EDITORIAL

Genocide In Fallujah

US imperialism’s murderous assault on the historic city of Fallujah in Iraq continues unabated.  The incendiary war unleashed by the USA against Iraq and its people is all set to write a new chapter on inhuman brutality. As we go to press, concrete evidence of this emerged in the form of video footage shot by a news channel cameraman embedded with the marines. This, and the earlier inhuman torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, once again highlights the savagery of US imperialism. Never since the medieval ages when the marauding Mongol armies devastated these lands of ancient civilisation have they seen such beastiality as demonstrated by the US armed forces.

Ever since his re-election, George W Bush and his administration have embarked on a fresh offensive forcing the Iraqi people to submit to their occupation through its devilish military arsenal. It is ironic that all this is happening in the name of “preparing” Iraq for its transition to democracy!

Both official and unofficial reports place the death toll at staggering figures.  Fallujah was home to some three lakh people.  According to one account, nearly a third has been eliminated. US troops have not even spared hospitals, leave alone targetting residential areas.  Even the Red Cross was not allowed access to tend the injured.  The dead do not even have the right to any sort of a burial. The injured have no right to any sort of treatment. These are the US imperialism’s definitions of human rights and liberty.

Worse is the fact that all these are happing in the holy month of Ramadan. The BBC records in its Arabic news broadcast that for the first time in  Fallujah, a city of 150 mosques, there was not a single call to prayer. Is this the fight against terrorism?  Can such atrocities be justified in the name of curbing Islamic fundamentalism?  These were the lands where the rudiments of human civilisation arose.  It was these lands of the Tigris and the Euphrates that produced the first civilised social order when much of the Anglo Saxon world did not reach the stage when humans moved down from treetops to inhabit the land. These parts of the world that constitute modern day Iraq were since ancient times flourishing human civilisations.  It is these that are being attacked in the name of civil liberties, human rights, et al.  What a shame!

The world community will have to intervene urgently to put an end to this genocide.  The United Nations cannot remain a mute spectator.  Neither can it remain paralysed as it were by the re-election of George Bush. The Indian government must move the United Nations to urgently intervene to end this inhuman barbarity being perpetuated on the Iraqi people.  To remain silent now is tantamount to acquiescing with US imperialism’s designs of global hegemony.  The historic Iraqi resistance against this occupation must receive international support and solidarity.