Last
year, a missile fell among his fields of wheat and summer vegetables.
It did not harm anyone, not even one of the lazy cows sitting under the
date palms. But a mile down the road another missile was falling.
It came down on top of a small farmhouse where
Hasan's son Adil, and two nephews, Muhammad and Yahia, were staying.
The nephews were burned to a crisp but Adil made it to the hospital
where he survived 24 hours and then died.
As the family cried over the caskets, another missile
fell on the funeral.
"Body
parts were flying everywhere," says Jabir's wife Umm Adil. "You
couldn't know the difference between a child and the flesh that was
flying and the smoke. The caskets flew in the air and fell on the
ground."
Across town
On the other side of Baghdad in the crowded and poor
Shia neighbourhood Shuala, Haidar Ghafil sits on the floor of his house
printing out political pamphlets in support of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr,
now wanted by the occupation authority which accuses him of supporting
the murder of a rival cleric.
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Haidar's life
was also changed by
by the death of his three brothers
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Last
year, a missile fell here too, on a crowded marketplace, killing 50
people, including Ghafil's three younger brothers Ali, Muhammad and
Husayn.
Ghafil scrapped his plans for marriage and
enlarging
the family home, and his carefree attitude was replaced by an interest
in politics.
"I will never forget this," he said at the time,
sobbing angrily, his eyes fixed on the floor. "Our reaction will be
known someday, it will be determined at that time."
Shared loss
Today, Hasan, a Sunni, and Ghafil, a Shia, have
something in common. They both want US forces to leave Iraq by any
means possible.
Both say their resolve was not formed when
they lost family members, but rather came to a head over time based on
the actions of occupation forces over the past year.
Hasan's family members have been imprisoned and
suffer nightly house raids.
"Whenever their cars get burned, they surround the
area and stay for four or five hours bombing," says Umm Zena, Hasan's
daughter in law and widow of Adil, referring to the US-led occupation
forces. "They don't bomb anything specific, just out of fear of the
people.
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Umm Zena: They
even smell the
perfume to check its scent
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"Then
they come in the middle of the night and inspect the houses and
personal things - the bedrooms, the kitchen - they even smell the
perfume to check its scent.
"They don't allow anyone to talk to them - they just
tell us to get out of the house. And we and the children go, even the
little ones who are sleeping."
Good neighbour
Hasan's brother, who lost two sons in US bombing, was
detained by US forces during a house raid when he heard his neighbours
shouting for help and came running to their home with a gun.
He disappeared into the US-run prison system and no one has seen him
for six months.
Ghafil's family also suffered the house raids, and
has to contend with no electricity, a lack of clean water, and chronic
unemployment.
Without the other sons to help, the family is
scraping by, entirely reliant on Ghafil. His father developed a severe
heart condition from the stress and is now bed-ridden.
Ghafil's mother has concluded that America did not
come to Iraq to help the people. "What help are they giving us?"
she
asks with tired eyes. "They are destroying us, not helping us."
One year after the bombing of Baghdad, when they look
at the pictures of their deceased relatives, Hasan, Ghafil and
their
families no longer cry. All their tears and sorrow have been
transformed into a seething anger at the US.
"Now, I am in pain and everyone who lost something
has this pain," says Hasan. "And this pain is heading for America. It
will come in a few days or months."
Lost childhood
The granddaughter, four-year-old Zena, never laughs
or smiles. Her face is permanently twisted into a sad grimace. She has
learned to say: "Bush slaughtered Papa."
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Zena has stopped
smiling since
her father was killed
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"I tell her: Daddy went to paradise," says her mother, flattening bread
dough and sticking it inside a traditional clay oven.
"I tell her I will make it up to you. I will be your
father and mother and big brother, I'll be your everything. But she
doesn't accept it. She's always asking about him. She talks to his
picture asking him to come to her.
"Before, my life was sweet," says Umm Zena. "There
was no war and my husband was alive. What more could I have
wanted?
Now, all I see is fear. Fear and horror. There is no security."
Political versus personal
Ghafil no longer dreams of marrying, as the
family
can not afford it. "I had many plans but now I've dropped them," he
says. Now, his focus is completely on the removal of the
occupation.
"The Shia and Sunnis have to unify their resistance
more; a joint plan is coming," he says. "When that happens depends on
the Americans. If they keep using more and more force against the
people, they will push this to happen."
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"I am ready to sacrifice the rest of my
family to defeat America. And God willing we will defeat her"
Jabir Hasan,
farmer
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As
tanks rumble by in the streets outside, Ghafil and his mother
agree
that peaceful demonstrations against the occupation are useless. "The
US forces just shoot at them," says Ghafil.
Across town on Hasan's farm, helicopter gunships roar
past the windows just feet away, rattling the glass in their frames.
"We will kick them out," fumes Hasan. "With all my
efforts, with everything I am capable of doing in this world, I am
ready to sacrifice the rest of my family to defeat America. And God
willing we will defeat her."
"I will never forgive them," says Umm Adil choking
and pointing to her chest, "My son. And I forgive them? My country. And
I forgive them? Our people all of them smashed. And I forgive
them?
"Right now, we don't have any freedom. Our people are
demolished. What freedom remains for us? Our country is gone."
