Writings by Voices

Iraqi Refugees and Resettlement

Jeff Leys — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:20:25 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Cathy Breen writes regarding the challenges faced by Iraqi refugees in navigating the resettlement process.

Excerpt

Damascus, Syria
June 26, 2009

Cathy Breen with Iraqi Child in SyriaDear Friends,

My time in Syria is coming to a close. Tomorrow I will head to Jordan for a couple of days and then back to the big apple on July 1st. A final session with UNHCR the other day brought a sense of closure in some ways, as I was able to discuss concerns and turn over concrete “cases” for their consideration. We spoke of the increasingly desperate situation of Iraqi refugees here, one hidden from the world by the lack of media coverage. But we also acknowledged the many small miracles and victories we continue to witness.

A young Iraqi woman (I will call her Zayneb), mother of four small children, wrote a little book about a horse with hidden wings. She wanted to honor the staff at the UNHCR here in Damascus by dedicating the book to them. “Everyone knows” she told her grandmother as a child “that horses can’t fly.” But her grandmother, still living in Baghdad, could not be persuaded otherwise. She insisted that the horse she saw could fly! But it is Zayneb’s deep sense of gratitude that leaps out from the pages.

Body

Damascus, Syria
June 26, 2009

Cathy Breen with Iraqi Child in SyriaDear Friends,

While at the UNHCR, a colleague gave me a copy of a report which the International Rescue Committee (IRC) issued this month, IRAQI REFUGEES IN THE UNITED STATES: IN DIRE STRAITS. In February of 2008 a Commission on Iraqi refugees formed by the IRC visited Jordan and Syria to assess the condition of Iraqi refugees and then issued a comprehensive report entitled Five Years Later, A Hidden Crisis. In February of 2009 the IRC conducted a follow-up trip to the Middle East, and in April their delegations traveled to Atlanta, Georgia and Phoenix, Arizona to see firsthand how resettled Iraqis are adjusting to their new life in America.

“…most Iraqi refugees who were interviewed painted a picture of despair and frustration. Refugees [in the states] are finding it difficult to find a job and without secure income some are facing eviction from their homes. Without jobs, refugees cannot support themselves and their families on limited public assistance. Many of the Iraqis are traumatized and need additional support in the face of financial assistance, English lessons, employment counseling and access to health care.”

The report continues “Despite these difficulties, resettlement in the United States remains the only option for thousands of Iraqi refugees who are still in exile in the Middle East, primarily in Jordan and Syria.” The report concludes that “the U.S. resettlement program, likely the only safe alternative for thousands of Iraqi refugees, faces major structural challenges in its organization and funding. These challenges are exacerbated by a simultaneous global economic downturn and resettlement of a highly educated refugee population with many special needs…”

Over the last three months you may have read some of my communications. I have tried to describe something of the reality that Iraqis here and in Jordan are facing as a result of the war. I am amazed at the number of Iraqis here in Syria whom I met some years back in Jordan. Many returned to Iraq to see a sick family member, to sell a house or car, to get the “G” passport, etc., but then had to flee to Syria as the Jordanian borders were closed to them after 2006. My stories must seem anecdotal at times, and it is an ongoing struggle to try and put them in a larger political context in order to affect some concrete changes. Changes that might better their situations somehow, at least give them hope that there will be an end to their exile.

It is imperative to get Iraqi families and individuals who have family and sponsors in the U.S. reunited. This challenge seems daunting in the case of families/individuals who have been rejected resettlement by DHS, mostly on “credibility” rulings. The arbitrariness of these decisions must be acknowledged, and we must find ways to reverse them.

Yesterday I was with two families both of whom have close family members in the states, and yet both have been rejected on “credibility” grounds. I spend several hours with one family and held their severely disabled granddaughter in my arms. I basked in the love I witnessed for this child. I wrote about the grandfather, only in his 50s, who was asked by a DHS officer “Did you or did you not cook?” His military document stated that he was a cook, but in fact his military supervisor assigned him administrative duties in a cafeteria on an Air Force base when he saw that he had a degree in Hotel Management.

Their simple desire to be reunited with family in the U.S. has been denied. Is it possible that such a decision cannot be overturned? I refuse, WE must refuse, to accept this.

The other challenge of course are the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis stuck in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, etc. who are not even in the resettlement pool, so to speak, let alone in the Jacuzzi. There are fewer and fewer “slots” in terms of countries willing to take them.

Most likely this will be the last letter I will write from the Middle East. Like Zayneb, I have no words to express my own gratitude to you for your support and concern over these last months. Thank you for making this trip possible.

Cathy Breen

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Now We See You, Now We Don't

Dan Pearson — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 10:19:26 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Kathy Kelly writes about the civilian impacts of US drones attacks and Pakistan's military offensive.

Excerpt

June 25, 2009

A boy from Pakistan’s Swat valley now resides an an abandoned building outside Islamabad. (Photo: Dan Pearson)In early June, 2009, I was in the Shah Mansoor displaced persons camp in Pakistan, listening to one resident detail the carnage which had spurred his and his family’s flight there a mere 15 days earlier. Their city, Mingora, had come under massive aerial bombardment. He recalled harried efforts to bury corpses found on the roadside even as he and his neighbors tried to organize their families to flee the area.

Body

June 25, 2009

In early June, 2009, I was in the Shah Mansoor displaced persons camp in Pakistan, listening to one resident detail the carnage which had spurred his and his family’s flight there a mere 15 days earlier. Their city, Mingora, had come under massive aerial bombardment. He recalled harried efforts to bury corpses found on the roadside even as he and his neighbors tried to organize their families to flee the area. A boy from Pakistan’s Swat valley now resides an an abandoned building outside Islamabad. (Photo: Dan Pearson)

“They were killing us in that way, there,” my friend said. Then, gesturing to the rows of tents stretching as far as the eye could see, he added, “Now, in this way, here.”

