And What Else, Bush and al-Maliki?

The democracy and freedom that President Bush promised Iraqis when he invaded their country in 2003 were nothing but a pretext to violate a nation. In a new scandal for the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, after the farce of the security pact signed with U.S., the central criminal court ruled on Dec. 17 that Sabrine Al Ganaby, a Sunni Iraqi woman, shall serve life imprisonment, claiming that she backed the resistance and possessed unlicensed weapons and denying, at the same time, her rape by al-Maliki's security forces.

This ruling, to set things right, belittles all laws and ethics, and above all, the feelings of the Iraqi Sunnis. Simply if al-Ganaby did not break the silence by her revelations, she would have spared herself the troubles of being rendered such a judgment, ironically by a court established by the American invasion and its supporters in Iraq to prosecute whom they call “terrorists.”

However, and before examining al-Ganaby’s evidence of innocence, that unveil the ugly face of occupation and al-Maliki’s forces, we are to narrate the story of a brave Iraqi woman, who did reveal something that might hurt her, according to Arab traditions.

The beginning was on November 19th, 2007, when Sabrine al-Ganaby showed up on one satellite channel to say frankly that she was raped by Iraqi public order forces. This was when three soldiers broke into her house in al-Amel neighborhood, in southwestern Baghdad and accused her of providing Sunni fighters with food. Then they took her to a barrack where they raped her one after the other, videotaped what has been happening and threatened she would be killed if she said a word. Not only that but, according to Sabrine, another officer battered her before he sexually assaulting her because she sued the soldiers and was referred to the judge. That is why she resorted to satellite channels to get the skeletons out of the closet.

Two days later on November 21th, another woman, Wagda Mohammed Amin, came to announce that she was also violated by six army and police forces when they attacked her house in Tel Afer, Northern Baghdad. Those six, as Wagda clarified, wanted her to state the places of militants, and as they knew of her husband’s arrest, they raped her and taped it with a mobile phone, to blackmail her in case of her unwillingness to cooperate. Only then, the office of the Iraqi prime minister hastened to announce that the report of forensic medicine assured that Sabrine al-Ganaby was not even raped and she was issued arrest notices three times. According to the statement, the rapist soldiers were honored by al-Maliki and granted one million Iraqi dinars and a month’s vacation because they were “noble and competent officers” defamed by a suspect woman. And the statement concluded by saying that this hubbub is invented by some certain parties, aimed at disturbing the new security plans and slandering the Iraqi military forces.

However, the dust was removed when Omar al-Gaboury, the vice president’s advisor declared that the investigations proved that the name “Sabrine al-Ganaby” is not real, the arrest notes were fabricated because the meant woman’s pseudonym was to protect her and they already have the real one. And to add insult to injury, al-Gaboury confessed that the victim was arrested and led to the second battalion of the seventh brigade of the public order forces to ascertain what al-Ganaby has been saying.

On the other hand, al-Gaboury denied the issuance of the three arrest notes, digressing: “We actually have a medical report, forwarded by Ibn Sina hospital, an unbiased American hospital, asserting the victim’s revelations.”

In the same respect, General Nagm Abdullah, Tel Afer’s deputy governor, commented by stating that four soldiers, the rapists of Wagda Mohammed Amin, were arrested and they confessed to the crime. And this is the member of parliament, Selah al-Dainy, revealing that the series of rape in Iraq-after-Saddam has no end, alluding to the fact that the cases of rape in 2006 alone, mounted up to (68) and there were more than 1000 women have an ambiguous fate.

Al-Dainy went on to say that even female students of al-Mustansrya University were caught in this series, when the police found some corpses, by examination were discovered to be raped by Army forces then shot dead.

Though the Green Area’s government did its best to gloss over these scandals as if nothing happened.

All these prompted the hundreds to demonstrate in Tekret University and al-Amel city, calling for retribution.

For its part, the Muslim Scholars Association expressed its astonishment in a statement at the rapidity with which the soldiers were acquitted, and did not forget to condemn al-Maliki for not forming an investigating committee of jurisdiction. “The decision to absolve does nothing but honors the criminals and clearly undermines human dignity. We the Iraqis, under the rule of this government, witness tragic practices, not even remotely similar with the most undeveloped and savage.” The statement asked the world’s human rights organizations as well to adopt the necessary measures to unearth similar crimes, independently from the current governmental departments.

So analysts agree upon the fact that what happened to al-Ganaby and others demonstrate the bad situation al-Maliki is facing. After tens of security plans, the resistance is still stout and to conceal its abject failure, the security forces resorted to raping the Sunni women to get information about the resistance movements. This indicates nothing but that al-Maliki’s government cannot ever carry the burden of Iraq’s integrity.

In addition to this, the American administration did not pass Iraq’s ethical test, as well as the military and political ones. That is why it will not be welcomed anymore to give lessons in democracy, human rights and morals while its troops and agents are assaulting women, torturing detainees and wrecking havoc on the Iraqi cities and villages.

As a fact, some human rights organizations said that rape at Abu Gharib was not restricted to women anymore, it also included men, the elderly and Imams. Simultaneously, UN human rights committee accused U.S. and British troops of violating tens of women and children, clarifying that in the year 2005, more than 400 women were kidnapped and assaulted. And here is the representative of Iraq’s Political Prisoners’ Union, lawyer Sahar al-Yassry, saying that prisons around Iraq counted (37), while the Iraqi detainees’ number stepped up to 400.000 including 6500 minors and 10.000 women, 95% of them were raped. al-Yassry added in a seminar called: ” The terroristic American War on Terrorism”, organized by the International committee against racial discrimination, in collaboration with Brussels University that what was published about the scandals and violations of Abu Gharib is just a “drop in the ocean” and perhaps Abu Gharib is the sweetest bitter of all.

But what really prompts sorrow is the freedom the offenders are enjoying. And indeed things will keep on due to the law the Americans passed, prescribing that their soldiers are not asked for whatever they do or commit, in the countries the station in. In this way, the country that always claim its keenness on spreading democracy and human rights in the world will wander about another country it invaded without any restraints.

Even when the occupation leaves Iraq one day, its tails will never leave a stone unturned to suffocate any hope in Iraqi unity. So the situation currently requires united Iraqi ranks to force the invaders and their agents out. Seemingly, what Muntadhar al-Zaidi did by throwing his shoes at Bush is the right step on the road of the fact that occupation and its followers shall pay the penalty for what they committed.