Death squads kill Iraqi academics while the Americans look on
On 11 April 2003, the day the US Special Forces entered the city of Mosul in north Iraq; snipers
shot dead Dr. Khalid Faisal Hamid Al-Sheekho, assistant professor in physical education at the
University of Mosul. Since that date more 220 other university teachers from 17 universities have
been murdered. The last killing at the time of writing (20-4-2006) took place on Saturday 9 April
2006, when a gang of armed men gunned down Dr. Darb Muhammad Al-Mousawi, Director of the Ear, Nose
and Throat centre which forms part of the teaching hospital of the medical college of the
University of Baghdad. He was shot dead at the door of his clinic on Al-Maghreb Street in Al-
Azamiyyah District in north Baghdad. The assassinations are indiscriminate of specialization,
political affiliation, religion or gender. The only common denominator is that all the victims are
university educators. The attackers appear to be professional killers. They drive up to the
victim, shoot two bullets into his or her head and drive away without leaving a trace. The wave of
killings has forced over a thousand university teachers to flee the country in fear of their
lives. As a result of this, 156 university departments, representing nearly one fifth of the total
number, had to close down.
No one individual has been apprehended, no investigation has been launched and the atrocity
continues unnoticed. It is disregarded by the US forces, Paul Bremer's administration, the
Governing council and the two interim governments that followed Beremer’s departure. Journalists,
who are normally expected to probe into such cases, are too frightened, braving daily threats of
death from terrorists and of detention and harassment from the US forces. During the 27 months
between March 2003 and August 2005, sixty-seven local and foreign journalists were murdered in
Iraq. This is more than the total number who died during twenty years of wars in Vietnam between
1955 and 1975.
Our only reliable body count comes from the Union of University Teachers (UUT) which publishes on
its website (www.auliraq.org) regular lists giving names of slain academics, their positions and
places and dates of their deaths. Thanks to this work the genocide is beginning to attract
attention internationally. Early this year the Brussels Tribunal launched a campaign of solidarity
which has so far collected more than 8000 signatures. On 14 April, the Director General of UNESCO
issued an appeal calling upon the international community “to show solidarity with Iraqi academics
and intellectuals who are subjected to a heinous campaign of violence.” He also promised help in
the reconstruction of Iraq’s educational system and the development of its capacities.
Dr. Isam Kadhim A-Rawi, UUT president thinks what we are witnessing is a project to destroy the
country’s future carried out by death squads trained and financed by outside powers. This is
corroborated by a coroners report on the death of Sheikh Mohammed Fayyad al-Faidhi, member of the
Committee of Islamic scholars who was shot dead on 22 December 2004. The bullets fired at him were
of the kind that explodes inside the body, which is not available in Iraq. A report published in
the Sunday Times early this month accused Iranian agents of murdering scores of pilots and senior
army officers whom they accuse of having played active roles in the war against Iran. On April 18,
a French army officer interviewed on the French television sender TV 5 quoted the Israeli
newspaper Maariv reporting that Israel had sent 150 of its hit men on a mission to assassinate
Iraq’s senior scientists.
According to a report published by the director of the United Nations International Leadership
Institute in April 2005, some 84% of Iraq’s higher education institutes have been burnt, looted or
destroyed since the occupation. An estimated 30-40% of Iraq’s best-trained educators have fled,
leaving behind under-qualified teaching staff, poorly equipped libraries and laboratories and a
fast-growing student population.
It is the responsibility of the occupying powers to stop the silent genocide against Iraq’s
educators and thinkers. An independent, transparent investigation to apprehend the perpetrators
and planners of these crimes must be launched immediately and funds from Iraq’s reconstruction
budget must be allocated to repair the damage suffered by the higher education system under
occupation and compensate the families of slain scientists and academics. Also the occupation
armies must stop violating the sanctity of Iraq’s universities of the kind that happened in Al-
Anbar University when US forces stormed it on 3 April.
US general Tommy Frank is widely quoted as saying, “we don’t do body counts,” despite the fact
that the US, as an occupying power, have responsibilities under the Geneva Convention to protect
the civilians in occupied territories. Such cynicism must not be allowed to prevail, especially
where the victims are the builders of the country’s future.
Usam Ghaidan, R.I.B.A., Architect
Ghaidan at cs dot com
https://listhost.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/iraqcrisis
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