The people in the tent encampment suffered very harsh conditions. They were sleeping on the ground without mats, they lacked water for bathing, the tents were unbearably hot, and they had no idea whether their homes and shops in Mingora were still standing. But, the suffering they faced had only just begun. UN humanitarian envoy Abdul Aziz Arrukban warned on June 22nd that the millions of Pakistanis displaced during the military’s offensive against the Swat Valley would “die slowly” unless the international community started taking notice of the “unprecedented” scope of the crisis. (Bronwyn Curran, The National)

UN agencies and NGOs such as Islamic Relief and Relief International report that many of the persons now living in tent encampments, or squatting in abandoned buildings, or crowded into schools designated as refugee centers, may soon start dying from preventable disease.

Health teams note increasingly frequent cases of diarrhea, scabies and malaria, all deadly in these circumstances, especially for young children. With so many people living so close to each other, these diseases are spreading fast.

Relief groups are concerned that as the monsoon season approaches, in July, these problems will get considerably worse. Monsoons bring regional floods and cause escalating rates of malaria and waterborne diseases. The impact, this year, is expected to be much more severe because so many people are living in crowded and unsanitary conditions.

Pakistan’s already rundown health care system, officials report, is now near collapse. Hospitals in northern Pakistan have been overwhelmed, with exhausted doctors, depleted medicine supplies and avalanches of red tape blocking money and medicine for the crisis.

Writing for the Associated Press on June 7th, Kathy Gannon described the men’s ward in the Mardan District Hospital: “30 steel beds lie crammed together, with two-inch mattresses and no pillows. Pools of urine spread on the floor, and fresh blood stains the ripped bedding…The one bathroom for 30 patients stinks of urine and faeces. The toilets are overflowing, the door to one cement cubicle is falling off and a two-inch river of urine covers the cement floor. In one corner, garbage is piled high.”

The annual budget for health care in Pakistan, this year, is less than $150 million, while Pakistan’s defense budget last year came to $3.45 billion, and is expected to reach $3.65 billion next year.

People in Shah Mansoor worry that the international community as well as their own government won’t notice the health care crisis they face. But villagers yet to flee their homes in Waziristan agonize under constant military scrutiny from lethally-armed U.S. surveillance drones.

A villager who survived a drone attack in North Waziristan explained that even the children, at play, were acutely conscious of drones flying overhead. After a drone attack, survivors trying to bring injured victims to a hospital were dumbfounded when a driver stopped, learned of their plight and then sped away. Then it dawned on them that the driver was afraid the drone would still be prowling overhead and that he might be targeted for associating with victims of the attack.

The U.S. drone aircraft can see Pakistan - their pilots in air-conditioned Nevada trailers see the terrain even though they are physically thousands of miles away.

Writing about U.S. Air Force efforts to “meet the voracious need for unmanned aircraft surveillance in combat zones,” Grace Jean notes, in the June, 2009 issue of National Defense Magazine, that the Air Force’s 432nd Air Expeditionary Wing, at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, is expanding base operations. “We have 34 video feeds over the battlefield right now,” says Col. John Montgomery, the wing’s vice commander. When operating a drone, Montgomery says, “You are part of the battlefield.” Commenting on the hundreds of combat sorties he flew over Sadr City, in Baghdad, Montgomery said he even knew where people hung out the laundry and when they took out the trash. “I knew the traffic flow for the hours that I could see, and when that changed, I knew it. Once you know the patterns of life, when things are different or odd, that means something’s up, and that gives the battlefield commander, the joint commander on the ground, a heads up.”

On Tuesday, June 23rd, U.S. drones launched an attack on a compound in South Waziristan. Locals rushed to the scene to rescue survivors. The U.S. drone then launched more missiles at them, leaving a total of 13 dead. The next day, local people were involved in a funeral procession when the U.S. struck again. Reuters reported that 70 of the mourners were killed.

Drone operators and their commanders at Creech Air Force Base will become increasingly well informed about the movements of Pakistani people, but meanwhile the U.S. people will have lost sight of war’s human costs in Pakistan.

Now, we’re hearing of imminent army operations in South Waziristan that have alreadyforced about 45,000 people to flee the region, joining about two million men, women, and children displaced by fighting in the Swat Valley and other areas. People from Waziristan who flee from their villages, trying to save their lives, trying not to be seen by the omnipresent drones, will likely join the unseen, the displaced people whose lives and hopes escape international notice as they die slowly.

President Obama has taken us into an expansion of Bush’s war on terror, presumably guided by the rationale that his administration is responsible to root out Al Qaeda terrorists. But the methods used by U.S. and Pakistani military forces, expelling millions of people from their homes, failing to provide food and shelter for those who are displaced, and using overwhelmingly superior weapon technology to attack innocent civilians, — these methods will continue creating terrorist resisters, not defeating them.

If we want to counter Al-Qaeda, if we want to be safe from further terrorist attacks, we’d do well to remember that even when we don’t recognize the humanity of people bearing the brunt of our wars, these very people have eyes to see and ears to hear. They must be asking themselves, who are the terrorists?

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

Gifts

Dan Pearson — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:32:04 -0500

Short Information Teaser

The challenges faced by one Iraqi family seeking to immigrate to the U.S.

Excerpt

Damascus, Syria
June 16, 2009

Middle Eastern people are by nature gift givers. My room and the refrigerator outside on the patio attest to this. The homemade yogurt from Namir’s family and the jar of cherry jam from Sara, mother of four; are in the process of being consumed. However, the large oil painting from 16 year old Noor, a bar of soap carved into the shape of a foot by little Anfal and a large Arabic bible are just a few of the lasting items so lovingly given to me.

