human dignity by acting as witnesses and reporters in these conflict areas. We came to Abu Siffa, then, to gather information about the raids, the damage inflicted, and status of the detainees.

Sitting on rugs and pillows, with demitasses of hot Iraqi tea in hand, we listened as the story of the raids unfolded. This was recounted primarily by the two men remaining in the village, Mohammed and Fawaz, and by Hani, who joined the discussion from another village. In the course of an army raid in his town, Hani’s father suffocated when a plastic bag was placed over his head. He was asked by a member of our group if he was seeking financial compensation from the U.S. for his loss-one can only wonder how the loss of one’s father be compensated for-his response was that he only wanted us “to tell the truth” to the American
people.

As we toured the village, the grace and humor that often seems to suffuse the personalities of the Iraqi people began to emerge. Women and children greeted us warmly as we arrived at their bombed-out homes. They smiled engagingly as we photographed them in front of these buildings, and then they thanked us profusely when we showed them the digital images on the tiny camera screens, even though we had no way of leaving a photograph for them. Children flocked around us and held our hands in the midst of the 25 millimeter machine gun casings littering the ground, spent cartridges from the very rounds that had blasted their houses. One of our delegation members apologized for the path of destruction left by our military forces and for the death of Hani’s father. From then on he and Hani were inseparable, and walked together hand in hand.

The Iraqi people hold hospitality in the highest esteem-so much so that I have every confidence that if the raiding soldiers had stayed in the village until morning, the people would have felt obliged to prepare them breakfast. The ten of us with CPT were ushered into a large, carpeted room, where an extensive repast was laid on a tablecloth over the rugs. Including an extended family of hosts gathering from more distant domiciles, there were at least 20 people at the meal. As guests, we felt a mild terror that we would offend if we could not clean our plates of the enormous quantities of food piled on them. Our hosts, sensing our fears, feigned indignation at first, but when we saw that even they were not about to eat everything offered, we knew they were playing with us.

Soon it was time for us to make the return trip to Baghdad. Back out at our van there were hugs, laughter, and conviviality. When a CPT member took a moment to apologize again for the violence done by the U.S. military to these people, the tears began to flow. Hani seemed deeply touched, and told us in his broken English, “Thank you for feeling, we believe your feeling. The drops that come from the eyes are very meaningful to us. Thank you for feeling.”

Hani seems confident that if the American people know the truth about the abuse of power in Iraq by the United States military-if they know the truth not only about Hani’s father but the thousands of civilian deaths caused by the invasion of Iraq, and now the tens of thousands of Iraqis being held in detention camps-then surely the American people will be moved by their feelings to put and end to the injustices carried out in their name.