EMERGENCY CALL FOR SOLIDARITY WITH THE IRAQI PEOPLE

Eman Ahmed Khammas
Director, International Occupation Watch Center

Occupied Baghdad

To the peoples of the world and their representatives at the United
Nations,

The Iraqi people call for international solidarity as they resist attacks by
US-led Occupation Forces. It is clear that these attacks are designed to terrorize
entire populations of Iraqi towns
and neighborhoods.

According to reports, in Falluja alone, over three hundred Iraqis have been killed
and hundreds more injured since attacks began on Sunday, April 4. There is fighting
in Baghdad, particularly in the neighborhoods of Sadr, Adaamiya, Shula, Yarmok,
and the cities and towns of Falluja, Ramadi, Basrah, Nasiriya, Kerbala, Amarah,
Kut, Kufa, Najaf, Diwaniya, Balad, and Baquba. Residences, hospitals, mosques
and ambulances trying to transport the injured are being bombed and fired at
by
Occupation
Forces’ guns and tanks.

Falluja and Adaamiya are currently under siege, surrounded by Occupation Forces,
in contravention of the Geneva Convention that prohibits holding civilian communities
under siege. Hospitals do not have access to sufficient medical aid, essential
medicine and equipment or blood supplies. In Falluja, the hospitals have been
surrounded by soldiers forcing doctors to establish field hospitals in private
homes. Blood donors are not allowed to enter; consequently, mosques in both Baghdad
and Falluja are collecting blood for the injured. Water and electricity have
been cut off for the past several days.

In Sadr City US helicopters have fired rockets into residential areas destroying
homes. Although no curfew has officially been imposed, US soldiers have made
a practice of aiming tank fire on cars they find moving through the streets after
dark. On Tuesday night alone, at least 6 people were killed in this way. US forces
continue to occupy and surround all the police stations and the Sadr municipal
offices.

While these attacks have escalated sharply over the past week, they are in no
way a new phenomenon in occupied Iraq. The indiscriminate killing of civilians
and the refusal to provide people with security, electricity and decent medical
infrastructure have characterized the ’freedom’ that Occupation Authorities have
brought to Iraq.

We call on the international community, civil society and the anti-war/anti-occupation
movements to respond to this US-led war of terror with tangible displays of solidarity
and support for Iraqi
people facing this gruesome manifestation of the occupation.

Please take to the streets to demand an end to the US-led aggression. Organize
protests in front of US consulates and embassies around the world and demand:
an immediate end to this massacre; an immediate end to the siege of Iraqi cities
and neighborhoods; immediate access to humanitarian and medical aid organizations
seeking to provide assistance to Iraqi people who are living under attack; and
an end to the occupation of our nation.

Cities in which demonstrations have already been organized include Milan, Montreal,
Paris, Tokyo, Istanbul, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and
New York City.

To contact the International Occupation Watch Center in Baghdad, please call
001 914 360-9079 or
001 914 360-9080. You can also email eman@occupationwatch.org

09.04.2004
Collective Bellaciao