“We come home with explosive materials against the US military” 

Bert De Belder 

Dr. Claire Geraerts en Dr. Geert Van Moorter are still preparing their departure from Baghdad. They will arrive in Zaventem on Wednesday April 23 at 7:30 o’clock. With in there luggage still additional witness testimonies about the American war crimes in Iraq. These testimonies have to put in pillory US general Tommy Franks, in a court case that attorney Jan Fermon prepares for the Belgian court.

“We bring explosive materials”, announces Geert. “Still more ambulances are shot at by US military, resulting in several death. I prefer to preserve the details for the court case, but be assured that this will creates a lot of firework! Aside from this the American military are guilty of not giving medical aid to people in need: Iraqis who they themselves have shot and wounded were just left along the side of the road.”

Collection of testimonies in a city under siege, with many checkpoints, with people hiding at home, without telephone,…..: this is no easy job for Claire and Geert. “Today we didn’t even have time to eat, we had to rush all the time”, says Geert. “Two pieces of rusk is all we were able to eat.

The doctors visited Saddam Medical City, where an enormous academic hospital of 16 floors high is located. “Because of shortage in electricity only four are being used”, tells Geert. “To prevent looting, all corridors and stairs are blocked. You are only allowed to use the elevators, but only two of the twelve elevators are functioning. When you need advice of a doctor who works on another floor, you have to wait sometimes up to a few hours to get there!”.

The Al-Anour hospital has become the most important port of call for Claire and Geert. “Dr. Osama Fakri thanks us extensively for the external fixators we gave him. ‘Perfect modern material’, he says, ‘which we will still use frequently. These are much better than what the American soldiers have brought here.!”. This is a compliment fo Dr. Bart Conix, orthopedic surgeon in the Antwerp Middelheim hospital, who donated the fixators to the Geneeskunde voor de Derde Wereld.

“We also met briefly with the new mayor of Baghdad”, continuous Geert, “Mohamed Zobaedeh. The guy promised to restore within two days the electricity in the city, but more than a week later the entire city is still without. Zobaedeh is of course a straw man of the Americans, and that has not settled will with the local population. The opinion that the Americans are not allowed to stay long in the country, has become general among the Iraqis. On the other hand, the war of aggression and disappearance of the Iraqi civil government has created such vacuum and chaos that many people also fear immediate withdrawal of the US military without clear alternative for their safety. Do they have to count on the UN or the Arabic League, in anticipation that they will get again their own government and police? No easy questions in the complex situation of Baghdad today….”