[antiwar-van] Fw: Reminder - Rally in Protest of Siege of Falluja - Fri 4 p.m. US Consulate

[Paul Browning]

Message
----- Original Message ----- 
From: StopWar.ca 
To: rbaxter at epilogicconsulting.com 
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 1:31 PM
Subject: Reminder - Rally in Protest of Siege of Falluja - Fri 4 p.m. US Consulate


StopWar.ca has endorsed the international call for emergency mobilizations against the occupation of Iraq, responding to the escalating violence and repression, and threat of additional troop deployments. At least 600 Iraqi people have been killed since the siege of Falluja began, many of them children, women and the elderly.  StopWar.ca invites you to join us for a rally on: 
Friday, April 16 
4p.m. 
U.S. Consulate (W.Pender at Thurlow) 
Organized by StopWar.ca in solidarity with the Palestine Community Centre 
  
  

On March 20th, 20,000-plus in Vancouver and millions around the world marched to say that the world still says no to war and occupation.  Recent events only further confirm that the anti-war movement was right, and that occupation is not liberation. 

Falluja 
A documentary poem 
 based on brave Jo Wilding's 11 April message 

Fires are burning on the highway 
on the highway to Falluja 
trucks, oil tankers, tanks are burning 
Resistance fighters hold the roads 

Last night I was told of children 
children with their limbs blown off 
in the hell that is Falluja 
US soldiers circulating 
"leave now or be killed" they said 
Aid is desperately needed 
Blankets, bandages and dressings, 
plasma, drugs and medicines 
wheels to take the wounded out 

In a bus now, with Iraqis 
as a passenger I'm useful 
Speaking English helps at check-points 
manned by angry US troops 
On the way towards Falluja 
passers by are giving food 
throw it through our open windows 
to hand out to the people there. 

Surprisingly our bus gets through 
We are in Falluja now 
at a doctor's makeshift clinic 
Red Crescent aid is far away. 

Another casual war time crime: 
US air-strikes have destroyed 
Falluja's biggest hospital. 

A ten year old is being treated 
and a smaller child beside him 
hit by US sniper fire 
also hit was their grandmother 
when they tried to leave the town 
The lights dim out, a flashlight shines 
the operation carries on 
"It's no use" the doctor tells us, 
"these children are not going to live." 

Some said we're mad to come to Iraq 
Falluja? You must be insane! 
to risk that deadly sniper fire 
to pick up sick and injured people. 
But if we don't then no one will. 

The ambulance we have is damaged 
snipers shot at it four times 
no one dares to get the wounded 
Arab speech  makes bullets fly 
but English voices may get through 

We drive in a ferocious silence 
under our red crescent flag 
through this deadly no-man's-land 
We stop and I shout out: "Hello" 
"Is anybody there ?" I yell 
"We are a first-aid team," I shout 
"Can I get this wounded man?" 
"Yeah," a soldier gives permission 

Slowly with our hands held high 
we walk towards the wounded man 
as we lift him blood pours from 
a bullet hole drilled in his back 
through his blue-black football shirt 
less than twenty years of age 
we take him back, but he is dead 

We wash the blood off from our hands 
and set off in the ambulance 
to the only hospital 
standing in Falluja now 
there are many patients trapped there 
leaving in our bus to Baghdad 
is their one and only hope 
Siren screaming, lights all flashing 
Somehow we get safely through 
and fill the ambulance with wounded 
returning safely to the clinic 

A doctor rushes out to meet me 
"A pregnant woman needs our help 
can you get her?" Off we set 
Azzam drives; Ahmed directs him 
I am the passport US face 
A bullet hits the ambulance 
We stop at once, turn off the siren 
our blue light flashes overhead 
We can see US Marines 
Silhouettes among the shadows 
We lie low, and more shots come 
red lights whipping past the window 
close by my head; I start to sing 
What else can you do when shot at? 
A big bang and a jerk together 
means they hit one of our tires 

I am outraged: We're trying to save 
a woman who is giving birth 
there is no medical attention 
there is no electricity 
Falluja's in a deadly siege 
our ambulance is clearly marked 
and now you're shooting at us? 
How dare you do this crime,  how dare you! 

