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Rape of Iraqi girls by US mercenaries
and soldiers was rampant in Baghdad
One victim was a 9 year old girl
who suffered permanent vaginal injuries
by
Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California - May 6, 2004 - (ACN)
The recent apology by President George Bush to the
Iraqi people is not sufficient to undo the horrible
pillage and rape of Iraqi women and girls that took
place during the early days of the US occupation of
Baghdad. There is some evidence that the invading US
forces were provided with amphetamines and
pornographic materials to incite their thorough
ravaging of Baghdad.
Reports of sexual violence and abduction of women and
girls abounded in Baghdad during the early days of
the occupation . . . reports that the US government
chose to ignore. Human rights groups, medical
practitioners, victims, and witnesses had documented
many of the crimes.
A large number of the abductions and rapes were
committed and filmed by hired mercenaries of the
Pentagon and many of these photographs and videos
wound up in for-pay pornographic websites based in
the United States. One of these websites has shut
down ever since La Voz de Aztlan made this
information public
The rape ordeal she suffered at the hands of US soldiers, both males and females, in the notorious Abu Gharib prison will continue to haunt Nadia for the rest of her life.
Though freed now, she is "imprisoned" in painful memories that left her psychologically and physically scarred, paying the price of the brutality and sadism of her American jailers.
Nadia, the name given by a freed Iraqi female prisoner to Al-Wasat, a weekly supplement of the respectable London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, felt it incumbent upon herself to speak out and expose the less-talked-about abuse of female prisoners in US-run detention camps across Iraq.
Her visit to a relative ended up in her detention by American troops, who stormed the home under the preferable excuse of "searching for weapons".
"I tried in vain to convince the impeded interpreter I was a guest, but I lost consciousness to find myself later in a dingy dark cell all by myself," Nadia recalled.
With tears rolling down her cheeks, she told the paper how she was stripped by her "liberators" of the most precious thing an Arab and Muslim women can have: Her virginity.
"A thrill of fear ran through me when I saw US soldiers laughing hysterically with a female solider telling me mockingly in an Arabic accent ‘I never heard about female arms dealer in Iraq’," Nadia said.
"As I tried hard to explain to her that I was wrongly rounded up, the female soldier started accosting and kicking me with my cries and pleas falling on dead ears."
She went on: "She gave me a cup of water and no sooner had I started sipping it than I went into a deep trance to find myself later naked and raped."
‘Like Animals’
Only then Nadia realized that hard times and an uncertain fate were lying ahead.
And days proved her right. The other day, five soldiers fondled and raped her one after another in a distasteful sex orgy on the tunes of culturally offensive heavy metal music.
"One month later, a soldier showed up and told me in broken Arabic to take a shower. And before finishing my bath, he kicked the door open. I slapped him but he raped me like animals and called two of his colleagues, who forced me to have sex with them for up to 10 times," added Nadia.
"Four months later, the female soldier came along with four male soldiers with a digital camera. She stripped me naked and started fondling me as if she was a man while her male colleagues broke into laughter and started taking photos.
"Reluctant as I was, she fired four shots close to my head and threatened to kill me if I resist. Then, four soldiers raped me sadistically and I lost conscience. Later, she forced me to watch a clip of my raping, saying bluntly: ‘Your were born to give us pleasure’."
Naida was set free from the US hell in Abu Gharib after spending up to six months there.
The American soldiers dumped her along the highway of Abu Gharib and gave her a meager of 10,000 dinars to "start a new life".
Too ashamed to return home, she now works as a housemaid for an Iraqi family.
Britain’s mass-circulation The Guardian revealed on May 12 that US soldiers in Iraq have sexually humiliated and abused several Iraqi female detainees in Abu Gharib.
In its May 10-17 issue, the Newsweek said that yet-unreleased Abu Gharib abuse photos "include an American soldier having sex with a female Iraqi detainee and American soldiers watching Iraqis have sex with juveniles."
The Iraqi abuse scandal exploded onto the world stage on April 29 after the CBS news network published several shocking photos of Iraqi detainees tortured and sexually abused by US soldiers.
In a damning report presented to the administration in February, before the outbreak of the scandal, US Major General Antonio Taguba found numerous "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" at the prison complex.
by Saadalla Al Fathi:
I said to myself, these are perhaps the sign posts of every occupation and not just in Iraq. During the discussions of that paper, one of the participants, confirmed by many others, talked about Abu Gharib prison. His words came back to pierce my ears in the past two days.
He said "I swear to you that we have been receiving letters and messages from Abu Gharib women prisoners asking that the prison be targeted by the resistance to kill them and spare them from the torture, humiliation and mistreatment that they were receiving at the hands of their captors."