Body

Damascus, Syria
June 16, 2009

During my brief overnight trip to Aleppo I was walking with Iraqi friends through one of the world famous souqs. The rich smell of spices, the intricately fashioned inlaid tables and the beautiful woven scarves and colorful fabrics were just a few of the things that delighted my senses. I dared not admire anything openly. I was certain that if I did the family, refugees themselves, would have purchased the item for me. As it was they did indeed buy me something, a set of beautiful prayer beads.

As I write you on this Tuesday morning, I am thinking of an Iraqi friend who is standing at this moment under the hot sun with hundreds of others at the UNHCR hoping to speak with someone about his case. Another family of nine is being interviewed by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for resettlement to the U.S. They were so nervous. Yet another family is due to depart tonight from Damascus to the U.S. That is, the mother and four children are slated to travel. The father has been rejected by DHS on “credibility” grounds. He must remain behind. They were advised that should the wife and children refuse the offer to travel, they would lose any hope of resettlement. Once in the states, the wife was told she can file papers in the US. Maybe her husband can join them in a year or two. His mother, three sisters and brother live in the states.

I just got off the phone with a trusted translator friend who only days ago introduced me to this family. Shall we go to the airport to see them off? I’m not sure I can bear to witness the family’s grief. Their four year old daughter (pictured above) said “I’m going to wait behind with you. I don’t want to leave you.”

In the last days we have been trying desperately to get this decision overturned. I will go to internet in a little while to see if our urgent appeal has reached the ears of any congress people. But I feel like we are trying to move a mountain.

In the final chapter of his book “The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool: A Syrian Journey,” we find the author Marius Kochiejowski in a half-jesting dialogue with his Sufi alchemist friend, Sulayman, from Damascus. Marius tells him that there are no tents in London, nor camels for that matter, should Sulayman decide to travel there. Sulayman replies “All right then, when I arrive with the camel I will give [the neighbors] gifts and they will grow to like the camel. A human being is a creature of gifts, which is why for four thousand years you’ve loved Santa Claus because he gives gifts.”

You are probably asking yourself what does Sulayman or Santa Claus for that matter, have to do with people waiting in vain for hot hours in the scorching sun? Or with a family so desperate that they would agree to separate. I’m not really sure myself.

I believe however that despite the ongoing war(s), we are not by any means just takers of life, inflictors of suffering. We are also givers of life, givers of gifts. More important than the small gesture of money however is the message you send them that they are not forgotten. I take every opportunity to tell them that many many people in the U.S. are trying to better their situation. Each one of them has asked me to thank you.

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Down and Out in Shah Mansoor

Jeff Leys — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:44:41 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Pakistani citizens displaced by the fighting in the Swat Valley recount their experiences.

Excerpt

by Kathy Kelly and Dan Pearson
Islamabad, Pakistan
June 11, 2009

In Pakistan’s Swabi district, a bumpy road leads to Shah Mansoor, a small village surrounded by farmland. Just outside the village, uniform size tents are set up in hundreds of rows. The sun bores down on the Shah Mansoor camp which has become a temporary home to thousands of displaced Pakistanis from the Swat area. In the stifling heat, the camp’s residents sit idly, day after day, uncertain about their future. They spoke with heated certainty, though, about their grievances.

View photos from Pakistan delegation

Body

by Kathy Kelly and Dan Pearson
Islamabad, Pakistan
June 11, 2009

As soon as we stepped out of the car, men and children approached us. They had all arrived from Mingora, the main city of Swat, 15 days prior. One young man, a student, told us that bombing and shelling had increased in their area, but, due to a government imposed curfew, they weren’t allowed to leave their homes. Suddenly, the Pakistani Army warned them to leave within four hours or they would be killed. With the curfew lifted long enough for them to get out of Mingora, they joined a mass exodus of people and walked for three days before reaching this camp.

After being assigned to a section of the camp coordinated by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), they were provided with tents and plastic mats. So far, 554 tents are set up in this section, with an average of 6 – 10 people living in each tent.

Inside the tents we visited, families had few belongings. Some more fortunate families have a few cooking supplies and utensils. But for the most part, they now own little more than the clothing they wore when they fled from their homes. The neatness of the camp disguises the chaos that has afflicted its inhabitants.

A man who owned a small shop in Mingora described the carnage and chaos they had left behind. “There were not hundreds but thousands of dead bodies on the streets,” he said. “We had only enough time to dig a mass grave and cover some of the bodies with mud.” Since the media has been banned from entering Mingora, it’s impossible to establish facts about the numbers of civilians who were killed. But the men gathered around us nodded in agreement as the shopkeeper spoke. “They were killing us in that way, there, now in this way, here,” he said, pointing to the tents. “Aren’t we part of this country?”

“For the past two years,” the shopkeeper continued, “the government hasn’t killed the Taliban. They only kill our women and children.”

“The UNHCR has been helpful,” said another man, a farmer, “but so far no government official has come to ask how we are. Isn’t this our government?”

Along with disappointment in their government, they harbor resentment toward the wealthy people of Swat. The men we were talking to did not have jobs that would earn high incomes. One man was a fruit and vegetable vendor. Another drove a donkey cart. Several others were farmers. Many nodded as the shop keeper decried the rich people who, he said, are now in Islamabad, living in air conditioned places, just as they did in Swat. “These people got rich at the expense of the poor people,” claimed one of the farmers.

The circle opened up and an elderly man joined us. The shop keeper explained that the elderly man’s five room house was leveled by shelling. His three sons and five daughters are nowhere to be found. The older man stood with us, silent and trembling.

The shopkeeper told more details about difficulties they faced living in the tents. They sleep on the ground with no padding. They have no water for bathing. Four latrines were set up, but none of them have doors and they aren’t yet ready for use. The UNHCR officials have said they could provide electricity for this section of the camp. All they need is government permission, but it hasn’t yet been granted. A few days ago, the government sent a water truck, but the water was for sale.

