July 5, 2004
Dear Friends,
Thank you so much for your emails of encouragement!

Life is plugging along here under the July sun. The air outside is like a hair dryer, and the clothes one puts on in the morning feel like they’ve been cooked in an oven! Everyone is talking about Saddam’s appearance in court. Most want him to be executed. Others talk about the power transfer and what has changed and what hasn’t. CPT work has not changed much. This week we’ll accompany a woman to a hospital in the Green Zone where she hopes to find her detained husband. A young man from Sadr City wants to report the wrongful death of his brother. And we’re looking forward to attending the opening of a new organization for women’s rights.

I wrote the following reflection after speaking to a man who spent nine months in detention. CPT speaks to many such people and their families. Most are innocent. Some were well-treated, others were abused. I have never heard a story to match what follows, though. It is hard to read at first, but just persevere to the end.

Much peace to each of you, and to your families,
Sheila

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The Balance of Love

He has two sons now.

Mr. Najib is 59 years old. His health is fragile: he has a history of heart trouble. On Saturday, June 26, Mr. Najib sat in a bare room in Kerbala, Iraq, and shared his story with Christian Peacemaker Teams.

On May 15, 2003, the then-governor of Kerbala sent him on a business trip. When he returned, US intelligence officers were waiting. To this day, Mr. Najib does not know why the Iraqi governor wanted to get rid of him. Perhaps because he had criticized local corruption. Regardless–the US soldiers imprisoned him without charges within the occupation’s vast detention system.

Mr. Najib held back tears as he told us about his first night at the military base at Kerbala University. “The soldiers there threw a party to make fun of me,” he said. “They beat me and spit in my face. When I asked for water, they poured it over my head.” He hesitated, apologized for what he was about to say, and then told how one soldier opened his own pants, put his penis in Mr. Najib’s mouth, and said, “Now you can drink!” They stretched Mr. Najib face-down on the ground and danced around him, yelling obscenities and shouting, “Tomorrow, Guantanamo!”

That first night was the beginning of a nine-month agony in and out of different prison camps, hospitals, and military bases. At Bucca Camp in blistering southern Iraq, Mr. Najib ate a spare two meals per day, sweated in 110-degree heat, and was often escorted to the bathroom by women soldiers. Nearly two months after his arrest, the authorities decided he was not a threat and released him.

But two days after Mr. Najib was released, the same intelligence officers who had first arrested him sent for him and told him that he had been released by mistake. They detained him once more and sent him to the site of his first torture. Mr. Najib then suffered a heart attack and spent 40 days under guard in a public hospital.

This was one of the most painful times, he said. His only son, 22-year-old Ahmed, came one day and begged the staff to let him go. Mr. Najib began crying a second time as he spoke about it. “My son was in college. He lost his studies that year, so he lost his future. He came to the hospital pleading, ‘Please release my father. He is sick. Please help him.’”

The US detention officers did not release Mr. Najib. They moved him for a few days to a military hospital in Baghdad, then sent him for a week to the detention center at the airport where he again suffered a beating and verbal abuse, until finally they sent him to Abu Ghraib. One morning just after midnight, he suffered a stroke and temporarily lost the use of the left side of his body. Another heart attack followed.

Here, at last, the story changes. Mr. Najib met his other son.

“There was a doctor there, a soldier from the US. He was so noble and so kind. He was crying when he heard about my story. When I saw him, I saw my son. He hugged me, crying so much that his tears fell on my cheek. Some of the soldiers were so harsh. Dr. Jasy treated me with kindness. He would sneak me cigarettes and call me ‘my father Najib.’”

Dr. Jasy became a lifeline. Meanwhile, human-rights organizations and CBS News learned of Mr. Najib’s story and pressured the Coalition authorities to release him. Interrogators at Abu Ghraib admitted that they had no incriminating evidence. On December 28th at 1:00 am, Mr. Najib awoke to find one of his tent-mates overjoyed because of his own release. Mr. Najib congratulated him. “But you are going home too!” the prisoner cried.

At this point in his story, Mr. Najib’s face changed completely and glowed with joy. He waved his arms to describe what happened next. “All of a sudden the door burst open, and Dr. Jasy and the others came in singing, ‘Happy Biiiiirthday Baba Najib! You’re goooooing home!’” The long torment was over.

Hours later as we rode home from Kerbala to Baghdad, our translator spoke. “It is as if the terrible weight of all that suffering is somehow balanced by his great love for the young doctor.” Or more than balanced. Mr. Najib wept for Dr. Jasy and for his son Ahmed more than he did when recounting his days of torture. His love does not erase the wound, but outweighs it by far.

Sheila Provencher
Christian Peacemaker Teams
Baghdad, Iraq