I did not want to believe him, not because I thought he was not telling the truth but because such truth is too hard on anyone and I wanted, selfishly, to spare myself the agony. A few days later I met a friend coming out of Baghdad and he told me that two ladies from his neighbourhood were in Abu Gharib prison for a few weeks.
When they came out they were speechless when asked about what happened to them and how they were treated. Their only answer was tears and more tears. After many repeated attempts one of them only managed to say "I was touched" and left the rest to the imagination of her visitors. My friend also told me that some men were made to walk naked in front of women prisoners and vice versa.
For the same reason, I did not want to believe all that. Apparently in Iraq many more horrifying stories have been going around on a wide scale. However, nothing we heard comes close to the horror that was about to unfold. Can I still say after the release of these horrible images on every television screen in the world that I don't want to believe?
I do not want to repeat to you a description of these terrible scenes as we have all seen them and in any case it is beyond my literary ability. But I am now certain that we have only seen the tip of the ceberg and we better prepare ourselves for more.
by
Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de Aztlan
Los Angeles, Alta California - May 21, 2004 - (ACN) The new photographs released today of the depraved sexual abuse of Iraqi POW's by the US Military Police on orders of CIA and Israeli operatives at the Abu Ghraib prison still do not show the worst of the war crimes. The photographs so far officially released are, without exception, only of male Iraqi prisoners of war. According to returning Mexican-American soldiers and staff members of Congressmen who have viewed the videos and photographs in private sessions, there are far more shocking photographs that have not been released to the public. Senator Richard J. Durbin himself said "There were some awful scenes. It felt like you were descending into one of the rings of hell, and sadly it was our own creation". Other members of Congress said, after viewing the images, that they included Iraqi women exposing their breasts and other private parts. Congressman Martin T. Meehan said, ''I was obviously shocked and horrified to discover that the new photos are even more gruesome than those we have seen in the media. Some of the pictures and videos show actual intercourse between male and female soldiers."
Translated by Prof. Dr. Q. Al-Samarrai
[email protected]
To my own folk, to my own people in Ramadi, Khalidiyya and Falluja… to all the people of the world who endear their dignity and honour, is my appeal.
From the American- Zionist prison of Abu Ghraib, your very sister Nur sends you this letter but the question is: from where shall I start? By God I do not know how to describe to you the misery and the indignation in the prison; the hunger we suffer the humiliation we experience while you enjoy your meals to gluttony? Or the thirst while you drink as you please? Or the sleepless nights we are subjected to by our American prisoners? Or our nakedness that our prisoners like us to parade in front of them? O’ dear brother, when we see your trucks and cars transporting building materials for the Americans, our hearts jump because those trucks and cars belong to my people and to my own town then I reflect with a bleeding heart: O’ God! My people have sold their honour and dignity in exchange for a bundle of American Dollars, but when I reflect upon our desecrated honour and my situation, I burst into tears. O’ dear brothers and sisters, how I, in God’s name, can describe or put in words, the suffering we undergo and experience at the hands of the Americans, let alone the severe beating and daily torture because we do not give in to their lusty and sexual desires!!! O’ the spiritual leaders of our beloved faith, where do you hide your faces from the shame and dishonour that the Americans brought upon you and us?? Have you already forgotten the preaching of our most revered Prophet to safeguard your honour? Have you already sold yourselves and us to the American and Zionists in the slave market in return for a few Dollars? Have you lost your honour and dignity?? Have you forgotten that God has put us in you trust; to keep, to cherish and protect our honour from desecration? The Americans in Abu Ghraib have already desecrated your and our honour. In the name of the almighty God and those who read my letter world wide to raise their voices against the brutal treatment we undergo at the hand of our prisoners. It is worse than the Palestinians in the Zionist’s prisoners but here they rape us, they desecrated and violated our sacred honour like wild bests. We scream for help to save us from these bests but no one seems to hear our desperate cry. Finally, if there still any atom of honour in your hearts,O’ leaders of the community, do attack this notorious prison with every weapon at your disposal killing them and us altogether because our wombs are already pregnant with their bastards. We love to die than bringing shame upon you or upon our families and our land; kill us, I beseech you to the sake of God to kill us with the Americans and their bastards.
Your Sister
Nur.
Arabic Translation
Soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Brigade - the same military unit whose troops fired on the car carrying the freed Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena - were under investigation last year for raping Iraqi women, US army documents reveal.
Four soldiers were alleged to have raped the two women while on guard duty in a Baghdad shopping precinct. A US army investigator interviewed several soldiers from the military unit, the 1-15th battalion of the 3rd Infantry Brigade - but did not locate or interview the Iraqi women involved - before shutting down the inquiry for lack of evidence.
Transcripts of the investigation, obtained by the Guardian from the American Civil Liberties Union, show only the most cursory attempts by the investigator to establish whether the women were raped.
