April 2004 Fallujah

Driving through the empty streets of Fallujah, I felt the stench of death in the air. I could feel the terror of the families locked behind the closed doors. Already 700 dead. The graveyards were full, so the local soccer field had to be dug up to make room to bury the dead from the assault on this town.

We cautiously made our way through the deserted streets straight to the clinic where our friends had helped out a few days before – a small neighbourhood clinic that had been transformed into a makeshift hospital after the main hospital in Fallujah was closed to locals by the US military. Weary staff adapted admirably to the constant influx of wounded delivered in the backs of cars, vans and pick-ups – extra beds were wheeled in and cans of soft drink were emptied from the Coke machine so it could be used to cool bags of blood.

But the clinic had no disinfectant, no anaesthetic, and lacked much of the other vital equipment required for the type of surgery the horrific wounds demanded. And as a form of collective punishment all electricity to Fallujah had been cut for days. The clinic had a generator, but when the petrol ran out the doctors had to continue surgery using the glow from cigarette lighters, candles and torches.

138We spoke to the doctors – they were exhausted, and looked defeated as they told us the stories of their recent cases: a ten-year-old boy with a bullet wound to the head from US snipers, a grandmother with abdominal bullet wounds, young men with severe burns, limbs blown off, and so on. Each time a new patient arrived, the doctors quickly got up, donned a new set of surgical gloves and got to work. Many had laboured twenty-four hours straight, others regularly survived on only a few hours’ sleep for days at a time. They didn’t complain. They are the heroes of Fallujah.

We asked how we could help. The doctors asked if we could accompany an ambulance packed with food and medical supplies across town to a clinic in the US-controlled section of the town which could not receive aid because of constant sniper fire. The doctors figured our foreign nationality could make a difference in negotiating with the soldiers the safe passage of the ambulance.

It might seem a strange and unnecessary mission to help an ambulance drive from one place to another – anywhere else in the world, it’s a basic right. But this is Fallujah and this is war, and nothing is as it should be – despite guarantees laid out in the Geneva Conventions. The last time an ambulance went to this part of town it was shot at by US troops. I know this because two of my friends were in that ambulance, trying to reach a pregnant woman in premature labour. They didn’t reach her, but the bullet holes in the ambulance are proof they tried.

So we packed the ambulance with supplies and got in the back. With me were three other foreigners: Jo, Dave and Beth – two British, an American and an Aussie, a good representation of young people from the ‘coalition of the willing’ trying to counterbalance our countries’ military intervention with loving intervention. We donned bright blue surgical gowns and held our passports in our hands. A couple of medical staff were with us in the back, and the drivers were up the front.

We drove slowly through the parts of Fallujah controlled by Iraqi fighters then stopped in a side street that faced a main road. We could not go any further; the main road was under watch and control of US snipers who had a habit of shooting at anything that moved. We parked the ambulance in the side street and the four of us got out with the mission 139to approach the American soldiers, communicate with them and get permission for the ambulance to continue to the clinic.

The area was completely quiet. The silence was unnerving. We prepared the loudspeaker, put our hands in the air and held our passports high. Before we ventured onto the main road, we called out a message from the side street. “Hello? American soldiers, we are a group of international aid workers. We are unarmed. We are asking permission to transport an ambulance full of medical supplies to the clinic across the way. Can you give us safe passage?”

The reply was a chilling silence.

We repeated the message. Again silence.

We looked at each other. Perhaps the soldiers were too far away to hear us? We had no choice but to walk on to the main road and hope that we would be clearly visible as unarmed civilians. I took a deep breath and for a split second thought that this was probably the most dangerous thing I had ever done. I looked at the others and could tell we were all thinking the same thing: “If we don’t do this, who will?” Our white Western privilege meant our lives were considered more valuable than Iraqi lives, and we had to try to use this privilege, as obscene as it is.

The courage of the others inspired me as we all stepped out onto the road together. We walked slowly with our arms raised. My eyes scanned the tops of the buildings for snipers. We didn’t know where they were, so we walked in the direction of the clinic. We repeated the message over and over again on the loudspeaker. In the silence, it would have been heard for hundreds of metres. It echoed eerily through the neighbourhood.

I turned my head briefly and just in time. In the distance, I saw two white flashes, then heard the loud, staccato “bang, bang” of gunshots and rapidly realised they were shooting in our direction. It all happened so fast: hearing the whizz of the bullets just above our heads, ducking, diving for cover against a wall.

