[media-dakwah] "It is a puppet government nothing more or less"

Thu, 25 May 2006 23:48:07 -0700


http://musliminsuffer.blogspot.com/

bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful


=== News Update ===

"It is a puppet government nothing more or less"

  It is a puppet government nothing more or less. I don't think it is going
to accomplish anything different than the previous one. All they are
receiving They are on the receiving end of orders from the unexpected
visits by Condoleezza Rice, Jack Straw previously, and to orders from Bush
and Blair.


Haifa Zangana Interview
Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi, she is also a writer and an activist for women's
rights in her savagely battered homeland. She was an opponent of Saddam
Hussein and his regime; indeed, she was imprisoned and tortured by the
dictator.
05/25/06
<http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/index.php?page=archive&daysum=2006-05-24#>Dateline
SBS
<http://www.videos.informationclearinghouse.info/haifa240506c%281%29.rm>Download
File


TRANSCRIPT :

GEORGE NEGUS: Haifa, welcome to Australia.

HAIFA ZANGANA, WRITER AND ACTIVIST: Thank you.


GEORGE NEGUS: Do you think the Iraqis are aware of Australia's involvement
in the conflict in your country?

HAIFA ZANGANA: Oh, they are, yes. They know exactly figures and the numbers
and all what's called the coalition forces.


GEORGE NEGUS: So how significant do they think our role is?

HAIFA ZANGANA: Not very significant because mainly they are worried about
the Americans and the British and the Australians come, like, I don't know
fourth or fifth place, or even less, perhaps.


GEORGE NEGUS: You have said that the series of interim governments that
have occurred over the last few years, since the invasion, have been a
total disaster. What about the latest attempt at a government? The new
government of national unity?

HAIFA ZANGANA: Hardly anything has changed really. What we are witnessing
in this new government is almost the cloning of the same people, or the
same sectarian and ethnic divide they were establishing under Paul Bremer,
the ex-ambassador of Iraq.


GEORGE NEGUS: Will it work as a government? You're making it sound like a
puppet government.

HAIFA ZANGANA: It is a puppet government nothing more or less. I don't
think it is going to accomplish anything different than the previous one.
All they are receiving They are on the receiving end of orders from the
unexpected visits by Condoleezza Rice, Jack Straw previously, and to orders
from Bush and Blair.


GEORGE NEGUS: So you don't see it as a true attempt at an Iraqi government
at all?

HAIFA ZANGANA: It isn't at all. It is not even a government even. It is a
government of the green zone. It is an occupation government. An occupation
government, no matter what it does, it doesn't represent people and their
aspirations. People have the right to rule themselves.


GEORGE NEGUS: Are you saying that life in Iraq is no better or in fact
worse than it was under Saddam Hussein, the dictator?

HAIFA ZANGANA: He is not our moral yardstick on any level regarding
political government with political attitudes at all and invasion. So
better or worse, we are entitled o to democracy as much as any other
country. And democracy the way we understand it is not taking place at the
moment.


GEORGE NEGUS: We should look at it this way. You were imprisoned and
tortured under Saddam, right?

HAIFA ZANGANA: I was, yeah.


GEORGE NEGUS: How badly? Can you give us some picture?

HAIFA ZANGANA: Terrible. It was terrible. It was something beyond
imagination and it is still happening. The same thing is happening now in
Iraq. So we are against this continuity of torture. This is why we fought
Saddam's regime. We did not fight for 35 years to replace it by another
torturer.


GEORGE NEGUS: I guess what a lot of people in the West would say,
particularly government leaders and leaders of the coalition, is that you
can say this now. Could you say this in Iraq now? Where you couldn't
criticise Saddam without finding yourself in prison and tortured, now can
your voice be heard in Iraq?

HAIFA ZANGANA: No, you can't actually. Iraqis inside Iraq cannot say what
I'm saying at the moment here. I'm saying it because I am here. I feel safe
and secure. I would not be able to. Because whoever voicing any issue
against the occupation is Iraq is targeted. We have the academics being
targeted, we have hundreds of our scientists being killed, academics,
lectures, professors, whoever. Journalists we have the biggest campaign of
killing journalists. Fiction writers - we have a fiction writer who'd been
imprisoned for three years, not even saying a word about anything.


