Iraq- Sheila Provencher's view from the inside
Sheila Provencher-
Torture and Responsibility in Iraq
Sheila Provencher is a
Christian Peacemaker Team member in Iraq, is a Catholic lay minister, and full-time activist from South Bend, Indiana.
CPT comments on `patterns of abuse' in Iraq
With horrific images of abused Iraqi prisoners in the media this week, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) urged attention to the patterns of abuse in Iraq and the question, "How did this happen?" CPT is a ministry initiated by Mennonites, Brethren, and Friends, and has an "Adopt a Detainee Program" to support Iraqi detainees.
The organization has been documenting abuses within the detention system in Iraq for nearly a year, a CPT release said. "The problem is very broad," wrote Sheila Provencher in the release. "These photos, tragically, were not a surprise to me." Provencher has been a member of the CPT team in Iraq, where her work focused on detainees. The team left Iraq in April on the advice of Iraqi colleagues of risks to international workers. CPT has had a team in Iraq almost continuously since Oct. 2002.
"We have communicated grave concerns about the detention system in several meetings with US military and Coalition Provisional Authority officials in Iraq, and with representatives in Congress," said Provencher. "Many Iraqis who tell us stories of degrading abuse also comment on the `noble soldiers' who protested such abuse and treated them with respect. However, the sheer number of allegations of mistreatment, many of which I have heard personally, suggests that the problem is not just a matter of a few `bad people,'" she wrote. She acknowledged that there are Iraqis guilty
of violent acts, but added that "the methods used to capture, imprison, and interrogate such Iraqis are so violent that the Coalition only creates more resisters."
Provencher suggested that factors contributing to the abuse include ideology that separates the world into "good guys" and "bad guys," military hierarchy, and the dehumanization of young US soldiers by their training, combat stress, and neglect. "To feel a constant threat to one's life, coupled with the psychological stress of being separated from home and family, is devastating," she said.......
"Once the men are in detention, families find it extremely difficult to secure information about them, and do not know if they are alive or dead....." [
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IRAQ: Abundant life
by Sheila Provencher
5-year-old Hussein sits with his father, Emir, along Abu Nawwas street across from the Tigris River. Emir sells cigarettes and juice from a tiny stand tucked against the gate of an abandoned building. Humvees and tanks roar past. Across the street, nearly empty restaurants block the sight of the river's dignified movement between shores littered with plastic bags and garbage.
Hussein always runs to greet me with a smile, his little cheek tilted up for a kiss. One day I surprised him with a box of crayons. Two days later, he surprised ME when he ran behind his father's stand and emerged clutching a 10"x10" piece of cardboard. He had used a cigarette carton as a canvas for a crayon masterpiece.
Hussein's picture teems with life. The Tigris flows a brilliant blue, and pink flowers sway amid a blanket of grass. A donkey munches on a tree bursting with orange blossoms, a duck contemplates a date-palm heavy with fruit, and a rabbit smiles under a smiling sun. A flock of birds soars within the stripe of sky colored across the top of the page. Two fish and a giant duck swim through the river of turquoise, and what looks like a bumblebee (as large as the duck!) flies over it all.
A few days ago, an IED (improvised explosive device) exploded not two blocks away, shattering windows and sending a child Hussein's age to the hospital. But in this picture, there is no broken glass, no guns or tanks or helicopters, no presidential palace. Instead--abundant life. How did Hussein see such a Garden in the dust?
. . . . .
It is easy to see only the dust these days. Daily reports describe attacks, kidnapping, and hundreds of deaths. Our Iraqi friends are visibly upset at the escalating level of violence across the country. "We are tired, so tired," says Maryam, a young mother who has lived through three wars. "We have suffered so much,and it is getting more frightening now."
Violence comes from so many places: the past regime, the US-led wars and sanctions, resistance fighters who attack soldiers, terrorists who bomb civilians, and Coalition troops who imprison thousands of innocent Iraqis alongside the guilty, surround entire cities, and kill civilians in the street battles with militia. And this violence is not just external . . . violence is born in all of our hearts.
But this morning, as I sat on the rooftop above the city, a bumblebee landed on my shoulder. Chickadees and turtledoves flitted about and chatted to each other. Across the street, tall green rushes swayed on the banks of the Tigris.
Maybe Hussein's picture is not so imaginary. Maybe we just have to NOTICE the life that is already here in front of us, and draw it out, and nurture it. How can we call forth the abundant life that already IS--in every river, every animal, every heart of every person --to overcome the darkness?