In the scramble, I fell. My hands broke my fall on to sharp gravel on the rough ground. I felt the sting of pain and could see the blood, but I had no time to stop and check what had happened. We ended up in someone’s backyard, and then made our way back to the ambulance, jumping fences and going through gates. My hands were covered with blood, my 140left foot cut and my passport stained red, an indelible reminder of the episode.

We regrouped. Although shocked and shaken, we didn’t want to give up. Now we knew where the soldiers were, we could walk towards them. We decided to go out again. Same drill: we called out the message, then stepped out on to the road – this time facing the direction of the gunfire. “Hello! American soldiers. We are foreign aid workers – British, Australian, American. We are not armed. We are asking permission to transport an ambulance on this road.”

My injured hand was shaking as I held my passport, now damp with blood. I tried to work out what I was feeling – fear, anger, determination? I still don’t know. We had only repeated the message twice and walked a few metres when our answer came. Two more bullets shaved the top of our heads. I entered a state of shock. I had been shot at not once, but twice, by American soldiers after politely asking permission to transport aid to a hospital. Their persistent warning shots meant the answer was a firm “No”.

We stepped back to the corner, but Jo was furious and continued on the loud speaker. “Do you know it is a breach of the Geneva Conventions to fire at unarmed civilians and at ambulances?” she cried. “How would you feel if your sister was under siege without food or water?”

We took the loudspeaker from her but not before she conveyed one more message. “May your trigger finger be plagued with warts!” She continued several other curses under her breath.

We headed back to the clinic. My head was spinning. I felt angry, frustrated, my hands were aching. But strangely enough my spirit was intact. We had just walked with our hands in the air like vulnerable lambs into the face of armed soldiers, yet this nonviolent action and my complete and utter faith that the ‘rightness’ of the mission would protect me had been immensely empowering.

Silent victims

That afternoon, on the footpath outside the clinic, I saw one of the saddest sights of war. It was a small boy, about ten years old. He’d just got out of a van that was used to transport the wounded and dead. The 141disturbing thing was not that he was wounded. On the contrary – he had collected the bodies and was driving the van! He unloaded the bodies, reported the stories to the doctors and onlookers and gave orders while casually holding a Kalashnikov in his hand as if it were a cricket bat. It wasn’t a cricket bat, but I couldn’t stop thinking that it should have been. With a scarf wrapped around his neck, a strong face and confident attitude, I could see he was an experienced fighter. My heart sank at the thought of this little boy, now a little Mujahadeen, playing with bullets instead of marbles. The locals said he was a good shot.

It got worse. I saw a cute little girl, with pigtails, a pink shirt and a polkadot scarf, also about ten years old, also brandishing a Kalashnikov. It was almost as big as her, but she handled it with ease. I hoped that she didn’t really use it. I hoped she had dolls at home to play with. A woman explained that the girl had lost her parents and was now the guardian of her younger siblings. “She had no choice but to protect them. What do you expect?” the woman asked. Children, whether wounded, killed, traumatised by bombing or prematurely recruited as soldiers or family protectors, are the silent victims of war.

Captured

We agreed that if there was nothing more we could do, we should hit the road, aware it would be a difficult and dangerous drive out of the Fallujah city limits. It was unclear which group controlled what road, so our driver had to choose the route wisely.

It seems he didn’t. We drove to the edge of town and headed towards a lonely, dusty road. The quietness was ominous and suddenly gunshots ripped through the air coming from all directions. We were caught in crossfire.

Dave grabbed the steering wheel and with his head down somehow managed to reverse the car, turn it around and slowly head back towards the town. He was driving with one hand on the wheel, his eyes just peeping over the dashboard. We three girls were in the back huddled together with our heads on each other’s laps.

When we thought we were out of danger of flying bullets, we slowly raised our heads. 142

“Hello?” A group of heavily armed Iraqi fighters, commonly referred to here as Mujahadeen, were standing on the road, waiting for us. We had driven straight into their camp.

At first I was relieved: “Thank God we got out of the crossfire.” But then I noticed a man whose face I couldn’t see, because of the scarf wrapped around his head, aiming a rocket-launcher at me – well, it was aimed at everyone, but it felt like it was just me. It was a long shiny metal thing that protruded from his shoulder. Then I noticed that our car was surrounded by the scarved men, all their weapons pointing at us.

Next we did what came by instinct – put our hands in the air to indicate our lack of arms and willingness to cooperate. They motioned for us to get out of the car. I noticed Emad, our translator, had raced back and was speaking to them in Arabic, explaining who we were and what we were doing.

I was hopeful that Emad would get us out of trouble, but this group of fighters didn’t know him and didn’t know who we were, and they needed to check us out. To them, we could well have been coalition spies. They put us into another car, and we drove through the deserted town.

