|
How To Create Iraqi Orphans.
And then how to make life worse for them
By Robert Fisk
25/01/08 "The
Independent" --
-- It's not difficult to create orphans in Iraq. If you're
an insurgent, you can blow yourself up in a crowded market. If
you're an American air force pilot, you can bomb the wrong house
in the wrong village. Or if you're a Western mercenary, you can
fire 40 bullets into the widowed mother of 14-year-old Alice
Awanis and her sisters Karoon and Nora, the first just 20, the
second a year older. But when the three girls landed at Amman
airport from Baghdad last week they believed that they were free
of the horrors of Baghdad and might travel to Northern Ireland
to escape the terrible memory of their mother's violent death.
Alas, the milk of human kindness does not necessarily extend to
orphans from Iraq – the country we invaded for supposedly
humanitarian reasons, not to mention weapons of mass
destruction. For as their British uncle waited for them at Queen
Alia airport, Jordanian security men – refusing him even a
five-minute conversation with the girls – hustled the sisters
back on to the plane for Iraq.
"How could they do this?" their uncle, Paul Manouk, asks. "Their
mum has been killed. Their father had already died. I was
waiting for them. The British embassy in Jordan said they might
issue visas for the three – but that they had to reach Amman
first." Mr Manouk lives in Northern Ireland and is a British
citizen. Explaining this to the Jordanian muhabarrat at the
airport was useless.
Western mercenaries killed their 48-year-old Iraqi Armenian
mother, Marou Awanis, and her best friend – firing 40 bullets
into her body as she drove her taxi near their four-vehicle
convoy in Baghdad – but tragedy has haunted the family for
almost a century; the three sisters' great-grandmother was
forced to leave her two daughters to die on their own by the
roadside during the 1915 Armenian genocide. Mrs Awanis' friend,
Jeneva Jalal, was killed instantly alongside her in the
passenger seat.
The Australian "security" company whose employees killed Mrs
Awanis and her friend – "executed" might be a better word for
it, because that is the price of driving too close to armed
Westerners in Baghdad these days – expressed its "regrets". The
chief operating officer of Unity Resources Group claims that she
drove her car at speed towards the company's employees and that
they feared she was a suicide bomber.
"Only then did the team use their weapons in a final attempt to
stop the vehicle," Michael Priddin said. "We deeply regret the
loss of these lives." He refused to identify the killers or
their nationality. Westerners in Baghdad – especially those who
kill the innocent – are once they are known, rich in regrets.
But they are less keen to ensure that the bereaved they leave
behind are cared for.
Karoon was sick and had papers allowing her to enter Jordan; the
family assumed that her siblings would be permitted to enter the
country with her. Mr Manouk, an electrical engineer in Co Down,
said that he went to the office of the United Nations
Commissioner for Refugees in Amman and that they told him that
the sisters had to come in.
"I also sought visas for them at the British embassy but the
visa section said that the three had to be in Amman before they
could do anything to help them. Karoon was told by the
Jordanians she could come into Amman but that her other sisters
could not. She would not leave her sisters. So all three went
back to Baghdad the same day.
"I just could not believe this. At the airport I pleaded with
the Jordanian security people to let me spend five minutes with
my nieces – just five minutes only – but they refused."
Mrs Awanis had two sisters in Iraq, Helen and Anna, who are
looking after the girls until Mr Manouk – or anyone else – finds
a way of rescuing them.
"I have a Jordanian friend who had at first arranged to enrol
the two eldest girls in the university in Jordan, but it was of
no use," Mr Manouk says. "I had an awful evening at the airport.
In my distress, I am writing to King Abdullah for his help. We
are trying to get a settlement for my nieces with the Australian
company whose people shot their mother. But they are not liable
under Iraqi law. I want a proper settlement by law – through
lawyers – not just a cash handout, which is the way Americans do
things in Iraq."
Like so many Armenian families, the Manouks are overshadowed by
a history of mass murder. During the Armenian genocide of 1915,
perpetrated by the Ottoman Turks, Paul Manouk's grandfather –
the three Iraqi orphans' great-grandfather – was taken from his
family by Turkish policemen in a line of other men and never
seen again. His father, then just six years old, survived along
with his mother. "But my father's sister, we believe, was taken
by a Kurdish man as his wife," Mr Manouk said.
"My grandfather's two other sisters had a terrible fate. Their
legs had swollen on the long march south from their home in
Besni, near Marash, and they could not keep walking, so my
grandmother took the decision to leave them on the roadside and
keep the son so that our 'line' would survive. The two little
girls were never seen again."
The family had almost reached the border of the Ottoman province
of Mesopotamia – modern-day Iraq – on the long march of ethnic
cleansing when, like tens of thousands other Armenians, they
lost their loved ones through exhaustion and starvation. A
million-and-a-half Armenians died in the genocide.
After the British occupation of Iraq in 1917, British troops
escorted the remains of the Manouk family to Basra where one of
the aunts looking after the three Awanis sisters still lives.
Their father, Azad Awanis, died after a heart operation in 2004.
Mrs Awanis was driving her Oldsmobile taxi through the dangerous
streets of Baghdad to earn money for her family after her
husband's death, little realising that her new job – and a bunch
of trigger-happy mercenaries – would orphan her children.
Paul Manouk met his British wife in Edinburgh in 1974, when he
was studying for a PhD in medicine. A normally imperturbable
man, he describes himself as still being in a state of shock at
the killing of his younger sister.
"I wonder what her face was like when she died. She wasn't in a
bad area. Marou was coming back from church when she was shot,
along with her friend. Another woman, in the back of the car,
was wounded." A 15-year-old boy survived. According to Mr Manouk,
his sister was "riddled with bullets from the chest upwards".
Click on "comments" below to read or post comments
Comment Guidelines
Be succinct, constructive and
relevant to the story.
We encourage engaging, diverse
and meaningful commentary. Do not include
personal information such as names, addresses,
phone numbers and emails. Comments falling
outside our guidelines – those including
personal attacks and profanity – are not
permitted.
See our complete
Comment Policy
and
use this link to notify us if you have concerns
about a comment.
We’ll promptly review and remove any
inappropriate postings.
Send Page To a Friend
In accordance
with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material
is distributed without profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving the
included information for research and educational
purposes. Information Clearing House has no
affiliation whatsoever with the originator of
this article nor is Information ClearingHouse
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
|
