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<a href="http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,1719508,00.html" eudora="autourl">
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,1719508,00.html</a>
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DEATH OF A PROFESSOR<br>
<br>
There is now a systematic campaign to assassinate Iraqis who speak out
against the occupation <br>
<br>
Haifa Zangana, The Guardian , London, February 28, 2006<br>
<br>
In a letter to a friend in Europe, Abdul Razaq al-Na'as, a Baghdad
university professor in his 50s, grieved for his killed friends and
colleagues. His letter concluded: "I wonder who is next!" He
was. On January 28 al-Na'as drove from his office at Baghdad University.
Two cars blocked his, and gunmen opened fire, killing him instantly.
<br>
<br>
Al-Na'as is not the first academic to be killed in the mayhem of
the "new Iraq". Hundreds of academics and scientists have met
this fate since the March 2003 invasion. Baghdad universities alone have
mourned the killing of over 80 members of staff. The minister of
education stated recently that during 2005, 296 members of education
staff were killed and 133 wounded.<br>
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Not one of these crimes has been investigated by the occupation
forces or the interim governments. They leave that to international
humanitarian groups and anti-war organisations. Among them is the
Brussels Tribunal on Iraq, which has compiled a list to persuade the UN
special rapporteur on summary executions to investigate the issue; they
do so with the help of Iraqi academics, who risk their lives in the
process. Their research shows that the victims have been men and women
from all over Iraq, from different ethnic, religious and political
backgrounds. Most were vocally opposed to the occupation. For the most
part, they were killed in a fashion that suggests cold-blooded
assassination. No one has claimed responsibility. <br>
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Like many Iraqis, I believe these killings are politically
motivated and connected to the occupying forces' failure to gain any
significant social support in the country. For the occupation's aims to
be fulfilled, independent minds have to be eradicated. We feel that we
are witnessing a deliberate attempt to destroy intellectual life in Iraq.
<br>
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Dr al-Na'as was a familiar face on al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya TV.
He had often condemned the continued presence of US-led troops in Iraq,
and criticised the sectarian interim governments and their militias. His
case echoes the assassination of the academic Dr Abdullateef al-Mayah. A
prominent human rights campaigner and critic of the occupation, Mayah was
killed only 12 hours after he had appeared on al-Jazeera denouncing the
corruption of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. <br>
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Militias have replaced the disbanded Iraqi army, applying their
own rule of law. Some units operate under a semblance of
"legality" - the "wolf brigade", attached to the
interior ministry, is infamous for its terror raids on mosques and the
torture of civilians. <br>
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Last month the journalist Abdul Hadi al-Zaidi accused the
government's militias of targeting intellectuals. He is one of a group of
Iraqi journalists who, in the aftermath of al-Na'as's assassination, went
on strike, demanding an immediate investigation into the "systematic
assassination campaign" against intellectuals opposed to the
occupation. <br>
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After the July London bombings, Tony Blair promised the British
people to "bring those responsible to justice". In Iraq, the
British government does exactly the opposite. The law of occupation
states that: "All foreign soldiers, diplomats or contractors
implicated in the killing of Iraqi civilians are immune from arrest or
trial in Iraq." Both the British and US governments turn a blind eye
to the systematic violations of human rights and murders committed by
their clients in Iraq. <br>
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It has become obvious that the occupation forces, with their elite
troops and $6bn-a-month budget, cannot hold Iraq. The only honorable and
realistic way out is genuine dialogue with the Iraqi resistance over a
complete withdrawal of foreign troops and adequate reparations and
debt-cancellation to rebuild the country. <br>
<br>
<i>Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi-born novelist and former prisoner of
Saddam's regime; a longer version of this article will appear in Not One
More Death, published next month by Verso<br>
</i> <br>
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