The UNHCR recorded each person’s name when they distributed the tents. This is as close as these refugees have come to being officially registered. “The government announces that registration has happened,” said one man, speaking in English, “but it only happens on the air.”

The men we talked with said they were poor, in Mingora, but at least they had beds to sleep on. They could cook their own food, earn a living and provide the basic needs for their families.

The men believe the government should open up the roadblocks and let them go home. They are frustrated because fighting with the Taliban has gone on for two years. “The Taliban aren’t killed,” said one man, “just our women and children.”

The women rarely leave the tents which become insufferably hot in the afternoon. Listless little children were lying on the ground in one tent. Where the children come from, it is much cooler. Their mother said the children can’t adjust to the heat and always feel sick.

We asked the men if they could see any purpose for all of this suffering and violence. They said they think the purpose is to take their land and give it to someone else. When we asked to whom they thought their land would be given, they listed four countries: Afghanistan, India, China or America.

Perhaps they weren’t aware that U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke had visited another section of the camp six days ago. Richard Holbrooke assured that the international community would “try its best for provision of maximum facilities to the displaced persons of Swat, Buner and other affected areas.” (AP Pakistan, June 4, 2009)

But Richard Holbrooke’s plans have already been violently derailed in nearby Peshawar where he visited the premises of the luxury five-star Pearl Continental Hotel last week. The AP reports that, according to two senior US officials in Washington, the State Department had been in negotiations with the hotel’s owners “to either purchase the facility or sign a long term lease to house a new American consulate in Peshawar.” (AP, June 10) On June 9, a massive truck bomb destroyed the hotel, killing eleven people and wounding sixty.

As we ended our conversation, the shopkeeper pointed at three military helicopters flying overhead. “These are the same as those that shelled us,” he said. He handed the sick child he carried in his arms over to the child’s grandfather and pointed to the mountain nearest the camp. “We’ve seen these helicopters fire at this mountain. The explosives splinter the mountainside. The children are afraid that the helicopters will hit them again.” It’s difficult to see what can point to a new and better life for the people affected by this latest round of violence and war in Pakistan. A ban sign superimposed on a rifle is posted on a billboard at the entrance to the camp, announcing that weapons are prohibited. A true ban on weapon proliferation, agreed to by all parties involved, coupled with determination to equitably share resources with impoverished people in Pakistan would be one way to promise a better future for Pakistan’s children. For now, the little ones languishing in the camp are, quite literally, down and out in Shah Mansoor.

–––-

Kathy Kelly, Dan Pearson, Gene Stoltzfus and Razia Ahmed are concluding a delegation to Pakistan.

Visitors and Hosts in Pakistan

Jeff Leys — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:54:54 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Reflections from the Voices delegation currently in Pakistan.

Excerpt

June 10, 2009
Islamabad, Pakistan

In Jayne Anne Phillips’ Lark and Termite, the skies over Korea, in 1950, are described in this way:

“The planes always come…like planets on rotation. A timed bloodletting, with different excuses.”

The most recent plane to attack the Pakistani village of Khaisor (according to a Waziristan resident who asked me to withhold his name) came twenty days ago, on May 20th, 2009. A U.S. drone airplane fired a missile at the village at 4:30 AM, killing 14 women and children and 2 elders, wounding eleven.

Body

June 10, 2009
Islamabad, Pakistan

In Jayne Anne Phillips’ Lark and Termite, the skies over Korea, in 1950, are described in this way:

“The planes always come…like planets on rotation. A timed bloodletting, with different excuses.”

The previous day, some travelers had come to Khaisor, and the villagers had served them a meal. “This is our custom,” my friend relates. “It is our traditional way.” But these travelers were members of the Taliban, and their visit was noted by U.S. forces. It is possible they were identified through pictures taken by unmanned U.S. drones. Although the visitors had left right after their meal, the U.S. responded to this act of hospitality by bombing the homes of the hosts early the following morning.

I asked my friend how families cope, when a bomb suddenly blasts their home in the middle of the night. Do they have any kind of first aid available to help the wounded? “You see this,” he said, pointing to the long shawl that I happened to be wearing, a customary part of every village woman’s dress, “they try to use this [as a bandage] because it is all they have.” I imagined the shawl rapidly soaking up the blood of a dying Pakistani man, woman, or child.

On the morning of the 20th, the other villagers had rushed to the section where the missile had hit, hoisting injured survivors onto their shoulders and carrying them across rough, hilly terrain to the nearest road (about five kilometers away from the village) where, lacking vehicles of their own and with no hope of receiving an ambulance visit, they waited for a car to stop, their only means of reaching a hospital.

The first car they saw did stop, but its driver refused to take any of the wounded for fear that his action would be noted by an unmanned U.S. drone, and that he himself would face the reward for his hospitality which the village had received.

The villagers walked along the road until another car stopped and did agree to take some of the wounded to a nearby center run by the International Commission of the Red Cross.

For three days following the attack, people collected in the village, coming in from all over the region for the funerals. My visitor told me that whether people know the villagers or not, they will come to pray. “On the cell phone you get the word,” he said, “Look, this bloody thing again happened. People share the sorrow, but the anger increases. Everyone says we should get rid of the Americans.”

At the funeral, the villagers showed casings from the missile to demonstrate that it was a U.S. missile that killed their neighbors.

About 40 – 50 families live in the area of the village. My friend said that the people are hospitable and sturdy, tough enough to live in harsh conditions.