At this stage I didn’t feel that I had been captured – I figured they’d just check out our story and give us a cup of tea and we’d be on our way. I’m not the panicky type – and remained calm as I got into their car, happy that the guy with the rocket launcher could no longer point it at me. I tried to ignore the fact that the driver had a grenade resting between his legs.

When we got to the house, they offered us water and I heard Emad say: “Take it, you don’t know when you’ll get any again.”

“What?” I thought, still hoping for tea, but accepting the water in case Emad was right. We sat on the floor and before long they brought in some heavily armed warrior-type fighters who were obviously the leaders of this particular militia. The head guy was dressed in khaki and had a long, shiny rocket flung across his shoulder as if it were a golf club. He was a heavy-duty Rambo-type.

Under guard, we were driven to another house. “That cup of tea will come as soon as we get inside,” I thought, my spirits rising again. We were ushered into a large room lined with cushions on the floor – a 143typical Iraqi living room, although it felt like a family had not sat in there for a long time. We sat on the floor waiting for instructions. A man sat near the door holding a gun, making it clear that we were not free to leave.

After a while, an older man came in dressed in civilian clothes – a long, brown, traditional dress. He seemed like an ‘elder’ type, a leader in the community. He had a serious face, but it was also gentle. It became clear that it was his job to figure out who we were. When it was pointed out that I was Australian he raised his eyebrows. He decided to interrogate me first and the others were taken out of the room.

The following thirty minutes of interrogation took me through a range of emotions. I felt profoundly sad, ashamed to the point of anguish, angry, passionate and at one point moved to tears. At the end I was shaken and could hardly talk. Not because of fear of this man or his group, but from the shocking realisation of how deeply hurt and betrayed he felt – betrayed by my country.

Interrogation

The man in the long, brown dress was fascinated by Australia’s involvement in the war. But he was also deeply disappointed. “Tell me about this man, your president … Howard?” he asked. “Why did he go to war with Iraq?”

Then, referring to the then Prime Minister’s remarks in the media confirming Australia’s commitment to keeping troops in Iraq, he asked: “Why did he appear on the television pledging support for America?”

Howard’s comments were given extensive coverage on Iraqi TV and Arab satellite networks such as Al-Jazeera. My Iraqi friends back in Baghdad were alarmed when they saw this, and warned that it could land me in trouble. “Donna, what is he doing? Tell this man to keep his mouth shut! He will make all Iraqis hate Australia. You must stay inside now!” one friend warned me.

As I tried to reason with the brown man, I felt that I had the weight of Australian foreign policy resting on my shoulders. The load was heavy. And this burden was the last thing I needed while being held captive by Iraqi fighters from Fallujah who felt the full brunt of the invasion every 144day. I cursed John Howard in my head. Why couldn’t he come and explain to the Iraqi people why he had participated in an invasion of their country? How could I even attempt to explain a policy that I believed was reckless, small-minded, dangerous and irresponsible?

I didn’t. I told the man I didn’t agree with John Howard, so I could not justify his decision. For the next few minutes, I put forward my views on the war with as much passion and clarity as I could muster sitting on the floor in that dark room in a Fallujah house. I explained that I came to Iraq last year as a human shield to show my opposition to war and violence, and to be with the Iraqi people in solidarity. And now I had returned to help pick up the pieces – especially the pieces of the broken children left homeless and suffering trauma as a result of the war. I explained that John Howard was a conservative politician, and that I supported parties that opposed him. That we were hopeful the upcoming elections would deliver us a new prime minister who would withdraw Australian troops from Iraq.

His face brightened. “A new prime minister?”

“We hope for this,” I said.

“Insha’ Allah (God willing),” he replied.

Finally, I’d made a connection that may well have saved me. But still, with pain in his eyes, the brown man’s questions continued and became more specific. “How many Australian soldiers are in Iraq? Where are they based and what are they doing? What do the Australian people think about Iraq? Do they want to be at war with Iraq?” He looked intently at me: “Do Australians want to hurt Iraqi people?”

The question broke my heart and I had to choke back tears as I thought about all my friends at home who opposed the war. I told him that Australians didn’t want to hurt Iraqi people. That the majority opposed the war and took to the streets in their hundreds of thousands the previous year in demonstrations. “Then why did the government go to war, if the people didn’t agree? This is what happened, and you want to bring us democracy?”

I was back to square one, shrugging my shoulders and feeling stupid that I came from a so-called democracy. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to express to him the longings of every Australian 145man, woman and child who marched and took action opposing the war. I wanted him to feel their desire for peace. I desperately wanted him to believe this. I said it as best I could.

