Washington Report, July 2006, page 70

Waging Peace

Muslim Peacemaker Team in New Orleans

“Salaam is not just a greeting. It is the goal,” Sami A. Rasouli, director of the Muslim Peacemaker Team in Najaf, Iraq, told Louisianans at the Loyola University School of Law on the night of Cinco de Mayo, May 5. Rasouli, an Iraqi American who spent six months working in Iraq, gave a first-hand account of his experiences under war and occupation. He described the plight of Iraqis, his work with the Christian Peacemakers Team and the Karbala Human Rights Organization, and discussed the “insurgency,” secret prisons, torture and elections, as well as Iraq’s future and America’s ongoing public debate on the war.

“The war in Iraq remains a defeat for humanity” said the flyer promoting Rasouli’s visit, co-sponsored by Twin Cities Peace Campaign and Women Against Military Madness. The former proprietor of Sindbad’s Café and Market in South Minneapolis, Minnesota, was accompanied to the Crescent City by WAMM director Mary Beaudoin and Marie and John Braun, all of St. Paul/Minneapolis. After his mother died in Iraq, Rasouli sold his business and home in America and returned to Najaf in 2003.

“I was surprised when a U.S. soldier at a checkpoint said, ‘Peace be unto you’ in good Arabic,” Rasouli said. “So I asked, ‘Do you know the meaning of what you just said?’ ‘No,’ the answer came back. ‘Tell me.’” Rasouli said, “Put that rifle away and I’ll tell you. Our Abraham was born not too far from here in Ur…”

Before he got far in his history lesson, however, Rasouli said he could see a traffic jam beginning, so he continued on home. ”When I got home 20 minutes later,” he recalled, “I found that two relatives were killed by a single American bullet because they were driving too close to a U.S. military convoy.

“Baghdad was the jewel of Mesopotamia,” Rasouli told his audience. “Now it gets just 3.7 hours of electricity a day. Some provinces don’t have traffic lights. Iraqis face many problems just trying to exist.

“The U.S. occupation has divided Iraqis, because an occupation needs collaborators,” Rasouli said. “It is very offensive to ask Iraqis if they are Sunni or Shi’i: We are all Muslims.

“When the Christian Peacemakers Team came to Kufa and Falluja, they were welcomed,” he noted. “Muslim and Christian Peacemakers Team members arrived on July 7, 2005, and started picking up garbage and sweeping streets. They showed Iraqis they are not alone and they offered solidarity.

“Half a million Iraqis and Americans wear military uniforms now, but we have no security,” he said. “As a result scientists, scholars, doctors are fleeing because they get letters threatening their safety, saying,‘You are next.’

“Occupation in Iraq should end today and immediately,” Rasouli concluded, “because occupation is a form of war.”

Rasouli can be contacted via e-mail at <sami.rasouli@gmail.com>.

         —S.B.A.Zaitoon