Villagers have become accustomed to the drone attacks. At first, some were paralyzed with fear –but since 2001, they’ve endured about 70 such attacks, and drone surveillance has become a routine fact of life. Even the children can identify the drones flying overhead. “When there is a drone up above the children don’t play in a group because they don’t want the drone to hit them,” said our visitor. The pilots of the drones, looking through monitors at their consoles in Nevada and elsewhere in the U.S., are more likely to mistake groups of people for their designated targets than people standing alone. Groups of children have been attacked. “The children scatter and run away, and they stop playing for some hours.” Asked if he saw any alternatives to the fighting, my friend immediately said that the attackers – the people from the United States - should come and sit with them. “If they come and discuss and throw away the arms, I hope it will be far better than if they are hitting us and trying to bring the peace through arms. Even if the peace comes, through arms, we will never forget after 100 years, and we will take revenge.”

“Our area was the most peaceful,” he continued, “but when the army came to Afghanistan it also affected us and our area became more violent. They should come and sit with us, assess our need, they should help us get drinking water, they should give us education, they should give us loans, they should help us in agriculture.”

My friend has already organized a “jirga”, or discussion, between local people and Taliban to consider how peace might come to the area. He asked the jirga members if they wanted peace and they responded, “Yes, why not? Who is such a person that they would not want peace? If the Americans stop the drones and go out from Afghanistan and if the Pakistan army stops the mess they are making in our agency, yes, we want peace.”

The U.S., and some segments of Pakistani society, want other things from these villagers. It’s difficult to know what fuels the ongoing attacks, particularly when media are banned from the areas under attack.

But the duty these villagers were bombed for carrying out, this time, was hospitality. Strangers come to your home and you feed them. During my visit here in Pakistan, soon to end, I’ve been shown profound respect and hospitality, although I’ve come here from the land of an enemy, from a country that brings terrifying robotic planes here, constantly surveilling and routinely killing from the skies in a manner reminiscent of science fiction. The drones are a daily fact of life here, brought by visitors; U.S. bombs are now part of their sky: new planets on rotation.

Here, the enlightened West now stands for mechanized death from the skies, “a timed bloodletting with different excuses.” Yesterday, the “excuse” our visitor described, the rationale for incinerating women, children and elders, was a mere act of hospitality – the extreme, obligatory hospitality shown to friends and enemies alike in this part of the world.

I’m soon to leave Pakistan and its targeted regions. Last week, U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke and a small delegation left after a short visit. It’s likely that U.S. generals and advisers will continue to shuttle back and forth between the U.S. and Pakistan.

All who come from the U.S. are guests here.

How do we hope to be treated?

–—

Kathy Kelly, Dan Pearson, Gene Stoltzfus, and Razia Ahmad, comprise a Voices delegation to Pakistan due back in the U.S. on June 13th.

View photos from the delegation

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VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

A Weaver’s Welcome

Jeff Leys — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:06:44 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Report from Voices delegation currently in Pakistan.

Excerpt

June 2, 2009Children from the Swat Valley (Photo: Razia Ahmed)

Shortly after arriving in Pakistan, one week ago, we met a weaver and his extended family, numbering 76 in all, who had been forcibly displaced from their homes in Fathepur, a small village in the Swat Valley.

Fighting between the Pakistani military and the Taliban had intensified. Terrified by aerial bombing and anxious to leave before a curfew would make flight impossible, the family packed all the belongings they could carry and fled on foot. It was a harrowing four day journey over snow-covered hills. Leaving their village, they faced a Taliban check point where a villager trying to leave had been assassinated that same morning. Fortunately, a Taliban guard let them pass. Walking many miles each day, with 45 children and 22 women, they supported one another as best they could. Men took turns carrying a frail grandmother on their shoulders. One woman gave birth to her baby, Hamza, on the road. When they arrived, exhausted, at a rest stop in the outskirts of Islamabad, they had no idea where to go next.

View photos from Pakistan delegation

Body

June 2, 2009Children from the Swat Valley (Photo: Razia Ahmed)

While there, the weaver struck up a conversation with a man whom he’d never met before. He told the man about the family’s plight. Hearing that they were homeless, the man invited them to live with him and his family in a large building which he is renovating. He offered to put the reconstruction on hold so that the family could move into the upper stories of his building.

The weaver was also fortunate to have known, for many years, a family that had sold his art work through a small shop in Islamabad. Women in this family have been working, as volunteers, to assist refugees who’ve come to Islamabad. They and their companions have delivered one thousand “food kits,” plus cots, mats and cooking supplies, to desperately needy people. Two of the women, Fauzia and Ghazala, invited our small delegation to visit the weaver and his family, in Islamabad’s Bara Koh neighborhood.

When we arrived, older men and boys were outside, ready to unload a truck delivering mats and flour. The generous building owner invited members of our group into his home, on the ground floor, where plans were already being made to turn the top floor into a school for the children.

Several tots led me upstairs to meet their grandparents. The elderly couple sat, cross-legged, on cots. When we entered, the grandmother stood, embraced me, and then softly wept for several minutes. Soon, about twenty men, women and children clustered around the cots. All listened attentively while one of the weaver’s brothers, Abdullah Shah, spoke with pride about the school in Fathepur where he had been a headmaster. The village had three schools, and his school was so successful that even Taliban families sent their children to study there. Now, the Taliban has destroyed all of the schools in Fathepur.

He and his brothers wonder what their future will be. How and when can they return to their village? And how will they start over? The crops are ruined, livestock have died, and land mines have been laid. Most of the shops and businesses have been destroyed. Many homes are demolished.

The trauma endured by the refugees is overwhelming. Yet, numerous individuals and groups have swiftly extended hospitality and emergency aid. We visited a Sikh community, in Hassan Abdal, which has taken in hundreds of Sikhs, housing them inside a large and very famous shrine. Nearby, we stayed for several days in Tarbela, where families in very simple dwellings have welcomed their relatives. The townspeople quietly took up a collection to support the refugee families. Some of the townspeople accompanied us to Ghazi, just up the road from Tarbela, where 155 people are staying in an abandoned hospital, relying entirely on the generosity of their new neighbors. Doctors from Lahore invited two of us to go with them to villages near Mardan, where people from the Swat Valley are still arriving. The doctors were part of a project organized jointly through Rotary Lahore, Pakistan Medical Aid, and Jahandan, which has worked with area councils to convert schools into refugee centers. The doctors take turns, several times a week, delivering relief shipments and helping supervise distribution.

