Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Il calvario degli Accademici e Scienziati Irakeni

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1719417,00.html
Death of a professor
 There is now a systematic campaign to assassinate Iraqis who speak out
against the occupation
 Haifa Zangana
Tuesday February 28, 2006
The Guardian
 In a letter to a friend in Europe, Abdul Razaq al-Na'as, a Baghdad
university professor in his 50s, grieved for his killed friends and
colleagues. His letter concluded: "I wonder who is next!" He was. On
January 28 al-Na'as drove from his office at Baghdad University. Two
cars blocked his, and gunmen opened fire, killing him instantly.
Al-Na'as is not the first academic to be killed in the mayhem of the
"new Iraq". Hundreds of academics and scientists have met this fate
since the March 2003 invasion. Baghdad universities alone have mourned
the killing of over 80 members of staff. The minister of education
stated recently that during 2005, 296 members of education staff were
killed and 133 wounded.
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 Not one of these crimes has been investigated by the occupation forces
or the interim governments. They leave that to international
humanitarian groups and anti-war organisations. Among them is the
Brussels Tribunal on Iraq, which has compiled a list to persuade the UN
special rapporteur on summary executions to investigate the issue; they
do so with the help of Iraqi academics, who risk their lives in the
process. Their research shows that the victims have been men and women
from all over Iraq, from different ethnic, religious and political
backgrounds. Most were vocally opposed to the occupation. For the most
part, they were killed in a fashion that suggests cold-blooded
assassination. No one has claimed responsibility.
Like many Iraqis, I believe these killings are politically motivated
and connected to the occupying forces' failure to gain any significant
social support in the country. For the occupation's aims to be
fulfilled, independent minds have to be eradicated. We feel that we are
witnessing a deliberate attempt to destroy intellectual life in Iraq.
Dr al-Na'as was a familiar face on al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya TV. He had
often condemned the continued presence of US-led troops in Iraq, and
criticised the sectarian interim governments and their militias. His
case echoes the assassination of the academic Dr Abdullateef al-Mayah.
A prominent human rights campaigner and critic of the occupation, Mayah
was killed only 12 hours after he had appeared on al-Jazeera denouncing
the corruption of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.
Militias have replaced the disbanded Iraqi army, applying their own
rule of law. Some units operate under a semblance of "legality" - the
"wolf brigade", attached to the interior ministry, is infamous for its
terror raids on mosques and the torture of civilians.
Last month the journalist Abdul Hadi al-Zaidi accused the government's
militias of targeting intellectuals. He is one of a group of Iraqi
journalists who, in the aftermath of al-Na'as's assassination, went on
strike, demanding an immediate investigation into the "systematic
assassination campaign" against intellectuals opposed to the
occupation.
After the July London bombings, Tony Blair promised the British people
to "bring those responsible to justice". In Iraq, the British
government does exactly the opposite. The law of occupation states
that: "All foreign soldiers, diplomats or contractors implicated in the
killing of Iraqi civilians are immune from arrest or trial in Iraq."
Both the British and US governments turn a blind eye to the systematic
violations of human rights and murders committed by their clients in
Iraq.
It has become obvious that the occupation forces, with their elite
troops and $6bn-a-month budget, cannot hold Iraq. The only honorable
and realistic way out is genuine dialogue with the Iraqi resistance
over a complete withdrawal of foreign troops and adequate reparations
and debt-cancellation to rebuild the country.
* Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and former prisoner of
Saddam's regime; a longer version of this article will appear in Not
One More Death, published next month by Verso

against the occupation
*ROTFL*
Ci mancava pure il complottismo di quegli imbecilli del Guardian :)
-Stefano