Tuesday, January 17, 2006

daily Selection of IRIN Middle East reports, 1/15/2006

In response to my lasat post, I recieved an e-mail from a friend contain the following report.

U N I T E D N A T I O N S

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) - 1995-2005 ten years serving the humanitarian community

[These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENT:

1 - IRAQ: Activists call for protection of academics

BAGHDAD, 15 January (IRIN) - A network of human rights activists and journalists has called for the protection of local academics and higher level educational institutions.

The appeal, launched this month by the Brussells Tribunal, a worldwide network devoted to campaigning against the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, notes the "systematic liquidation of the country's academics."

According to conservative estimates, over 250 educators have been assassinated while hundreds more have disappeared, the network's website states.

Thousands of other academics have reportedly fled the country, in the belief that they are being targeted because they are well educated.

The Brussells Tribunal further notes that the disappearance of trained educators has led not only to "a major brain-drain," but also to the decimation of the secular middle class.

"Anyone who has the ability to imagine a secular future for the country is forced to flee," said Hana al-Bayaty, a member of the network's executive committee.

The assassinations have targeted women and men countrywide, with little reference to political or religious affiliations.

"The most striking fact is that the majority of those killed where not scientists. but were involved in the field of humanities," the anti-war organisation notes, adding that, "the motives for these assassinations are unknown."

In April 2005, the United Nations University published a report noting that 84 percent of Iraq's higher education institutions had been burnt, looted or destroyed since the start of the US-led invasion in 2003.

It went on to point out that four dozen academics had been assassinated, while many more faced daily threats.

In addition to the destruction of vital infrastructure, only 40 percent of which is under reconstruction, other problems facing Iraqi higher learning included an isolated and under-qualified teaching staff; poorly equipped libraries and laboratories; and a fast-growing student population, said the UN report.

A third of the nation's teachers held only bachelors' degrees, despite official requirements of at least a Master's degree, it added.

"The devastation of the Iraqi system of higher education has been overlooked amid other cataclysmic results of the war, but it represents an important consequence of the conflict, economic sanctions and ongoing turmoil in Iraq," noted Jairam Reddy, the study's author and director of the Jordan-based International Leadership Institute.

"Repairing Iraq's system of higher education is in many ways a prerequisite to the long-term repair of the country as a whole," Reddy added.

Iraq's educational system was formerly recognised as being one of the best in the region.

In the meantime, the campaign is calling for an international investigation into the killings and urging academic institutions in other countries to forge links with Iraqi educators, both in exile and at home.

As "an occupying power, and under international humanitarian law, final responsibility for protecting Iraqi citizens, including academics, lies with the United States," the Brussells Tribunal concluded.

Al-Bayaty said the impact of the lack of protection for academics could be felt for two to three decades: "It's a developing country so they need the brains that can contribute to the development of their society," she said.




[ENDS]

11 comments:

madtom said...

I wonder if I can offer this in comparison. Right now on C-SPAN there is a program on Iraqi Kurdistan, and they are talking about how the Kurd expat doctors are returning from Europe to work in Kurdistan, some of them having lived and trained in Europe all their lives.
They are talking about Shaqlawa Iraq, Shaqlawa public hospital. It's a temporary hospital while the new hospital is being built.

I think this is the link to the program

rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/iraq/iraq011706_iraq.rm

If that did not work try this

http://www.c-span.org/Search/advanced.asp?AdvancedQueryText=Shaqlawa+Iraq&StartDateMonth=&StartDateYear=&EndDateMonth=&EndDateYear=&Series=&ProgramIssue=&QueryType=&QueryTextOptions=&ResultCount=10&SortBy=bestmatch


Why the difference in Kurdistan, why are the academics returning to Kurdistan and at the same time you have this problem in the rest of Iraq?

Anonymous said...

It's clear that behind the assassinations of the Iraqi "intellighenzia" there are the american forces, helped by zionist agents based in kurdistan. It's the first step to subjugate a country. The Iraqis must endure their resistance and expel as soon as possible the invaders before it's too late and us-backed puppet will remain the only "intellighenzia" in the country.

madtom said...

"It's clear that behind the assassinations of the Iraqi "intellighenzia" there are the american forces,"

That does not seem clear to me at all, it sounds more like a conspiracy theory. What benefit would it bring to the US to dumb down the population, that would only drive them into the hands of the Isamist. And the expat community is surly our best friend, they having lived among us for a long time are much more likely to understand us and and make for great contacts on the ground, sort of a link between our people and the Iraqis, people who speak both languages, and I mean in a way that is more than just understanding the words, they would understand the meanings, on both sides. So it would in no way be to our benefit to keep them away. All that benefit goes to someone else. Who could that be?

Anonymous said...

Dear Truth Teller,
enjoy this link with me:

- http://icasualties.org/oif/Wounded.aspx

An interesting collection of articles of wounded american soldiers, recorded year after year of the infamous crusader invasion of the Arab Iraq. The americans are gaining nothing from their Iraqi adventure. Everyday they fall in pieces, massacrated, mutilated, burned, with brain wounds, becoming paraplegic, torn apart by precision bombing of the resistance. Their army is dissolving, none more want to join the us army, neither immigrants. I want to signal also an interesting gallery:

- http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/wounded/gallery.htm

This is a total disaster for americans. The resistance is doing a good work.

