Fwd: Eyewitness: "US Forces Encourage Looting"

Article from Sweden's largest circulation daily, Dagens Nyheter, 
Friday April 11, 2003 
http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1435&a=129852&previousRenderType=1

"US FORCES ENCOURAGE LOOTING"
By Ole Rothenborg

Khaled Bayomi looks a bit surprised when he looks at the American 
officer on TV regret that they don't have any resources to stop the 
looting in Baghdad.

- I happened to be there just as the US forces told people to commence looting.

Khaled Bayomi departed from Malmoe to Baghdad, as a human shield, and 
arrived on the same day the fighting begun.

About this he can tell us plenty and for a long time, but the most 
interesting part of his story is his witness-account about the great 
surge of looting now taking place.

- I had visited a few friends that live in a worn-down area just 
beyond the Haifa Avenue, on the west bank of the Tigris River. It was 
April 8 and the fighting was so heavy I couldn't make it over to the 
other side of the river. On the afternoon it became perfectly quit, 
and four American tanks pulled up in position on the outskirts of the 
slum area.

- From these tanks we heard anxious calls in Arabic, which told the 
population to come closer.

- During the morning everybody that tried to cross the streets had 
been fired upon. But during this strange silence people eventually 
became curious. After three-quarters of an hour the first Baghdad 
citizens dared to come forward. At that moment the US solders shot 
two Sudanese guards, who were posted in front of a local 
administrative building, on the other side of the Haifa Avenue.

- I was just 300 meters away when the guards where murdered. Then 
they shot the building entrance to pieces, and their Arabic 
translators in the tanks told people to run for grabs inside the 
building. Rumours spread rapidly and the house was cleaned out. 
Moments later tanks broke down the doors to the Justice Department, 
residing in the neighbouring building, and the looting was carried on 
to there.

- I was standing in a big crowd of civilians that saw all this 
together with me. They did not take any part in the looting, but were 
to afraid to take any action against it. Many of them had tears of 
shame in their eyes. The next morning looting spread to the Museum of 
Modern Art, which lies another 500 meters to the north. There was 
also two crowds in place, one that was looting and another one that 
disgracefully saw it happen.

Do you mean to say that it was the US troops that initiated the looting?

- Absolutely. The lack of scenes of joy had the US forces in need of 
images on Iraqi's who in different ways demonstrated their disgust 
with Saddam's regime.

But people in Baghdad tore down a big statue of Saddam?

- They did? It was a US tank that did this, close to the hotel where 
all the journalists live. Until noon on the 9th of April, I didn't 
see a single torn picture of Saddam anywhere. If people had wanted to 
turn over statues they could have gone for some of the many smaller 
ones, without the help of an American tank. Had this been a political 
uproar then people would have turned over statues first and looted 
afterwards.Home in Sweden Khaled Bayomi is a PhD student at the 
University of Lund, where he since ten years both teaches and 
researches about conflicts in the Middle East. He is very well 
informed about the conflicts, as well as he is on the propaganda war.

Isn't it good that Saddam is gone?

- He is not gone. He has dissolved his army in tiny, tiny groups. 
This is why there never was any big battle. Saddam dissolved Iraq as 
a state already in 1992 and have since had a parallel tribal 
structure in place, which has been altogether decisive for the 
country. When USA begun the war Saddam completely abandoned the 
state, and now depends on this tribal structure. This is why he left 
the big cities without any battles.

- Now USA are forced to do everything themselves, because there is no 
political force from within that would challenge the structure in 
place. The two challengers who came in from the outside were 
immediately lynched.

Khaled Bayomi refers to what happened with general Nazar al-Khazraji, 
who escaped from Denmark, and Shia-muslim leader Abdul Majid 
al-Khoei. Both men where chopped to pieces by a raging crowd in 
Najaf, because they were perceived to be American marionettes. 
According to Danish newspaper BT, al-Khazraji was picked up by the 
CIA in Denmark and brought to Iraq.

- Now we have an occupation force in Iraq, that has not said how long 
it will stay, not brought forward any time-plan for civilian rule and 
not yet set a date for general elections. Now awaits only a big chaos.