Generosity in the face of such massive displacement and suffering is evident everywhere we go. But Pakistan needs help on a much larger scale. The U.S. has pledged 100 million dollars toward relief efforts. Two other disclosures about money budgeted for Pakistan should be considered in light of the unbearable burdens borne by close to two million new refugees. First is the decision to spend 800 million dollars to renovate and expand the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and to upgrade security at U.S. consular offices elsewhere in the country. Secondly, the U.S. will spend 400 million dollars, in 2009, to teach counter-insurgency tactics to Pakistan’s military. The 2010 Defense Spending budget requests an additional 700 million for counter-insurgency training in Pakistan.

What would happen if U.S. officials put plans to expand the U.S. Embassy on hold? Suppose the U.S. were to declare that helping alleviate the misery of people forcibly displaced by Taliban violence and the recent military offensive is a top priority, one that trumps spending money on renovating and expanding the U.S. Embassy.

Suppose that the U.S. were to redirect funds designated to train counterinsurgents and instead make these funds available to help alleviate impoverishment in Pakistan. No one seems to know how the Taliban are funded, but they clearly use large sums of money to build their ranks, giving each new recruit 25,000 rupees, a sum that exceeds what a teacher earns in one year. In villages where people don’t have enough resources to feed their children, the Taliban would initially move in with plans to build schools and offer two meals a day, plus clean clothes, to the children. Later, they would exercise increasingly fierce control over villages. But their initial forays into villages were marked by offers to reduce the gaps between “haves and have-nots.”

Enormous resources will be spent to “crush” the Taliban, and as always happens in warfare, the bloodshed will fuel acts of revenge and retaliation.

The relationship that began when a stranger took the risk of offering shelter to a weaver holds a lesson worth heeding.

The weaver and his family will never forget the extraordinary, immediate kindness extended to them when a man put his renovation project on hold so that he could help them find shelter in his building.

The U.S. could help assure that every Pakistani family displaced by the fighting has enough to eat and the security of at least a temporary home. It would be an unusual but sensible homeland security initiative within Pakistan. And it would be a signpost pointing to greater security for the United States. The maxim that guides this idea is simple: to counter terror, build justice. Build justice predicated on the belief that each person has basic human rights, and that we have a collective responsibility to share resources so that those rights are met. This means eliminating the unjust and unfair gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots.” It means weaving new relationships that don’t rely on guns and bombs for security.

*****

Kathy Kelly () co-coordinates Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) Along with Dan Pearson, Steve Kelly, Gene Stoltzfus and Razia Ahmed, she is visiting cities and villages in Pakistan.

View photos from Pakistan delegation

VCNV Author

Kathy Kelly

From Baghdad to Islamabad

Jeff Leys — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:16:40 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Gene Stoltzfus write from Islamabad. He is currently in Pakistan with a delegation to learn first hand the impact of the expanded war in South Asia.

Excerpt

By Gene Stoltzfus
May 29, 2009
Gene’s Blog

This morning I travelled to Rawalpindi, the partner city to Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, just to the North. Near the city center we noted Liaquat National Bagh, the park where Benazir Bhutto the then leading candidate for Prime Minister was gunned down in Dec. 2007. At the moment that I passed the Park with its history of blood, a massive explosion was occurring in Lahore several hours further south. Lahore is the city of Punjabi arts, sometimes called the Garden of the Moghuls, the one time rulers of India.

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By Gene Stoltzfus
May 29, 2009
Gene’s Blog

Twenty-six people were reported killed in the May 28 Lahore blast that destroyed a police station and a prominent office of the ISI Inter Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s intelligence arm. I didn’t come to Pakistan to see car bombs and frightened people. I have seen enough of that in Baghdad. The comparison is inescapable.

The signals remind all of us that it is worth a special effort to do the right thing if we can figure out what that right thing is. Bombings like this send a charge of fear through anyone in Pakistan. The questions of who carried out these bombing, why, and how the perpetrators were recruited will linger despite the immediate official appraisal that this is the result of the attack to retake the Swat Valley during the recent weeks by Pakistani forces.

I am still very much in a listening mode here. Usually the forces of violence and reprisals are much more complicated than immediate evidence might indicate. Now with more than three million internally displaced people from the Swat operation and other fighting, there is a press for emergency relief. Many seek refuge with relatives. Others occupy unused buildings. An impressive public response has been mounted. Yesterday a student we have learned to know told us of the work of his extended family to provide emergency help to more than 500 families. Other groups who collect food and other essentials are springing up. We have been approached to help.

My mind has trouble staying only in Islamabad. I keep thinking of Baghdad where two million grew to five million displaced people and more. Many had to seek refuge outside the country in Syria and Jordan. Many have still not returned. In much of human history refugees were created by natural disasters. In the advanced modern world refugees are created by war, sometimes called terror.

A group from the Swat Valley came to visit our team. They were as full of questions as I am. Why did police, and officials fail to resist when the Taliban first arrived. Why did police protection melt? When the Taliban preached fairer policies for land, people listened. Why wasn’t something done? Why were assassinations permitted. Now millions of cattle are dead. The crops due for harvest shortly will be wasted. Property may be destroyed and the fabric of this once prosperous valley is in danger. Even if temporary security is restored the cycle will continue next year and the next, a local leader told us.

