[Mb-civic] After Killing Families, U.S. Bars Iraqi Women from Visiting

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2828

After Killing Families, U.S. Bars Iraqi Women 
from Visiting
by Brendan Coyne

Feb. 17 – Earlier this month, the US State Department denied the visa 
applications of two Iraqi women who intended to participate in a 
speaking tour of the United States. Both women say that US troops 
killed their families. They were slated to travel with other women 
activists opposed to the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In denying the visas earlier this month, the US Embassy in Amman, 
Jordan said it could not guarantee that the Iraqi women, Vivian Salim 
Mati and Anwar Kadhim Jawad, would return to Iraq after their visit, 
according to the anti-war organizers coordinating the circuit.

In a joint statement, Global Exchange and Code Pink said that 
according to the embassy, the women's applications were denied 
because they supposedly do not have enough family members in Iraq 
to ensure their return. The women were informed of the embassy 
decision on February 4, after traveling to Amman from Baghdad to 
apply for the visas, the organizations said.

"It's appalling that the US military killed these women's families and 
then the US government rejects their visas on the grounds that they 
have no family to return to in Iraq," Code Pink co-founder Medea 
Benjamin said. "These women have no desire to stay in the United 
States. We had a very hard time convincing them to come, but we told 
them how important it would be for their stories to be heard by 
Americans."

The groups were planning to host speaking engagements for the 
women in New York City and Washington, DC, in addition to helping 
them meet with legislators and journalists. The groups are urging 
people to contact the State Department and demand that the visas be 
granted.

Code Pink member Jodi Evans said she met Jawad in a 2004 visit to 
Baghdad, a year after US troops killed the woman's husband and three 
of her children as the family drove down a Baghdad street. Jawad is 
now raising a 2-year-old son and a daughter.

According to a Human Rights Watch report on civilian deaths in 
Baghdad, troops opened fire on Jawad's husband because he failed to 
stop at a "poorly marked" security checkpoint. She received $11,000 
from the US for the wrongful slaughter of her family.

In Mati's case, US tank fire took the lives of her children and husband 
as the family fled the shelling of her neighborhood, according to the 
statement by Global Exchange and Code Pink. She said she has 
received no compensation for the killings from the US.

The speaking tour would have been part of a series of anti-war events 
the groups are organizing around International Women's Day on 
March 8, under the banner "Women Say No to War."

© 2006 The NewStandard. All rights reserved. 
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"A war of aggression is the supreme international crime." -- Robert Jackson,
 former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor

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