Truth teller said...

madtom

Sorry I can't open the two links. but any way, I knew Shaqlawa very well, it located in the province of Erbil. About 20 minutes from Erbil.
Erbil is about 70 km. north of Mosul, the people of Erbil are very nice. it is a safe plece now.
" the Kurd expat doctors are returning from Europe to work in Kurdistan"

I know nothing about this, but I know that the patients from Erbil and Duhook, are coming to Musul for treatment. In addition several doctors fled from Mosul and settled in Duhook and Erbil many of them are my friends, because they either recieved a threatening letter, or have been kidnapped and released after paying a ransom.

In addition the people from Erbil and Duhook always complained from the fleeing of good doctors to out side Iraq.

1/19/2006 09:02:33 AM

Anonymous said...

The Iraqi resistance can contrast the powerful army of the earth because he has the quite total support of the population. The shhiites are partially collaborative with americans only because they know they'll gain power in the "democratic" way through elections.
For make clear my thought, watch this gallery that rappresent the typical situation of Iraq war:

- http://images.abolkhaseb.net/3loj/index.htm

Regard the resistance, their actions are directed against occupiers and puppet collaborators (army, police...). When a car bomb detonate in an Iraqi city killing scores of Iraqi civilians, the Iraqis say that this is a cia-zionist operations made to discredit the resistance and none blame the resistance. The precision bombing are roadside bomb blasts, mortar and rocket attacks on occupiers basis, ambush with automatic weapons and rpg against american convoys. They are working well. See someone of these precision bombings in Ogrish:

- http://www.ogrish.com/archives/jaish_al_mujahideen_releases_new_sniping_video_Jan_10_2006.html
- http://www.ogrish.com/archives/ied_attack_on_humvee_and_desert_patrol_vehicle_Jan_12_2006.html
- http://www.ogrish.com/archives/army_of_ansar_al_sunnah_ied_strike_on_humvee_Jan_15_2006.html
- http://www.ogrish.com/archives/1920_revolutionary_brigades_ied_attack_on_a_humvee_Jan_16_2006.html
- http://www.ogrish.com/archives/army_of_mujahideen_claims_it_shot_down_apache_Jan_16_2006.html
- http://www.ogrish.com/archives/iraqi_sniper_attack_against_us_soldier_in_baghdad_Jan_18_2006.html

By Allah, I repeat: the bush crusader army is badly losing in Iraq.

madtom said...

So you think this propaganda is going to win the war, you think that Iraqis that know exactly who plant the bombs are going to blame the Zionist? It's not even working in Afghanistan much less in Iraq where the people have much greater access to information.
You can believe whatever you want, but your not fooling anyone. The people see who brought the shia the opportunity to rise and be counted, and they know who is resentful of their new found power. it is a clear sign of the high quality of the Iraqi public that they have not cleansed the old guard. I only hope that their strength of caricature will last.

Anonymous said...

@ B Will Derd
(You contribution to the 'resistance' in Iraq) &
(OPERATION IRAQI CHILDREN)

>I guess your crash test dummies are helping to re-build schools for poor Iraqi children, so they can lurch up in their roofs to shoot their fathers!

Anonymous said...

It's incredible... There are people that still believe the Iraqis support the zionist backed plan of the "great middle east" and the imposition of the so-called democracy in Arab countries. Like the owner of the blog said, the average Iraqis simple want the americans being vanished from the Iraqi streets. The propaganda about Iraqis supporting americans is a bunch of lies. Check regard it:

- http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/1597965.php

- http://www.wtv-zone.com/Mary/AMARINESLASTLETTER.HTML

The fact that the large majority of Iraqis support the resistance is unquestionable. The same us army command admitted in the Al Sadr revolt in april 2004 that the 80% of Iraqis (everyone in Iraq, except the kurds) supported the shia rebels leaded by Al Sadr. Later, in the autumn 2004 the us command said in a triumphal and ridicolous statement that the popular support for Al Sadr dropped to "only" 50%.
The americans recruited a local Iraqi army, choosing a well know colonialist tactic that intend put Iraqis against Iraqis, and for down their casualties. Casualties, as I said in previous comments, very heavy. More heavy of the official toll. Check about it:

- http://www.the7thfire.com/Iraq_War/further_evidence_of_mass_graves.htm

I wonder when this scandal will became public, after the scandal of tortures and the use of WMD in Falluja.

Bruno said...

Speaking of tortures, have you seen the sentence given to the American soldier who murdered the Iraqi General Mowhoush?

Take a look here:

http://truth-about-iraqis.blogspot.com/2006/01/die-iraqis-die.html#links

It shows just how seriously the US Army takes murder and torture committed by its servicemen. That is to say, not very seriously at all.

indigo said...

allahuakbar said...

It's incredible... There are people that still believe the Iraqis support the zionist backed plan of ...

You are right, it is barely credible - until one remembers that Americans are the most brain-washed nation on earth.