26/7/99

Between Iraq and a hard place

    He was 20 years old, handsome, bright, and everything was working out just right. He was going to marry Ra'ida. His biggest problem was, he couldn't decide if he should study medicine or engineering.
    What has befallen him in the past 11 years is beyond belief.
    Bassem should be lounging in his stylish home in Baghdad right now, perhaps reading a fairy tale to his children. Or coaxing a patient in his clinic to say "aah." Instead, he is festering in a prison -- in Israel of all places -- and considering all that has happened, he's probably very lucky to be there, and alive.
    Instead of healing the sick, he killed the healthy.
    What he ended up studying was Hebrew.
    Bassem was in his first year in university in 1986 when the Iran-Iraq war broke out. The government stopped all studies and drafted every man aged 18 and up. Just one year, they told Bassem, and then he could continue his studies.
    He survived the year, but there was still a state of emergency, the army told him, so he'd have to serve another year. That's what they told him, again and again, for six long years.
    He ached to go home to Ra'ida, he dreamed of her, but it came time that he had to let her go. You cannot marry me, he told her, just to become a widow. Bassem realized he would remain a soldier until he died as one.
    He was shot many times, but was always returned to the front. The would-be doctor saw many young people die, some by his own hand. It was a profound affront to his sense of humanity.
    Things got worse. Even after the Gulf war ended, he was still a soldier. Given leave, he went home and, the next day, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bassem heard on the radio that all soldiers were needed on the new front.
    When he got to Kuwait, he saw that everything the government had said about the situation was a lie. By that time, many soldiers were deserting, escaping into Iran or Turkey.
    Bassem didn't know what to do. He was afraid, he was fed up, he was disillusioned. He decided to stay, and served in Kuwait.
    Then the Americans attacked, and that was the end for Bassem. He escaped. He went home, finding tranquility in the family orchards.
    The Iraqi army was in such confusion, it didn't know who was AWOL. Bassem was safe -- but not for long.
    A major uprising against Saddam began a new Iraqi slaughter, this time against its own citizens. Saddam's forces pinpointed Bassem's neighborhood as a center of political foment.
    The secret service swooped in and arrested suspects, including Bassem. He had survived six years as a soldier only to be killed as an enemy of the state. But Bassem was apolitical, and after an investigation he was found innocent, and freed.
    No longer forced into hiding, Bassem entered hospital to have his many wounds treated. He began to realize the awful truth: he had served his country,  did everything they wanted of him. In return, he sacrificed his health, his studies, and his beloved Ra'ida. And he no longer felt loyal to his country. Saddam was still powerful, still evil.
    Bassem had to get out.
    Of course, Iraq doesn't exactly facilitate such thinking. He had a bit of money from a bookstore he operated, and his four brothers chipped in some more, to give the baby of the family a chance at a new life elsewhere. They scraped together the cost of a passport -- $7,000, a lot of money for an Iraqi -- and he went to Jordan.
    It was a temporary reprieve: in six months he would have to return.
    He went to the UN office seeking asylum. He went to every Arab and European embassy begging a visa. They all turned him down.
    Unwittingly, he had endangered his life again. Fellow expatriates told him that Iraqi agents were in Jordan executing Iraqis who applied for asylum. Men -- together with their wives and children -- were being shot dead on the spot, practically on the doorstep of the UN office.
    Bassem knew that when he went back to Iraq, he'd be killed -- if the secret service didn't murder him in Jordan. He sounds like a ranting paranoiac, but there's every reason to believe his fears are justified. Iraqis in Jordan were being forced into buses and returned to Iraq, where they were killed or thrown in jail.
    He had found work at an Indian company in Amman. One day, he learned that two of his Iraqi coworkers had escaped to Israel. As a result, Bassem was arrested. The police accused him, and others, of abetting the escapees, of not reporting their plot to the authorities. Bassem was to be deported.
    Either we die here, or die there, he said to his friends -- or, we could take our chances with Israel. Israel, they knew, was a good and just and compassionate country. Three of them escaped.

THEY CROSSED into Israel at the Dead Sea, and sat down on the border, waiting to be arrested. They waited. And waited. They watched tourists come and go, but no security personnel. They didn't know what else to do but wait.
    Finally, an army jeep came along and Bassem said, in English, "Shalom friends, we're Iraqis and we ask for help."
    The Israeli soldiers snapped into action: yalla, they said, get lost, you think this is funny?
    They didn't believe Bassem. He insisted they were Iraqis, and the Israelis asked if they were drunk. Eventually, they showed their passports, and the soldiers drew their weapons and shouted at them to lie on the ground. Amazed at their reaction, Bassem reminded the soldiers they had been sitting there for an hour, waiting for the Israelis.
    They were taken directly from the border to prison, where they've been for the last five and a half years.
    In all that time, they have never been charged or tried. They have never been allowed out, even for furlough.
    They have been to court fourteen times, each time to be told they are suspected of being spies, each time told the State is trying to arrange asylum for them, to be patient, to go back to jail and wait a few more months until something can be arranged. Such an influential country, Bassem wonders, can't find place somewhere in the world for six people?
    Bassem is afraid for his sanity. After all he has been through, he sits behind bars during what should be the best years of his life. He looks at the same walls day and night. It is very, very hard to be caged like this.
    He does not dream of Ra'ida anymore: she is now married with three children.
    He misses seeing flowers, and beautiful women, someone to sit and talk to. A cold beer, the taste of whisky. They are simple things, but he misses them terribly.
    He has done nothing wrong. He has been a victim of such a terrible, unmerciful fate, for so long, and all he seeks is justice, human dignity, freedom from fear.
    Since his first day in a Jewish cell, he has committed himself to learning everything about Israel and Israelis, and Judaism. He speaks Hebrew perfectly.
     His only contact with the outside world is by telephone, and every Friday afternoon, he calls a few Jews he knows are trying to help him. They chat for a while, then Bassem says "Shabbat shalom," without really knowing what "shalom" means.

NOTE: Bassem's surname cannot be revealed out of fear for his family's safety.