by Kathy Kelly

Several times, during weekday evenings, students pursuing careers as “correction officers” have peered through the window of our rooms, they tour the compound, visiting various units. Their teacher, an Assistant Warden at Pekin FCI (Federal Corrections Institute), guides them.

I wonder what students think and say after completing the tour.

I’m surprised, myself, at how manageable the room I share with 9 other prisoners seems to be, just now. Sunlight floods the 18′ x 18′ space which contains 6 bunk beds, one single bed, 8 lockers, a wooden table and 4 plastic chairs. It could pass for a dorm at an inexpensive youth hostel. Catholic Worker houses of hospitality across the country similarly try to utilize space to shelter as many people as possible. With warmer weather here, some women have replaced olive colored wool blankets with white bedspreads. This brightens the room. Today is Sunday. Soft snores sound comforting to me, as several women, who worked all week, most earning 12 cents per hour, are “sleeping in” and sleeping soundly.

By Jo Wilding
April 26th

Rabiia lowered his voice and informed us that two of the women are crazy. They talk all the time and their rooms are untidy. They are the mothers of widow-headed households, more refugees from Falluja. White haired under her abaya, toothless, her face lined with the contour map of her life, Fawzia’s eyes lit up at having new people to talk to. She chattered happily in Arabic to Anna who didn’t understand.

Her daughter-in-law Ikhlas is a Kurdish woman with a tiny daughter, Jwana. The strain cracked her voice as she explained that her sister Sena’s husband died two years ago and now her husband is responsible for all of them, without work and crammed into a room in a house which a local man opened up to families fleeing Falluja, near to the bomb shelter where the rest of the family are staying. There’s no kitchen there for eight kids, six women and a man. Sena too started to cry. Four of her children were with her; the fifth staying in Falluja with an uncle.

Beyda, at 18 the youngest sister, fled Falluja with them and another stayed in Falluja where her husband, only 33 years old, died a couple of days ago from a heart problem. Rabiia told us about him on the last visit: he had to be taken by boat across the Euphrates to the hospital because the roads were closed. He spent a day there and then died. His mother is sick and can’t look after herself and his father is too ill to take care of her.

Sena’s daughter Sheyma sat still white with shock, unspeaking, unsmiling, fourteen years old and utterly despairing. She’s left school. There doesn’t seem any point in it. There doesn’t seem any energy to find hope to invest in the future.

by Dahr Jamail
Baghdad, Apr 23

Three families of refugees from the besieged city of Fallujah who are seeking refuge in the Al-Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad, described the conditions in the embattled city of Fallujah as “a horrible disaster.” A man called Khaled Abu Mujahed, speaking from Fallujah on behalf of the Islamic Party, stated that while some relief supplies are getting inside the city, a great number of families remain trapped in their homes, and the stench of dead bodies has become overpowering.

Refugees streamed out of Fallujah when fighting began after United States Marines placed the city under siege, cut off power supplies and began an invasion of the city. Resistance forces referred to by locals as mujahideen fought back, killing scores of US troops. Americans killed hundreds of Iraqi civilians, plus an unknown number of Iraqi fighters.

Crowded inside an empty house in the Al-Adhamiya district of Baghdad, Abu Muher, patriarch of one family that left Fallujah last Saturday, told of a harrowing journey out of his home city. “We were nearly bombed by the Americans when we tried to leave on Friday,” he said. “Bombs fell in front and behind us, so we had to turn back. Saturday we were lucky to escape.”

JNV Anti-War Briefing 60 (26 April 2004)

Posted: 26 April 2004

COMPULSORY IDENTITY CARDS ON THE WAY
Today, the British Home Secretary announced his intention to bring in a compulsory national identity card (the last scheme was scrapped in 1952 - see BBC Online http://tinyurl.com/yvbl5). The ID card system is to be based on ‘biometric’ information-information such as fingerprints, or a scan of the iris of the eye - taken from all 60 million people living in the UK.

David Blunkett has long been trying to introduce national ID cards (called ‘entitlement cards’ at one point), but was forced to water down his proposals last Nov. after objections from Cabinet colleagues. ‘But sources say opposition to ID cards has weakened since the Madrid attacks. “The realities of the past few weeks have had a big impact,” one said.’ (Independent, 5 Apr. 2004, p. 1)

The ‘war on terrorism’ is being used as a justification for ID cards.
But there is no evidence that ID cards can help stop terrorism.

By Anna Bachmann
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad
April 23, 2004

No time to do a proper post …

First off we’re all fine and dandy! At the moment eight of us are all staying in three ratty apartments in Karada Dakhil (Central Baghdad). Things have been very quiet for the last few days … no bombings or gunfire that I’ve heard for awhile (but we did have a lighting and thunder storm last night!) … atleast in the city. Outside Baghdad is another matter, as I’m sure you’ve seen from the news … sporadic fighting in Fallujah and various other places, Najaf is still surrounded by Coalition Forces and the terrible bombings in Basrah. We did hear in Baghdad of the kidnapping of a Jordanian man and the killing of a Spanish Journalist within the last few days. I have actually met a Sheikh recently who has negotiated hostage releases in Najaf (a good man to know!).

Lately we’ve been interviewing Fallujah families … I have so many notes to write up, it’s crazy. Some friends are considering a trip into Najaf with the Red Crescent Society. Today, I was also able to visit with Ahmed, a young man who has MS. He is finally getting some treatment (yeah!). And tomorrow I give a test to my students at the University!

As far as the general situation goes … Karrada has been quiet, everything looks normal. Iraqis still warn us to keep a low profile. I tell and encourage A, my translator, to quit anytime she wants, but she will not hear anything of it. I’ve had no problem and everyone is still very nice (most of the time Iraqis are warning me to watch out for other Iraqis!) but I also wear hijab all the time outside now.