We came here to learn about the effects of the drones. Wherever we go people can speak about them, probably more than citizens of the nations that produce them. Now as the war approaches the population centres of Pakistan, the feeling of urgency for defence against the violence is mounting. What was once outrage over drones is turning to an attitude that says, use anything to push back the violence. Pakistan requested that drones be part of the military assistance package from the US.

This week is the twelfth anniversary of the development of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb. There is a lot of popular pride here about this accomplishment. People believe it has made Pakistan more secure. This date is not publicly celebrated or remembered like Hiroshima but many believe it has saved the nation.

The noble character of the people I meet here is not captured in the violent stories of this report. There are better angels and I am listening to their words too.

Life and Death in the Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan

Jeff Leys — Fri, 22 May 2009 12:48:36 -0500

Short Information Teaser

Gerald Paoli writes from the Kurdish region of northern Iraq

Excerpt

By Gerald Paoli
May 20, 2009
Sulimanaya, Iraq

The Events Leading Up to Mohamed’s Death
UNHCR Camp in Northern Iraq: Gerald Paoli (left) with the Camp Nurse and child at the UNHCR refugee camp in northern Iraq. Sulimanaya, Iraq - The first Zarawa internally displaced persons (IDP) camp was in a valley in the Qandil Mountains. It wasn’t home, but it was situated next to a cool stream and was close to the eight villages of the 132 families, who had fled violence rained down on them by Turkey and Iran. Now, they live in the new Zarawa IDP camp built by the United Nation’s High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

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UNHCR Camp in Northern Iraq: Gerald Paoli (left) with the Camp Nurse and child at the UNHCR camp in northern Iraq.By Gerald Paoli
May 20, 2009
Sulimanaya, Iraq

The Events Leading Up to Mohamed’s Death

The first Zarawa internally displaced persons (IDP) camp was in a valley in the Qandil Mountains. It wasn’t home, but it was situated next to a cool stream and was close to the eight villages of the 132 families, who had fled violence rained down on them by Turkey and Iran. Now, they live in the new Zarawa IDP camp built by the United Nation’s High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

Quandil Mountains: The Quandil Mountains in northern Iraq.The villagers have chosen to leave the mountains because they are exhausted from being under attack. Turkey and Iran have been bombing the border with Kurdistan for decades in an effort to eliminate the mountain bases of two Kurdish rebel groups, the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Iranian Kurdish group known as the Party for Free Life (PJAK).

Historically, seasonal bombings have been the norm in the northernmost region of Kurdistan. Bombings became a predictable part of an annual rhythm of life. But villagers adjusted to the anticipated attacks and continued to live in the manner dictated by their traditions and customs.

In December 2007, George Bush and Turkish Prime Minister Recip Tayyip Erdogan met to discuss strategies for “dealing” with the PKK.

Since then, the bombing have been more intense and regular.

Most members of the international community officially label the PKK and PJAK as terrorist organizations. Yet, as recently as 2006, the United States was supplying PJAK with intelligence and weapons to use against Tehran.

Turkey has attempted to purchase both armed and surveillance drones from Israel for use in border operations. However, Turkey’s government stated on May 19, 2009, that it might cancel a 2005 contract to purchase ten drones from Israel because of delayed delivery. It’s also worth noting that Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan sternly criticized Israel’s 22-day Operation Cast Lead assaults against Gaza, begun on December 22, 2008.

On March 10, 2009, Iran broke a one-month-old cease-fire. As a result, an 18-month-old boy named Mohamed was killed while sleeping nestled between his parents. Mohamed’s parents, injured and stricken with grief, are angry that they were lulled into a false sense of security by the cease-fire. They decided to join in the exodus down from the mountain to the new Zarawa camp.

UNHCR CampLife in the New Zarawa IDP Camp

The camp nurse and several small children greeted us as we entered the new camp. She invited us into her UNHCR-supplied tent. A furrowed brow replaced her broad smile as she began to describe her fears for the villagers living here.

“I am afraid for the old people and the young ones,” said the nurse, who is concerned that they won’t survive the summer heat. “When people live so close to each other many diseases will come and spread quickly.” Looking at the children, she wrung her hands. “Dysentery and dehydration are sure to follow.”

There are 45 tents for 132 families. That comes to roughly three families per every two tents. Each tent measures 4 meters by 4 meters wide by 2.2 meters high, pitched over a slab of cement that is 9 square meters, framed by a border of cinder blocks two rows high. They are lined with gold-colored canvas on the inside and topped with gray canvas on the outside.

The residents of Zarawa camp have devised a system of sharing tents by rotating with each other, spending some time living with their families in the municipality and some time in the camp. While in school, children live with relatives in the Zarawa municipality, separated from their nuclear families.

Because of the great strain on the local economy and on what few public services are available, the municipality of Zarawa was reluctant to allow construction of the new camp and created several obstacles. The UNHCR recognizes that the site is not a sustainable resettlement solution for the camp’s residents.

The location is barren and desolate. There is not one tree for shade. The villagers cannot have animals of any kind in the camp. This is just as well because they had to sell what animals they could to buy the plot of land on which the camp is built. There is no electricity. The UNHCR has promised them a well, but the villagers have a wait-and-see attitude about whether or not this will ever happen. And since nearly every inch of land they occupy is covered with either a tent or a toilet, they cannot grow any food inside the camp.

The empty adjacent field mocks the villagers with the possibility of food it could provide. But they can’t grow food there either because it is private property. So, they rely on what relief they get from the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) rations and the meager supplies the Iraq national food card can buy them.

This is the situation of Kurdish villagers, who have been forced to leave their homes and have chosen not to go back until the political situation is resolved. Their very existence is rarely glimpsed by internationals, as the villagers live beyond the “radar” of mainstream news. Yet, their simple survival depends on being beyond the cross hairs of sophisticated weapons peddled by international traders.

Did You or Did You Not Cook?