He sat back and thought for a few moments. I sat in silence in my anguish.

The silence was broken by gunshots and explosions. Outside on the streets of Fallujah, where bodies of women and children lie on the ground, outside where an ambulance cannot move without being shot at, outside where no one can walk freely without the risk of a sniper’s bullet through the head.

I was held in a room with a man holding a gun blocking the door, but in that moment I realised that I was not the captive. He was. And his wife and his children and his neighbours … I hung my head in shame. I couldn’t hold the tears any longer so I let them come. Tears for Iraq and for Australia.

After the brown man finished questioning all of us, he searched our bags. This was good for us because he looked at our cameras. The most recent pictures and footage showed images of what we did in Fallujah and our work with the children back in Baghdad. With the search complete, he left; but an armed guard sat near the door. We sat on the floor and talked as the afternoon passed, trying to stay positive. Jo, who has worked as a clown in Iraq, got out her balloons and made a couple of balloon animals. She gave one to the man with the gun. “Do you have children?” she asked him.

“Yes,” he said. “They’ve been taken to Baghdad.” She handed him a purple giraffe for them which made him smile. Then he began to talk. “They killed my brother,” he said softly. “And my brother’s son and my sister’s son. My other brother is in jail. I am the only one left. Do you know how this feels?”

The looks on our faces told him we didn’t.

“And now my best friend was killed. His throat was cut by American soldiers after they shot him in the leg. He was on the street and couldn’t run away.”

“Oh God,” I thought. His friend was no doubt one of the bodies that had come into the clinic. As this man’s anguish gushed out of him I 146wondered if he wanted to whack us all as revenge for the death of half his family. Or perhaps that would not be enough to relieve his pain. But, in an act of restraint I dearly wished others had shown, he didn’t. He didn’t punish us for something we didn’t do, despite the fact he and his family had been punished for something they didn’t do. As if to read our minds, he reminded us: “We are Muslims. We won’t hurt you.” Then he just held the purple giraffe and sat in silence.

They brought us a big meal and some tea (yes it came!). Hours passed in the windowless room then we were moved to another house.

Inside the new house, we girls were put into a room while David was kept separate. After an hour or so, there was a knock at the door. The man had a message: “Tomorrow you will be released and taken to Baghdad. We must arrange for someone to take you there,” he said. “The roads are dangerous and you could be kidnapped.”

We smiled with irony at the concern of our captors. When he closed the door, the others cheered and we all hugged each other. He told us we would leave after first prayers, at dawn. They gave us an evening meal and more tea and biscuits.

The next day as we approached the road out of Fallujah, there were scores of cars in a long queue waiting to leave the city, but not moving. Our hearts sank. Would we be stuck another night? Our driver wove his way up to the top of the queue. The people there explained that American soldiers had blocked the road and were not letting anyone pass. They had just fired shots at one car that had attempted to leave using the road. One lady pointed to her car full of children. “I want to take my children out of here before they’re killed,” she said. “Why won’t they let us leave?”

I looked at the other cars: they were all packed with families, desperate to escape the bloody violence of Fallujah. There were hundreds of them. I couldn’t believe the soldiers would not let these people drive to safety. “Can you help us?” the people pleaded.

We looked at each other and decided we had to try. We got out of the car and prepared ourselves. There was a long stretch of empty road that was the ‘no man’s land’ between cars and the soldiers. We held our hands in the air, grabbed the loudspeaker and began to walk down the deserted 147road towards the concrete and razor wire where the soldiers were. The blood on my passport reminded me of the last time I did this. We hoped for a better outcome this time.

The roadblock

So we began to walk down the empty, dusty road towards a collection of concrete blocks and razor wire where the soldiers were guarding the roadblock. Behind us was a queue of hundreds of cars full of ordinary people – terrified and trying to flee to safety. A few had already given up and turned around after gunshots from US soldiers warned them not to come any closer. Fallujah had become a bloody prison – no one was allowed in or out.

We couldn’t see the soldiers, but we followed the same procedure as we had a few days before: hijabs off so it was clear we were Western, arms in the air, passport in hands and message on the loudspeaker: “Hello American soldiers. We are unarmed foreign civilians. We are trying to leave Fallujah – please don’t shoot.”

We repeated this a few times and walked slowly towards the checkpoint. I squinted into the distance as I heard our message echo back, but there was no movement ahead. We were halfway down the road when finally I saw the outline of a soldier in the distance. We repeated the message and heard his faint reply: “We won’t shoot. Proceed.”

