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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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November 8th,
2007 - War-torn Families Cope, Hope |
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Some residents have already lost loved ones in Iraq as others wait,
pray for bits of good news. By Chris Wiebe Glendale News-Press November 8, 2007 Though thousands of miles
away, the war in Iraq is sending shock waves through Glendale. Glendale resident Daniel
Dishchekenian, 62, recently returned from a trip to his homeland Armenia to
news that a private security force had riddled his sister’s car with bullets
near a checkpoint in Iraq, killing her and a passenger. La Crescenta resident Sarkis
Jilzian, 56, talks to his brother and his family in Baghdad twice a week,
hearing only bleak reports about the situation. And they are not alone in
their suffering. Since the onset of the war,
hearing about Armenians in Glendale with ties to Iraq is hardly uncommon,
said Glendale City Clerk Ardy Kassakhian, who is involved in local efforts to
raise funds and awareness. “There are a lot of
Iraqi-Armenians living in Glendale,” he said. “And most of them have stories
of relatives, or friends, or families that they know who have been affected
by this war.” Since Dishchekenian learned
of his sister’s death, he has made a top priority of getting Marani Manook’s
daughters, his nieces, out of the country, meeting with humanitarian
organizations and phoning his congressmen. “We will do whatever it
takes to get them out,” he said. “But so far I don’t have a backbone -
somebody concrete to say, ‘OK, I am here with you. I will work with you.’ But
I have myself.” For Jilzian, having family
in Iraq is a daily struggle. “We’ve been thinking about
them ever since this war has started,” he said. “When I talk to my brother,
he’s not in a good mood; he’s depressed. And his businesses - he’s got two
machine shops - both machine shops are closed because he’s got no business.
You imagine how people are making their living over there.” Persecution of Armenians and
other Christians in Iraq materialized in part after the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s
government, which - in spite of its tyrannical and oppressive rule -
suppressed anti-Christian sentiment, said Levon Marashlian, a professor at
Glendale Community College. “As bad he was as a dictator
and so forth - we know all that - but, in terms of this dimension, the
situation of Christians now is much worse than under Saddam because of the
Shiite element,” he said. “The Shiites have gained strength, and the Shiites
tend to be more intolerant of Christians.” In addition, the war has
greatly decreased the general standard of living; the country is suffering
from joblessness, deteriorating infrastructure and a lack of vital utilities,
like water and electricity. In light of those two
unintended impacts of the war, millions are fleeing the region, including
Muslims, he said. “In the name of making Iraq
Democratic, pro-Western and moderate, President Bush’s policy has driven out
the Christian, moderate, pro-Western element,” he said. And the growing suffering of
the Armenian community, though reported during the early days of the war, has
become “background noise amid the clamor of ‘Mission accomplished’ and ‘We’re
winning the war,’” Kassakhian said. Day-to-day life in Iraq now
keeps Iraqis confined to their homes and neighborhoods and in constant fear
of the crossfire between Shiites and Sunnis, Jilzian said. “It’s kind of like they’re
all prisoners,” he said. “They can’t go anywhere.” In order to leave
neighborhoods, Iraqis have to have friends, relatives or business outside the
neighborhood to attend to, he said. And gas prices alone are
enough to keep residents out of their cars, he added. Both the Armenian Relief
Society and the Armenian-Iraqi Society in Glendale are doing what they can to
send resources to improve the situation, Jilzian said. A group of Armenian Iraqis
living in Glendale who grew up in Iraq have been sending thousands of dollars
to the school they all attended from grammar school through high school. In
2005, they sent nearly $25,000, and in 2006, they sent another $40,000, he
said. “The situation is very bad,
so we’re trying to help them somehow by buying books and helping those
families who cannot afford tuition so they can go to a safer environment,”
Jilzian said. Jilzian and his brother,
Minas Jilzian, continue to send money to Baghdad, as well as Syria, where
they have a nephew struggling to come to the U.S. “I don’t know when it’s
going to be OK; nobody knows that,” he said. “It’s going to take a long, long
time. ...
I don’t look at it as something that [will be solved] after two years or
three years. This is some kind of a thing that it takes a long time to be
fixed.” External link: http://www.glendalenewspress.com/articles/2007/11/09/news/gnp-iraq09.txt |