Azzam shifts into reverse 
just as they burst another tire 
and with  smell of burning rubber 
we scrape and clatter on the rims 
somehow safely round a corner 
and all the time the shots kept coming 
what could I do? I kept on singing. 
We get back to the clinic safely 
in our ruined ambulance 
and somewhere out there in the darkness 
a woman's giving birth alone 

The ambulance is wrecked, besides 
my face at night is no protection. 
So we sit around and listen 
 planes are overhead all night 
the thumping helicopters and 
the frantic thrash of bombing jets 
explosion follows each explosion 
as Falluja is destroyed 

Haggard doctors in the morning. 
Little sleep in this past week. 
We go again, Dave, Rana,  me, 
We're in a pickup truck this time 
There's sick who need evacuation 
Marines are on the building tops 
shooting anything that moves 

Saad fetches a white flag and tells us 
"Don't be afraid, I've checked the road 
the Mujahedin will not fire at you" 
says this eleven-year old, our guard 
his AK-47 beside him 
almost equal's him in height 
his face obscured by his keffiyeh 
except his eyes, so brown and bright. 

We shout up to the soldiers, saying 
"Thirteen women and children live 
in the building underneath you 
some are sick and all lack water 
will you let us help them now?" 

"We're clearing houses" said a soldier 
"doing a weapons search, but soon 
there'll be air strikes in support 
you'd better get your work done quick." 

We go down the street before us 
There's a white-clad man, face down, 
a small red stain spreads on his back. 
from the round that blew his heart out 
again, the flies have got there first 
there is no weapon in his hand. 
All at once, his sons come, crying, 
"He was unarmed, they scream, Unarmed!" 
He just went out the gate, they shot him. 
No one dared to come out since. 
He was unarmed, shot in the back. 
His little girls come whispering 
"Baba. Baba."  Daddy, Daddy 
They'll never hear his voice again. 

The people pour out from the houses 
in hope that we can take them out 
But "men of fighting age can't leave" 
says a Marine. "What's fighting age?" 
"All under forty five," he says. 

It is appalling that these men 
will be trapped in a city which 
will soon  be blasted and destroyed. 
Not all of them are fighters, few are armed. 
 It's going to happen out of sight 
far from the Media in Falluja 
safe, embedded with Marines 

The bus is going to leave and take 
the injured people to Baghdad, 
Rana says she'll stay and help. 
Dave and I don't hesitate: 
We tell them that we're staying too 
"and if we don't," we ask, "who will?" 
this has become our motto now. 
But Azzam says we have to go 
His contacts with armed groups are loose 
The wounded  must go to Baghdad 
If we are kidnapped or shot dead 
it will cause  problems,  better that 
we just get on the bus and leave 
and come back with him later on. 

It hurts to climb aboard just when 
the doctor said:  Evacuate 
more people from this hell. 
 I hate the fact that medics who have skill 
can't ride a truck in safety,  while I can, 
because I might look like the sniper's sister, 
but that's the way it is today 
and that's the way it was yesterday 
and I feel like a traitor leaving now. 

Jassim is scared. He constantly harangues 
Mohammed, tries to pull him from 
the driver's seat while we are moving. 
The woman with the gunshot wound 
is on the back seat and the man 
with the burns in front of her, 
being fanned with cardboard from an empty box, 
 his intravenous drips swings from the rail 
along the ceiling of the bus. 
The heat  must be unbearable for him. 

Saad comes up on the bus to wish us well 
He shakes Dave's hand and then shakes mine. 
I hold his hand in both of mine and say: 
"Dir balak," You take care, 
and know just how inane this sounds 
to this pre-teen Mujahedin 
with his Kalashnikov 
held in his other hand 
Our eyes meet and stay fixed, 
his full of fire and fear. 

Why can't I take him far away? 
back where he can be like a child again? 
Why can't I find the one who put 
the rifle in the hands of this small boy 
and tell them what this does to a small child? 

The long road back is tense, 
as people make escape in anything, 
piled on the trailer of a tractor, 
long lines of cars, pick ups and buses 
ferry all these people to 
the doubtful safety of Baghdad, 

While meeting us and heading back 
towards Falluja, men who took 
their families out to safety 
and who now, return to fight 
or help evacuate those who remain. 

Now back  in Baghdad we can watch 
the news by satellite which says 
the cease-fire in Falluja is still good 
and Bush is saying to the troops 
on Easter Sunday that, he knows 
what we are doing in Iraq is right. 

Shooting unarmed men in the back 
outside their family home, is right? 
Shooting grandmothers with white flags, is right? 
Shooting at women and children 
who are fleeing their homes, is right? 
Firing at ambulances is right? 

Well George, I now know just what 
 it looks like when you brutalize 
a people so they've nothing left to lose. 
I know what it looks like to see 
an operation  being done without 
an anesthetic when the hospitals 
have been destroyed or  hit by sniper fire 
and all Falluja's under siege 
that cuts off what a city needs 
I know what it looks like 
when tracer bullets pass close to my head, 
even though I'm in an ambulance. 

I know that what the USA now does 
in Iraq is not "right;" it is a crime 
and is a deep disgrace to all. 

David Morgan, Tuesday 13 April, Burnaby, BC. 

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