Relieved, we walked the rest of the way to meet him. He was surprised to see us, and a little on edge, but greeted us cordially. About ten others hovered around with machine guns in hand, bemused by the sight of us. We explained that we had been in Fallujah to help deliver and distribute aid and that we were trying to get back to Baghdad. The soldier in charge agreed to let our two cars pass. That was great news, but it was not enough. “What about the others?” we asked – the “others” being the hundreds of families sitting in their hot, overcrowded cars hoping somehow to escape the hell that had descended. Anxious women, frightened children, crippled old men and young men who didn’t want to fight. “You must let these people through,” we pleaded. “They just want to travel to safety.”

The solider in charge hesitated. 148

“They are civilians with a few belongings just wanting to escape the violence,” we explained. We put the case for another five minutes or so and finally the soldier responded.

“Okay, we’ll let the women and children through,” he announced as though he’d made a great concession – a concession that was useless. This soldier didn’t seem to have a grip on local culture.

“The women don’t drive cars. And if one or two of them do they can’t go alone without the company of a man from their family,” I told him gently. His concession meant that none of the hundreds of cars in the queue would be able to pass.

He nodded: “Okay, we’ll let the old men through.”

Again, this would have allowed just a few cars to pass. I didn’t understand the logic in forcing the young men to stay, and questioned him. “The men who want to leave don’t want to fight you – surely you want to let them go so they are not forced to pick up a gun to defend themselves against you?”

The soldier in charge didn’t respond out loud, but one of the others did, perhaps not meaning for us to hear. “We want them all in there together so we can finish them off all at once. It makes it easier.”

I would have taken this as a joke had the soldier in charge not reiterated his command immediately. “No. The men cannot leave. We have orders.”

We headed back to the queue. The people were waiting for us, their faces hopeful. A translator explained: “The woman and children can go, and the old men.”

A clean-cut man in his forties standing near me grabbed my arm. He held his baby daughter in his arms. “Can I go?” he asked with desperation. My heart sank. I had to explain to this Iraqi man with his baby, wife and car full of kids that he could not leave the bombing, the shooting, the chaos of Fallujah on a public road that belonged to him.

A tank from a foreign country which had come with claims of ‘liberation’ was taking this man’s freedom before my eyes. I put my head down.

“No,” I said. “They won’t let you go.” I hardly believed the words as I 149spoke them. “They will let your wife and children go,” I said, knowing how stupid that would sound to him.

“How can they go alone?” he screamed pointing to the empty driver’s seat where he would have to sit for his family to escape to safety. The fear on his wife’s face crushed my heart. I couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t bear to see these families turn back to God knows what.

We headed back to the soldiers to try again. We told them the cars were all driven by men with their families. Not allowing them to pass would mean refusing women and children a passage to safety. “Do you know the Geneva Convention?” we asked, not really expecting an answer. The head guy shuffled from foot to foot as he deliberated. We stood holding our breaths with our fingers crossed.

“Okay,” he said. “Men can pass, but only if they are accompanying a family.” Yes! That would at least ensure the women and children could get out, and many of the men. We went back and explained the new condition. For people who couldn’t hear, we just pointed to their car and gave a thumbs up. They clapped, cheered and yelled out: “Thank you! God bless you!”

But it was a bitter-sweet victory – tempered by the fact that the only reason the soldiers allowed anyone through was because a bunch of foreigners were watching and reminding them of the Geneva Conventions. They should have just let them through because they were Iraqi people wanting to move about in their own country. I shuddered to think what was happening at other checkpoints. And still there were the young men. There was a large group in their early twenties in the back of a pick-up. They would not leave Fallujah today. We could not give them a logical reason and did not repeat to them the threatening words of the soldiers.

So we got back into our cars and slowly led the way through no man’s land towards the checkpoint. They searched our cars and we were ushered through. The car behind us, packed with a large family, got through too. They stuck close behind us. I turned my head to check what was happening. The soldiers were doing thorough searches of the cars. It would be a long day for these Fallujans, but hopefully they would eventually drive to safety. As for the young men who didn’t want to fight 150– they would have to go back to the hell of Fallujah and face the uncertainty of being a civilian caught in a war where there were no rules.

As we drove away, I was overcome by sadness as I remembered the fear and desperation on the faces of the people. I couldn’t help thinking: why should these people be so frightened that they are forced to flee their own homes? Why are they now refugees in their own country? Where would they go? How long will their lives be upside down? How long before the killing would stop and promised ‘freedom’ would come?

There were no answers as we drove away to the sound of another bomb blast shaking Fallujah.