Statement from the Spanish Brigade in Baghdad

Statement from the Spanish Brigade in Baghdad

CSCAweb

March, 22th, 2003.

Translation from Danald Murphy (www.nodo50.org/csca)

From Baghdad: hold fast to the motto of the past months’ mobilizations: “Stop the War on Iraq”.

For the last two days we have been experiencing, together with five million men, women, boys, girls, teenagers and old people, the first bombing attacks perpetrated by what must be considered a new Axis of Fascism in this first war of the 21^st century – the alliance formed by the US, UK and Spanish governments. This is a new Axis of Fascism because it is attacking open, densely populated cities with hardly any capability of defence. This is a new Axis of Fascism because it is attacking this country against the will of the citizens of the world, violating all law and all rights, returning this region and the international community to the beginning of the past century, to the colonial era, and transforming the democracy it professes to represent and intends to impose here into nothing but a travesty.

We know that Basora is being bombed intensely and here, in Baghdad, we have been able to connect names and faces to the victims of the first attacks launched on the capital at dawn on Thursday: a 14-year-old girl, wounded in the legs and abdomen while having breakfast in her home on Thursday morning.

Her sister and 14-month-old niece, Haura, both injured in the same house while the former was breast-feeding her baby.

Five brothers – two adults, a teenager, two children – all burned while they watched the missiles falling over the city early Thursday night. And so on: up to 36 in one hospital alone, all civilians, none of them living near any kind of military or government installation.

You cannot imagine the impact of the cruise missiles falling on this sprawling, exposed city; the tremor they cause when they explode, unleashing a ball of fire and column of dark smoke. It is difficult to describe the ominous sound of aircraft flying over our heads and dropping their bombs. The aggressors are now determined to break the spirit of this people after trying to do so with hunger and disease over twelve years of embargo, as if this were a medieval siege.

Its brutality is only matched by its cowardice. Counting only on its military technology, without cause, without dignity, without honour, it intends to raze to the ground a country which was the very cradle of our civilization, blessed with an admirable people. Every morning, after every attack, these same people go out again into their streets and continue to smile at us, grateful that we are here, raising their fists or flashing the victory sign, warm and trusting in spite of everything, asking us to tell you of their will to resist even when that seems an unimaginable miracle in the face of the war machine closing in on them.

What is true is that this people cannot stop the war without help: the imbalance of forces is overwhelming. They will only be able to resist the flood of steel and fire which rains down on them each night if they know that you will continue to mobilize without faltering. Please, by all available means, without relenting, help the people of

Iraq

to win this war by stopping it. Put the fascist governments who are attacking

Iraq

– and the Spanish government – up against the ropes; against the wall of morality and law, of solidarity and fraternity among peoples.

Best wishes from Baghdad

The Spanish Brigade to Iraq against the War: Maria Teresa Tuñon Álvarez, Maria Rosa Pañarroya Miranda, Ana Maria Rodríguez Alonso, Belarmino Marino García Villar, José Bielsa Fernández, Imanol Telleria, Javier Barandiaran, Manu Fernández y Carlos Varea González

Baghdad, 21 March, 2003