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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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October 11th,
2007 - Daughters’ Anguish at Funeral of Mother Killed by Private Guards |
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Daughters’ Anguish at
Funeral of Mother Killed by Private Guards By Sarmad al-Waali & Deborah Haynes The Times October 11, 2007 Three Christian sisters,
beating their mother’s coffin in grief, wailed and hugged each other at her funeral
in Baghdad yesterday as their rapidly shrinking religious community vented
anger at the foreign security guards who killed her. Marou Awanis, a part-time
taxi driver, and one of her women passengers became the latest victims to die
at the hands of a foreign private security team in Iraq after they were shot
dead in the centre of the capital on Tuesday. Both women were Armenian
Christians. Their deaths stunned their minority religious sect, which has
seen its numbers in Iraq fall by more than a half, to 10,000, since the
invasion of March 2003. The killings also heightened
a sense of outrage towards private security companies, in particular
Blackwater, which many people regard as a private army that acts with
impunity. Unity Resources Group, an Australian
security outfit based in Dubai, confirmed last night that its guards were
responsible for Tuesday’s shooting in Baghdad. It said that the guards opened
fire on the speeding car when it refused to slow down after several warnings,
“including signs, strobe lights, hand signals and a flare”. “Fearing a suicide attack,
only then did the team use their weapons in a final attempt to stop the
vehicle,” the company said. Witnesses and police said that Mrs Awanis, who
had been driving two women and a child, mistakenly got too close to a Unity
Resources convoy and came under immediate gunfire from the guards. Scores of relatives and
friends gathered at the main Armenian Church in Baghdad to grieve the death
of Mrs Awanis, aged 48. The body of the second woman, identified as Geneva
Jalal, was also there but no one from her family showed up. Everyone was shocked that
Mrs Awanis, a widow and former agricultural engineer who was forced to drive
a taxi to make ends meet, had been killed. “I don’t know what to say. This is
the worst crime I have ever seen,” said Abu Mareeam, the dead woman's nephew. The three daughters, Aless,
12, Karown, 20, and Noraa, 21, were doubled up in tears as they crowded
around their mother’s simple wooden coffin, which was decorated with a small
golden cross. “These criminals killed a
mother and left three orphaned girls. Who will take care of them now?” asked
one relative, who gave her name as Umm Masees. Watching the proceedings with
sadness, the Rev Nareek Ashkanean, 50, said: “This is another crime against
the citizens in Iraq. Every day civilians are being killed and no one is
trying to stop it from happening.” He blamed foreign private security
companies for a lot of the suffering. “I ask the Government to
stop these companies and to bring those who kill without reason to justice
regardless of his nationality or his country,” Mr Ashkanean said. “I want the
Government to force these companies out.” Iraq and the United States formed
a joint commission to look into a range of issues related to foreign private
security companies in the wake of a shootout involving Blackwater guards that
left 17 people dead last month. The commission has yet to make its
recommendations but it is expected to explore areas such as accountability
and jurisdiction. The women are due to be
buried at a cemetery near Baqouba, 35 miles (55km) northeast of Baghdad,
today. External link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2633610.ece Australian
contractor: Our employees feared suicide bombing By Cable Network News/CNN October 11, 2007 Baghdad, Iraq - An
Australian security company that Tuesday fired on a car carrying two Iraqi
women, killing them, said its team acted because they feared a suicide
bombing attack. In a statement released
Wednesday, Unity Resource Group contractors said the car carrying the women
failed to stop when it approached the contractors' vehicle. The company said its
contractors gave the car's occupants signals to stop, but it continued to
move toward them. "A stationary Unity
Resources Group security team of four vehicles in Karrada, Baghdad, was
approached at speed by a white car," at about 1:40 p.m. Tuesday (6:40
a.m. ET), the statement said. "The area of Karrada had
been subject to vehicle suicide bomber attacks in recent weeks. "The security team used
graduated and escalated responses which included non-lethal means such as
signage, strobe lights, hand signals and a signal flare fired in front of the
vehicle to get it to stop. The vehicle did not heed these warnings. ...