GEORGE NEGUS: So if you are am saying in Iraq what you are saying to me
now, would be a victim, you would be a target of that kind of treatment?

HAIFA ZANGANA: Yes, definitely.


GEORGE NEGUS: Doesn't that leave Iraq and people like yourself in a no-win
situation? If you listen to Condoleezza Rice, she says that all that has
gone wrong, the thousands of mistakes that she has acknowledged has
occurred is worth it - to get rid of Saddam, it was worth it.

HAIFA ZANGANA: This is a total farce. And it is continuing what we heard
from Madeline Albright, before that when Iraq was under sanctions, when
500,000 children were killed or died because, as a consequence of the harsh
sanctions on Iraqi people. 500,000 children were killed and she said that
the price was worth it. And here is Condoleezza Rice repeating the same
thing. "We are only committing mistakes in Iraq." It is not mistakes. When
you kill a person this is a crime, you do not call it a mistake. So crimes
are committed in Iraq every day. In fact there is an Iraqi being killed at
the minute where we're talking now. One Iraqi per every five minutes killed
as a consequence, direct consequence of the occupation. So we are asking
for the withdrawal of troops and immediate withdrawal - not to go on for 5
years or 10 years and prolonging, putting a timetable to it. The way they
walked in the troops, they have to leave.


GEORGE NEGUS: Let's talk about that. Because in the last few days Tony
Blair has talked about the withdrawal of troops, George Bush has talked
about the withdrawal of troops, Blair has gone so far as to say maybe by
the end of the year all the British and American troops will be out, I
suppose that means Australian, except for a couple of key areas like
Baghdad and the West. What would occur if there was this withdrawal that
you say Iraqis want, if that was to happen in the next six months?

HAIFA ZANGANA: To start with, we have to make it clear that the withdrawal
that Tony Blair's talking about, or Bush, is different about the withdrawal
we're talking about. I am talking about the complete withdrawal of troops.
That doesn't mean they go around and build bases, American bases in Iraq
which they are doing at the moment. There are more than 14 bases building.
And there is the biggest embassy in the world. And no signing of long-term
binding agreements, not on behalf of Iraqi people but on behalf of these
interim governments or the puppet governments at the moment. This is second.
Third - there should be a compensation for all the crimes being committed
against Iraqi people, whether in life or the destruction of the country. So
we're talking about a different kind of withdrawal. They said the country
is going to descend into civil war. But we it have already. Those
occupation forces there, they are encouraging it because they are
emphasising the force of one militia against the other, even supplying
weapons to certain militias against the other. So who is encouraging civil
war?
There is no civil war among Iraqi people themselves. There are the militias
fighting. And there is another kind of war which no-one is talking about.
This is really the fighting of Iraqi resistance against the occupation forces.


GEORGE NEGUS: How do you draw the line, then, between a terrorist and an
insurgent, and an insurgent and a resistance fighter?

HAIFA ZANGANA: There are differences. I'm talking about 80 attacks per day,
average, which has being really constant for the last two years and
targeting American and British troops. This is, for me, pure resistance. I
cannot really believe this is terrorist acts or any civilian act, attacking
civilians. This is Iraqi national movement demanding liberation,
independence and building our own country, the democracy as we see it
democracy because we are desperate for democracy and we want to do it that
way. Not by shock and awe.


GEORGE NEGUS: In the meantime, is there anything - from your contacts,
which are regular, and your visits to Iraq - is there anything vaguely
resembling normality about life? How would you describe life in Iraq?

HAIFA ZANGANA: Whenever I talk to an Iraqi, I ask, "How are you today?"
they say "Well, thanks God, we're still in one piece.


GEORGE NEGUS: Nice to meet you. Enjoy your stay.

HAIFA ZANGANA: Thank you very much.

source:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13183.htm

===


-muslim voice-
______________________________________
BECAUSE YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW 

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