Jeff Leys — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:28:47 -0500

Short Information Teaser

The challenges faced by one Iraqi family seeking to immigrate to the U.S.

Excerpt

Damascus, Syria
May 19, 2009

Did you or did you not cook?

It seems like such a harmless question, but the simple yes or no answer to that question can determine the fate of an Iraqi family longing to join their relatives in the United States.

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Damascus, Syria
May 19, 2009

Did you or did you not cook?

It seems like such a harmless question, but the simple yes or no answer to that question can determine the fate of an Iraqi family longing to join their relatives in the United States.

I would ask you to take a moment and try and put yourself in the shoes of an Iraqi family. They could be your family or mine. The parents are about 50 years of age, and they have seven children. They have three married daughters in Iraq. Their oldest son is married and together with his wife and two little girls share the parents’ modest apartment here in the city. Their oldest daughter, three years old, is severely handicapped. The parents have two more daughters and their youngest son, a 13 year old, who complete this household of nine in Damascus.

The father has an aunt in Detroit, Michigan and one of his sister’s was resettled to California over a year ago. She uses crutches as she had polio as a small child. She is lonely and very anxious for her brother and his family to join her.

This family fled to Syria in the summer of 2007 after receiving threats from the Mujahedeen and a kidnapping attempt on the wife and one of the daughters. As a Christian family they were and continue to be, particularly targeted. They left everything behind to save their lives. They feel they have nothing to return to except certain death.

Now I will ask you to shift gears to the present time. Before an Iraqi individual or family can be accepted to the US for resettlement, they must undergo an interview with a representative from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Iraqis know that this meeting is decisive, a one-shot deal which will determine whether they can reach a place of safety, where they can work, educate their children and pick up the pieces of their lives once again.

More and more attention is being placed in these interviews on the issue of military service, the length of time served, location and duties. In the military document of the above mentioned father, the word “cook” was clearly written. He explained however that when his military supervisor noted that he had a university degree in Hotel Management, he assigned him to an Air Force base to work in a cafeteria. His work was strictly clerical, doing tally sheets and paperwork. It was not uncommon, my Iraqi Muslim translator told me, for Christians to be assigned as cooks. They have a long tradition of not taking up arms.

The DHS interviewer kept putting the question to him “Did you or did you not cook?” Shrugging his shoulders in resignation, the father looked at me sadly and asked “What could I tell her?” He didn’t cook. The family was denied resettlement on the basis of “credibility.”

I cannot describe my feelings to you at hearing one such story after another. As I visit with families in their apartments, holding their rejection (form) letters in my hand, I am always served coffee or tea with a graciousness that is hard to describe. Often it is one of the older children who bring the refreshments, a young person who has now missed a couple of years of school. Too often the mothers can not hold back their tears. Their last hope to move on has been crushed. They look to me for some word of reassurance, and I long to tell them there is yet hope, that everything will be alright.

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen

Mustafa and Josh

Jeff Leys — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:40:21 -0500

Short Information Teaser

A child from Iraq and an adult from the U.S. build a friendship.

Excerpt

Damascus, Syria
May 17, 2009

I said laughingly to Josh “You have a shadow.” When he wasn’t chasing after the frisbee, 5 year old Mustafa kept taking his hand. It was such a sweet gesture.Mustafa and Josh

I met Josh a few days ago over tea. He had contacted me by email, asking if we could get together. Not only do we know many of the same people in the peace movement, but I felt an instant kinship with this gentle yet intense young man from Oregon. Josh has spent a good deal of time in Palestine over the last years, and is currently continuing his Arabic study in Damascus. We spoke of many things, and by chance I mentioned a dear Iraqi family I had been just been with.

Body

Damascus, Syria
May 17, 2009

I said laughingly to Josh “You have a shadow.” When he wasn’t chasing after the frisbee, 5 year old Mustafa kept taking his hand. It was such a sweet gesture.Mustafa and Josh

Last October an Iraqi man took me to meet the refugee family, a mother from Baghdad with four young children. Mustafa, the second to youngest has “Failure to Thrive” syndrome. He was four years old then, but smaller than his three year old sister. His mother’s relentless efforts to find the cause for her son’s failure to grow, his hair loss and weakness paid off. Getting the necessary daily growth hormone injections for Mustafa has been a constant struggle, as each injection is costly. The change in Mustafa in the seven months since I’d seen him was astounding. He has almost caught up to his sister in height. His mother told me “I am better because my son is better.” You can imagine my surprise when Josh told me that he, like Mustafa, has the same rare condition. He has taken daily injections since he was two years old.

Yesterday Josh and I arranged to meet the family in a park. The mother and I sat on the green grass talking and watching Josh and the children romping around and tossing the frisbee to and fro. In the words of one of my own brothers who has lived with MS for years, I thought to myself “It doesn’t get much better than this.” My brother Chris has said this more than once while watching his own children playing in a beautiful natural setting.Josh & Mustafa

Mustafa’s mother has been blessed with a spirit of gratitude and a creative mind that is striking. She has recently written a little children’s book, a story inspired by her grandmother still living in Baghdad. Her eyes fill with tears as she speaks of her grandmother. The story is about a horse with hidden wings. Josh has agreed to try his hand at translating it into English. The mother wants to dedicate it to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in thanks for all they have done for so many around the world. She wants to use her gifts, to give back. “We are not just a taking people” she said to me with heartfelt conviction, “We’re also a giving people.”

The mother and children have not yet been accepted for resettlement by the UNHCR. Should they be accepted, there are 60,000 “cases” of Iraqis in line ahead of them. Although the obstacles for this family to resettle seem insurmountable, who knows where this newly formed friendship between Josh and Mustafa will lead? We must keep trying to make connections, drawing courage and inspiration from families like these.

VCNV Author

Cathy Breen