THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

da "il manifesto" 05 March 2005

Life and Death

Gabriele Polo
A few minutes, that is how long our joy lasted. The time which goes from a phone call to another: the one telling us of Giuliana's freedom and the one which throws us into the killing of the person who more than anybody else worked to free her. Fifteen, maximum twenty minutes, the time to save one life and lose another. Within the absurdity of a war in which we all risk to get lost.
Sure, we are happy to be able to soon hug Giuliana, to be able to have her back with us, to go back and listen to and read her stories of peace. We owe it to what we have done in this very long month. All of us: we of il manifesto, the colleagues who helped us keep the attention on this abduction alive, the many people who with a phone call, a letter, or by coming to the streets kept the presence of our comrade alive even while she was forced to be silent. But we also owe it to those who worked night and day to find a contact with the kidnappers, to reach an agreement. People who are different from us, who speak a different language and uses different means. Yet with some of them we have been united with a common aim: to bring home a woman deprived of her freedom and to do it though a negotiation, not through those weapons which are the root of evil which for thirty days has taken Giuliana away from us. After those 15, 20 minutes of joy, last night we fell into a live drama. We are journalists and we must tell the story, but do not ask of us to be detached as a reporter should be.
It is not possible. Just as it was not possible to coldly separate the duty to report and comment from the worry for Giuliana's fate, from the fear she had fear, she was hungry, cold. When that second phone call arrived in a palace with high ceilings and wide spaces - so different from our daily working place -, we were there. And we will never be able to forget the pain of the colleagues of Nicola Calipari, how Gianni Letta was upset, even how the Prime Minister - whom we saw there and then for the first time - could not believe the news. We will never be able to forget the hectic calls, the chaos, the feeling of being lost by a place of power dealing with a power absolute and uncontrollable, the power of was, of who makes it and directs it. «Nicola died, Giuliana is wounded»: a bit crying, a bit asking for more details of the wound of Giuliana, knowing she was there, with the American guns pointing at her, bleeding who knows how, asking she would be brought immediately to the hospital. Then we heard the wound was not serious, only superficial on the shoulder, because the bullet which could have killed her had first gone through the body of Nicola Calipari. Who saved her. For the second time.
In those chaotic minutes, made of callls among ministries, generals, ambassadors - calls which all seemed pointless -- we witnessed impotence going on stage, the performance of war killing politics, chalking democracy. All our reasons - those of Giuliana - were confirmed. Yet we wanted it to be different. We wish we could hear another call, telling us it was all a mistake, nobody had died, Nicola magically had got up, maybe a bit hurt and together with our Giuliana he was going to the airport, to come back home. We would have hug them both and all that we had just witnessed would only have been a bad dream.
But no. That call never arrived. There has been another one, confirming everything: Nicola died, Giuliana and other two secret agents in the hospital. At that point, the only thing left to do was to leave, go back to the newspaper, tell everything to the comrades, explain that the joy was lost.
They taught us to be cold, to analyze the events, not to get involved too much, in order to understand what happens. And try to change it. Right. But he world is made of people. Facts, even history, are our product: at the end they are the product of bodies, flesh and blood. It all depends on us, on what we do. On what Giuliana Sgrena has done and will don, on what Nicola Calipari had done but will never be able to do. We got a comrade back. We lost someone who would have become our friend.

Do you think the Americans tried to assassinate her?Yeah. We tried to kill her...

She's a communist who hates the US--as are her bosses.

I imagine if some lefties HERE experienced the same thing--they'd blame our troops as well. Ignominious.

She chose to buddy up with her captors, and trust THEM.

Vomitus.

S0o, because the US doesn't approve of hostage negotiations, we would murder a freed hostage.

The reasoning is psychotic.

Where did you read that "she's a communist" and "She chose to buddy up with her captors, and trust THEM."?

I think it's a mistake to draw any conclusions from the shooting other than the obvious fact that in Iraq today one -- anyone -- runs a high risk of getting killed by US soldiers. It's quite possible the soldiers behaved appropriately in that if, as claimed, the car was speeding towards a checkpoint. Their actions are perfectly understandable in that context. Even if their actions weren't really justified, it's still the sad kind of screw-up that happens too often in a war zone.

Is that what they are there for? Is that why we invaded, so that soldiers can go around shooting people at random?

The "Liberation" of Iraq, in reality the biggest smash and grab raid in history is the shame of our generation.

Hi Piddie and thanks

Mctag said it was nice to see me

My question....where is the camera?

She's a communist who hates the US--as are her bosses.

I imagine if some lefties HERE experienced the same thing--they'd blame our troops as well. Ignominious.

She chose to buddy up with her captors, and trust THEM.

Vomitus.

Giuliana Sgrena: 'Voice of weakest'

Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena never thought she would be taken hostage telling the story of the people she deeply cared for.

A toughened war correspondent, her reports filter the impact of conflict through the lives of ordinary people - precisely what she was doing in Baghdad on 4 February when she was seized by gunmen.

The former left-wing militant has often been described as an advocate of the dispossessed and the have-nots.

For my whole life, I have fought and written on behalf of the weakest
Giuliana Sgrena


She once said war correspondents "make known the reality which otherwise would just be described in official war bulletins and propaganda pamphlets".
And through the life-stories of individuals - in Iraq, Afghanistan, Algeria, the Horn of Africa and elsewhere - Sgrena built a long career that began long before she joined her current employers at the communist newspaper Il Manifesto in 1988.


Support for weakest

The daughter of a World War II veteran, Sgrena was one of the founders of the peace movement in the 1980s.

Before joining Il Manifesto, she worked for the daily Guerra e Pace (War and Peace), but she made her name at the communist newspaper mainly through her avowed affinity with the Arab world.

"For my whole life, I have fought and written on behalf of the weakest," she said in a video put together by those who campaigned to secure her release.


With this in mind, the reporter refused to become embedded with the US military during the war - choosing, instead, to remain in Iraq on her own during the major hostilities of the spring of 2003.
She then returned to the country periodically, focusing on the suffering of ordinary Iraqis brought about by a war she was vehemently opposed to.

In a telling story, she interviewed an Iraqi woman who said she was held at Abu Ghraib prison for 80 days by US forces.

Through Sgrena, Mithal al-Hassan said: "There were times when they didn't give me any water or food at all. Then, from the neighbouring cells I could hear the screams... There was no way you could sleep... I couldn't stand things any more. In the end I asked if I could write a note for my children, because I wanted to commit suicide."

Caged bird

Sgrena's outspoken anti-war stance should have endeared her to Iraqi insurgents fighting the US-led forces, said friends and colleagues shocked at her capture on 4 February.


Dear Giuliana, in the video you seemed to me like a caged bird, with your ruffled hair and your frightened look
Pier Scolari
Sgrena's partner

In a video pleading for her release days after being abducted, the war correspondent was on the verge of tears as she said: "Nobody should come to Iraq at this time. Not even journalists. Nobody."
The message - recorded under the guns of masked men - certainly clashed with her quest for "people and social classes that are not well known, in countries that are often forgotten, in order to describe the reality of their daily lives", said her partner, Pier Scolari.

After seeing the plea, Mr Scolari wrote to her through Il Manifesto encapsulating his feelings at the apparent transformation of his loved one.

"Dear Giuliana, in the video you seemed to me like a caged bird, with your ruffled hair and your frightened look," his message said.

Is it any wonder that innocents will also get killed?