Journal 3 -- Straight out of Palestine

Straight Out of Palestine

This afternoon, the delegation was to visit a girls' orphanage. Although this was something that I was initially quite interested in, by the time it rolled around, I was a little burned out on seeing aid projects, and Kahan and I decided to take a walk, take some pictures and go to the Internet cafe. We were just sitting around, deciding where to go, when Ahmed came in and asked what we were doing.

"Nothing," I replied, "what are you up to?"

"A friend of mine got arrested," he said. "Want to come with us to find him?"

Okay, I thought, this is the occupation watch I know and love.

"Yalla," I said

There were eleven of us: David Martinez, a filmmaker from New York; Usma, a young British woman who has started a youth center with a friend of hers and also works with a circus group entertaining children; Paola and Eman from Occupation Watch; Jodie Evans, co-founder of Code Pink and leader of our delegation; the arrested man's wife and her brother and sister; Ahmed, Kahan and I. Usma, Kahan, Paola and I all crowded in the back of Ahmed's sedan as he tore through the streets of Adamiya, the area where he grew up.

Issam Rashid is a freelance cameraman working with various international news agencies. Ahmed and Usma feel responsible for him, because, Usma says, she "introduced him to the camera." Jodie met him yesterday, when he filmed a small demonstration we attended for women's political rights. He had said he wanted to go to the orphanage with us and film the delegation. He was arrested at 2:00 a.m. last night. His wife said he was taken out by four U.S. military police who came to the house with two Iraqi policemen. They accused him of having filmed resistance activity in Adamiya, which as I said previously, is an area of strong resistance.

Our search started about 2:30 p.m. at the U.S. army base in Adamiya, which is headquartered in the old National Palace. It's a massive complex, and it took us a while to find the right gate. Once we did, we were greeted by some soldiers from the First Armored Division, Unit 23. Jodie explained that she is here with a women's delegation and will be reporting to Congress when she returns, and that Issam was supposed to do some work for us today, but he was unavailable because he was detained. She said she was concerned and wanted to know where he is. They checked and told us Issam was not there.

"We never hold people here more than overnight," Specialist Ellis, an African American from North Carolina, told me. "We always take them to the BSA." The BSA, they told Ahmed, is in the Olympic Stadium, back across the river.

We went to the BSA. Since again we were not sure where the entrance was, we stopped briefly for directions outside a building that says, "Iraqi Basketball Association." Groups of men in training clothes, some of them extremely tall, were being searched and let in. We were all glad to know that the basketball program is on track, even if the restoration of water services is not.

It was about 3:30 when we arrived at the stadium, which is now, according to Paola and Eman, a huge detention center. (If it gives you the creeps to think of thousands of people being detained in a stadium, you are not alone.) The two drivers dropped us at the gate and went to park. We were going to wait for them, but Eman got worried that the Iraqi head of the prison would be leaving for the day, so we decided most of us would go ahead, and the Iraqi guys guarding the gate said they would tell Ahmed and Issam's brother where to go. When we got to the inner gate, we all walked through, but then the guards came running after us. Only two could go, they said, Jodie and Eman as translator. Paola managed to get in too, but we could not get them to let Issam's wife go along. His wife yelled at the Iraqi policemen. I didn't understand all of what she said, but at the end I understood, "Screw the Americans, you are strong here."

At 4:05 Eman came back alone. She said that the Iraqi police had told the American commander that Issam's wife had cursed him. She was worried about her, and had come to take her back to the car. Soon,Paola
and Jodie came back too. Jodie said Sergeant Karsden, from Iowa, who has been here one year and leaves in March, told her that Issam was not here either. He said that we should check the Iraqi police station at Adamiya, and if he was not there, then he was likely in the main prison at Abu Grebe.

No one wants to hear the name Abu Grebe. If you go there, you do not come out. If he is there, it is likely to be months before anyone can even find out where he is. We headed back to Adamiya.

We arrived at the police station at 4:40. We could not go that near the police station, we were greeted by several policemen in a sort of pen made of big concrete blocks and razor wire. We explained what we wanted, they radioed, and then one of the men went into the station. He came back saying no, Issam was not there. In response to our insistence, Captain Abdelrahman came out and said, "If the Americans took him, they would not bring him here. You say it was the military police who took him, and if so, we will not have any information about him."

At 5:22, we arrived at the Civilian/Military Operations Center, or CMOC, at Camp Rulan. The CMOC is where Iraqis can go to make complaints about random shootings, property damage and other losses caused by army activity. We talked to more guys from the First Airborne, Unit Alpha 23. They radioed and said that Issam was not there, that they never hold anyone there, but always take them to the Palace (the place where we started). A soldier whose helmet said Diaz told me he was not allowed to give me his name and rank without authorization from higher up.

When Jodie said, "Four GIs took him out of his house at 2:00 a.m.," Diaz shook his head.

"If it was four GIs, it wasn't us."

We asked what he meant.

"You'll never find us going into a house with just four guys," he said.

She added that there were also two Iraqi policemen. He shook his head again. "It wasn't us."

She asked how many guys they would go with.

"A lot more," he said.

PV2 Holland, of Lake Charles, Louisiana (like in the Lucinda Williams song), was more interested in talking to us than his comrade. When Jodie commented that he didn't have much of a southern accent, he said when he first got here, nearly a year ago, he tried to learn Arabic, and it made him lose his accent. He didn't learn Arabic, but he does like the Iraqi people. They know lots of their neighbors, he said, "and they're great people. It is not like I thought when I first got here. I thought, 'They'll all shoot you every day,' but it's not like that at all. They call us 'Mr. Pepsi,' and say, 'shrob shai' (drink tea)."

I asked PV2 Holland if they do any paperwork when they arrest someone on patrol. He said, "I don't know. We just take them to the Palace." I said, "So you don't write anything up about it?" He said he did not know. "I'm not of rank to know that," he said. "That's always an officer."

We tried to convince Diaz and Holland to call the Palace to ask again if Issam was there. They refused.

David said, "Well, can we get a phone number for them so we can call?"

Diaz said, "We never use phones, or computers."

At that point, Eman realized she had a phone number for the Palace. Paola went to call. She spoke with the commander and told him that Jodie was here on a fact-finding mission for a Congressman and Issam was working with her, and he said he would try to find out where he is and call her back in a few hours.

While we stood there, an Iraqi boy came to the gate and said he needed to go to "the house." Holland frisked him, kicking his legs apart a little, but patting him on the back when he was done, and let him go. There is a family's house on the edge of the compound, just inside the gate, which has been specially constructed for this use. Only three people live there, the soldiers say, "the mother, the father and the kid." I thought of my friend Munira Aa'mer, whose house is surrounded by the Apartheid Wall in Mas'ha. She also has soldiers guarding the gates to her home. The family in Camp Rulan is slightly luckier than the Aa'mers. At least they can have visitors. I heard the other day that Hani Aa'mer has lost his job because he was always being made late to work by the gate not being opened.

If Paola hears from the commander tonight, and if he has any information, it will be very difficult for her to get it to Issam's family, because there is no phone service except the few MCI phones with U.S. area codes being given out. There is no mobile phone service in Adamiya. So Paola will have to email Usma, who will then go to Issam's family's house to give them the news. If there is no news tonight, the search will begin again tomorrow morning.

I don't expect Issam's wife to do much sleeping tonight. I wonder, what about Issam? Is he able to sleep? To eat? Is he being beaten or tortured, like the other journalist that Ahmed told me about? I pray for good news tonight, but I dare not hope for it.