Fearing a suicide attack, only then did the team use their weapons in a final
attempt to stop the vehicle." See map locating the incident » The car carrying the women,
ages 30 and 32, was struck by 19 bullets, Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman
Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said Tuesday. He said United Resources
Group has apologized to the ministry and said it will compensate the women's
families, and would take action against its employees if an investigation
determined it was warranted. "Unity has since
confirmed that two people have lost their lives in this tragic
incident," said URG's Wednesday statement. "We deeply regret the
loss of these lives." Michael Priddin, the
company's chief operating officer, said in the statement that company
officials had been meeting with Iraqi authorities throughout the day and are
cooperating with their investigations. A U.S. State Department
official said URG has been providing security for a nongovernmental
organization called Research Triangle Institute International, which is a
USAID-based subcontractor doing reconstruction work in Iraq. The incident came during a
period of scrutiny of the activities of private security contractors such as
Blackwater USA, which guards U.S. diplomats. Iraqi government spokesman
Ali Dabbagh said Tuesday the URG incident is another example of excessive
force being used against innocent Iraqis. The Iraqi government has
vowed to clamp down on private security firms in the aftermath of a
Blackwater shooting September 16 in Baghdad's Nusoor Square that Iraqi
officials have said killed 17 Iraqi civilians. An Iraqi investigation into
the Blackwater incident called the shootings "premeditated murder,"
and the Iraqi government plans to recommend Blackwater pay $8 million to
families of each of the people killed. Blackwater has said its
contractors "acted lawfully and appropriately" in the incident. Under a provision put into
place in the early days of the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq, security
contractors were given immunity from Iraqi law. External link: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/10/baghdad.shooting/index.html By Christian Berthelsen & Said Rifai Los Angeles Times October 11, 2007 Still mourning the death of
her husband, Marani Oranis navigated the treacherous streets in her makeshift
taxicab, chauffeuring students and workers past bombed-out buildings and
armed checkpoints in her 1990 Oldsmobile to earn enough to support her
daughters. It was a path that brought
Oranis, a former scientist for Iraq’s Agriculture Ministry, into the cross
hairs of a Western security convoy Tuesday afternoon along a main road in
Baghdad’s Karada district. The guards opened fire, apparently perceiving her
and a passenger as a threat, and sealing her fate as another casualty amid
the heated international debate over the use of private armed guards in a war
zone. Oranis and her passenger,
Geneva Jalal, 30, were shot and killed by guards from Unity Resources Group,
an Australian-run firm based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Unity Resources
was hired to protect U.S. contractors aiding Iraq’s reconstruction. Witnesses said Oranis’ car
failed to heed warning signals to yield to the convoy, which first fired a
warning shot into her radiator. When the car continued to advance, two guards
fired. On Wednesday, about 100 of
Oranis’ family members and friends gathered at an Armenian community hall to
mourn her death and vent their anger over the perceived impunity with which
foreign security contractors threaten, and sometimes kill, Iraqi citizens.
The incident occurred less than a month after guards with private security
firm Blackwater USA killed as many as 17 civilians in Nisoor Square, an
incident that triggered outrage by the Iraqi government and demands for $8
million in compensation for the families of each person killed. “We want to know why this
happened,” said her brother, Albert Manook, 55. “Didn’t they see they were
only women? Couldn’t they distinguish?” He broke down in tears. Mourners sat on plush
couches in the gathering hall as waiters distributed Arabian coffee, water
and cigarettes. A preacher gave a sermon, then asked the congregants to stand
and pray. They began chanting as smoke from incense rose, giving the hall an
ethereal air. Oranis, who was 48, was born
in Basra, the youngest of six brothers and three sisters. She earned a degree
in horticulture and agronomy. She gave up her job at the
Agriculture Ministry to raise a family with her husband, Azad, an
architectural engineer. Together they had three daughters, Nora, Karon and
Alice. Her family members say her
life was overwhelmingly characterized by sympathy and caring for others,
including attending to both her mother and father in their final years. Manook said she cooked and
cleaned for him when she visited him in Basra a month ago, while attending a
relative’s funeral. Two years ago, Oranis’
husband died after heart bypass surgery. He did not work for the government
and had no pension, leaving Oranis with little. With Iraq ravaged by war and
her degree and agricultural expertise years out of date, she took up
chauffeuring students and workers to their schools and jobs, to make enough
to care for her daughters. Nora, 20, and Karon, 18, were both in university –
Nora studying architecture, and Karon pursuing biological studies. Alice is
13. Oranis was dressed in black
when she was shot, garb that her niece said showed she was still mourning her
husband. “She was forced to traverse
the roads of Baghdad on a daily basis in order to provide for her daughters,”
said the niece, Lida Sarkis, 40. “This turn of fate is
something that every single one of us Iraqis expects on a daily basis,”
Sarkis said. “We are all targets for
elimination, leaving for work and school in the mornings and not knowing
whether we will make it back home safely.” After the sermon, family
members struggled with the shock of losing Oranis so suddenly and violently. “I would just want to know
the person who shot her, to know what went in his mind,” said her brother,
Paul Manook, 57, who spoke by telephone from London, where he is an
electrical engineer. “Has he ever thought of family, or anything human?” “Once the investigation is
over, I would like to see them punished accordingly with the Torah and the
other monotheistic scriptures which specifically state, ‘An eye for an eye
and tooth for a tooth,’ ” Albert Manook said. Family members knew little
of Jalal and assumed she was one of Oranis’ clients. Father Vazken Movsesian of
St. Peter Armenian Church in Glendale, who is the executive director of a
ministry that works with Armenian refugees, said the deaths would resonate
with Southern California Armenians, some of whom emigrated from Iraq. “We have a large Armenian
community from Iraq, and a lot of these people are now displaced because of
the war. It’s going to rekindle a lot of the hurt that they’ve been feeling
over the last few years,” he said. Lethal hazards fill
Baghdad’s chaotic streets. Every unattended vehicle arouses suspicion as a
potential car bomb. Every speeding vehicle strikes pangs of fear of a suicide
attack. Every moment stuck in traffic or at a checkpoint means being exposed
to a potential assault. External link: http://articles.latimes.com/2007/oct/11/world/fg-women11 |