Following the initial revelations, two important reports came to light: a report prepared by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in February 2004 and another compiled for the U.S. military by General Antonio Taguba at the beginning of the year. Following are some of the ICRC's findings:
* The crimes were not confined to Abu Ghraib, but occurred in more than a dozen "internment facilities" in central and southern Iraq, "indicating a consistent pattern… of brutal behavior during arrest."
(page 6)
And who was being detained and subjected to this treatment--terrorists, armed insurgents, common criminals? On the contrary, the ICRC report concludes that "between 70% and 90% of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake," according to Coalition intelligence officers themselves.(2)
For its part, the Taguba report documented these findings:
* During the time of the investigation (October to December 2003), there were "numerous instances of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses." Following are some examples taken directly from Taguba's report:
* Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; arranging naked male detainees in a pile and then jumping on them; positioning a naked detainee on a box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture; placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee's neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture; a male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.
* Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; threatening detainees with a charged 9mm pistol; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick; using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.(3)
Amnesty International has expressed its concern over "numerous human rights violations against Iraqi juveniles, including detentions, torture and ill-treatment, and killings," and an article in the Scottish Sunday Herald determined that at least 107 children were still being held several weeks after the onset of the prisoner-abuse scandal.(7) An Iraqi television reporter saw the children's wing of the prison when he was arrested and held for 74 days while making a documentary. The reporter, Suhaib Badr-Addin al-Baz, said that he saw "boys, under the age of puberty" being held. "There were certainly hundreds of children in this camp." He recalled the beating by Americans of a 12-year-old girl, and added that he "heard her cries and whimpering daily."
Remember that case of a US soldier in Iraq "having sex" with a young Iraqi soldier in a watchtower or observation post and then shooting him in the head? WTF?
'U.S. Soldier Killed Iraqi Teenager after Sex'
By: PA on: 19.12.2004 [12:11 ] (672 reads)
(1573 bytes) Print
A US national guardsman who pleaded guilty to killing a 17-year-old Iraqi soldier said he shot the young man after they had consensual sex in a guard tower, a newspaper reported today, citing court-martial records.
Private Federico Daniel Merida, 21, of the North Carolina National Guard, pleaded guilty to murder without premeditation and other charges during a court-martial in Iraq on September 25.
Merida was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He is being held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
Merida, who was born in Veracruz, Mexico, has a wife and toddler son.
Army officials at Forward Operating Base Danger, where the court-martial was held in Iraq, had previously withheld details of the case.
But The News & Observer of Raleigh, North Carolina, reported today that records show Merida and the Iraqi were on guard duty on May 11 in a tower on the perimeter of an army camp near Tikrit in northern Iraq. At around 10.30pm, Merida shot the teenager 11 times with his carbine.
Merida first told investigators the 17-year-old demanded money at gunpoint. Later, he said he killed the boy because he forced him to have sex. In a third interview, Merida said he got angry after the two had consensual sex.
He also pleaded guilty to two counts of giving false statements.
Merida apologised to the victim’s family during the court-martial, records show. “He was a son, a brother, someone very important to them,” he said. “I took someone they loved and cared for.”
We should NEVER have invaded that country.
But to claim that it is systematically going on is just insane.
''This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of which were spread everywhere... — were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees."--Rudolf Hoess, SS commandant, Auschwitz.''
Originally posted by SportyMB
But to claim that it is systematically going on is just insane.
Anyways, If this were a widespread problem thru-out the US military in Iraq someone would speak up...ya know Soldiers and Marines are people too...we know right from wrong and something like this would not go unnoticed by even the mainstream medias of all countries.
Read the interrogation techniques memo's , the same ones that east coast kid is reading
But, I contend, it is not the fault of those in the lower echelons. The fault lies at the feet of those making policy (namely Rumsfeld). It is they who should be frogged-marched to the dock.
How many reports do we need to convince the people that this abuse is, in fact, systemic?
No disrespect - but if you've ever been in a war, or in an occupied land, you would understand how dangerous it is for someone who blows the whistle on corruption
In answer to you, the torture in the prisons is sytematic, not just in abu gharib, but in guantanamo, camp Bucca, etc etc.
As for the crimes commited against the local population, read the very first article that i posted. They can't be described as systematic, but they can't be described as completely random either
Originally posted by Syrian Sister
The resistance, has no reason to kill their own families. Think logically. Who benefits.
Shots
Yeah right, you want me to post the exact quote because you can't bother to go and search for it yourself, Go learn how to use google shots.
The third convention, relative to the treatement of prisoners, article four. It's not that hard. Run along and find the quote.
As for the crimes commited against the local population, read the very first article that i posted. They can't be described as systematic, but they can't be described as completely random either
Finally you answered my question...abuse/rapes on the local population are not systematic, you said so yourself.
Thank you for agreeing