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Volume IX

Issue 23

21 July 2003

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This Week In Zinda

cover photo

Zinda Says

An Interview with Jamal Bidawid

The Lighthouse

The Mosul Settlement in 1926: A Press Review
Anniversary of the Murder of Dr Ghassemlou

Good Morning Bet-Nahrain

Assyrian Liuetenant Killed in Kirkuk
Assyrian Killed in Baghdad, Attackers Escape
Syrian Orthodox Bishop in Iraq Condemns US

News Digest

Pachachi & Chalabi: Rights of Minorities Guaranteed
Assyrian Victim of Torture & Rape Recounts Her Nightmares
Assyrians Hold International Sports Event in Urmie
Former Christian Baathist Now Lives in Fear

Surf's Up!

We Need More Like Rev. Joseph
The Long-Awaited Recognition
Kakovitch is Impractical and Idealistic
The Missing Bishops
Bishops Turning to History’s Revisionists
Transposing the Assyrian Name is BLASPHEMY
We Must Rise to the Occasion

Surfer's Corner

BNDP Conference in Baghdad
A Political Debate on the Compound Name
This is The Voice of Assyria
9th Annual Assyrian Youth Excellence Pageant
Assyrian Romantic Comedy: "Akh min Khimyani"

Literatus

Iraq: For Better or For Worse?
Drowning in Dinars

Bravo

Agnes Pireh: Mrs. Connecticut International 2003
St. Andrew’s Soccer Youth

Calendar of Events

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Zinda Says

On July 19, Zinda Magazine met with Mr. Jamal Bidawid in Beirut, Lebanon for a brief interview. Mr. Bidawid is a younger brother of the late Chaldean Catholic Patriarch, Mar Raphael I Bidawid. Mar Bidawid is survived by a sister, Nisreen in Lebanon, a brother Aguid in Iraq, brothers Barqi, Kamal, and Jibrael in the United States. Born in 1940 in Iraq, Mr. Jamal Bidawid is the youngest among his brothers, and currently lives as a remodeling contractor in Detroit, Michigan.

Mr. Jamal Bidawid, the youngest brother of the late Mar Bidawid

Zinda: Mr. Bet-Dawid, first of all Zinda Magazine wishes to offer its condolences to you and your family. Our publication had constantly followed His Beatitude on his journey from Baghdad to Beirut and during his illness and was to conduct a lengthy interview with the late Mar Bidawid. The patriarchal office contacted us last month and informed us that His Beatitude wished to discuss many important issues related to the Chaldean Church and the Assyrian the nation in general. The interview was to take place a week before his passing, it was postponed and sadly never realized.

Today we would like to hear from you as the brother of His Beatitude. What was he thinking during his final days? Can you share with our readers some of the concerns of His Beatitude during his last days?

JBidawid: The Patriarch was very concerned about the situation in Iraq, and about the Church, and as always about the unity of the Chaldean Church and the Church of The East. I remember when I asked him once about the union of the Church of the East he replied: “If that didn’t happen at my time, I hope it will happen during the life time of Mar Bawai”. He said this because he respected Mar Bawai and we all hope that this union will come true, especially if both Churches continue the discussions that began a few years ago… we all hope so.

Zinda: Do you think that His Beatitude would have played an important ‘national’ role in this difficult time for the Assyrian nation in Iraq?

JBidawid: Yes, I’m sure he would have done so, but unfortunately he had no chance. That’s why I’m praying that God will send us a worthy patriarch to cure the deep wounds of our nation.

Zinda: How do you explain the absence of the Assyrian Church of the East in the funeral of the late Mar Bidawid, with all the due respect to all the clergies of that Church who were present. Do you think that the presence of a higher authority than the priests present at the funeral was essential?

JBidawid: I can’t say that the Church of the East was absent; not the “Assyrian Church”, rather “The Church of the East”… I consider that church was present because always the followers of this church have been very sincere with the late Patriarch. For instance, in the United States and since His Beatitude’s passing, the Assyrian media run by the followers of the Church of The East has offered special programs about the biography of His Beatitude and his achievements, and special hymns for the occasion. That is why I would like to thank all the media run by the Church of the East followers, and especially the AssyriaSat of the Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party who kept showing the picture of His Beatitude with the flapping Assyrian flag. We were so impressed. This media has done more than the media run by the Chaldean church followers

Zinda: Thank you for your time, and as you said, we all hope that the new patriarch will be worthy for his position and able to accomplish what the late Mar Bidawid was always looking forward to achieve.

JBidawid: I would like to thank Zinda Magazine also, and we appreciate your presence with us before and after His Beatitude passing.

Attending the funeral from left: an unidentified member of the Lebanese Parliament; Mr. Ammanoeal Khoshaba, Chief of ADM Relations Bureau from Syria; Mr.Habib Afram, president of the Syriac Universal Alliance and the Secretary General of the Union of Christian Leagues from Lebanon

[Z-info: Pending an official decision from Baghdad, the body of His Beatitude remains in Beirut.]

The Lighthouse

THE MOSUL SETTLEMENT IN 1926: A PRESS REVIEW

Introduction

This short will show how various Belgian and Italian newspapers reported the Mosul settlement in June 1926 and the importance of the British Embassies in Brussels and Rome providing the Foreign Office in London with news reports regarding the state of public opinion in the capitals, which they were accredited. These news items were also passed on to the Australian Prime Minister in Melbourne for his information, at time when Australia had no official diplomatic relations with Belgium or Italy. Britain was responsible for the foreign policy of its empire.

A Brief Synopsis of the Mosul Question

The Lausanne Conference of 1922-23 organised by the major European powers-Britain, France and Italy- was intended to settle the differences between Greece and Turkey and to establish peace in the Near East. It should be noted that the United States delegation at Lausanne attended as “observers.” Some of the issues discussed at Lausanne were minorities, capitulations, exchange of populations, the future of the Straits, Anzac graves at Gallipoli, reparations and the Ottoman public debt. However, Britain deliberately excluded the fate of Mosul from the ensuing discussions and believed the League of Nations could arbitrate on this matter.

Ismet Pasha, the Prime Turkish Delegate at the Lausanne Conference, argued for the retention of Mosul in Turkey. Ismet and Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary and British delegate at Lausanne 1919-24 presented historical, racial, political, economic and strategic reasons as to why Mosul should either be included in Turkey or in the Iraqi Kingdom.

The British understood very clearly that the future of Mosul also involving the settlement of the Turco-Iraqi frontier was not about the Kurds, Arabs or Assyrians but rather the control and development of its valuable oil reserves.

There was no mention of Mosul in the Treaty of Lausanne signed on July 24, 1923. In fact Article 3 states:
“The frontier between Turkey and Iraq shall be laid down in friendly arrangement to be concluded between Turkey and Great Britain within nine months. In the event of no agreement being reached between the two Governments with the time mentioned, the dispute shall be referred to the Council of the League of Nations. The Turkish and British Governments reciprocally undertake that, pending the decision to be reached on the subject of the frontier, no military or other movement shall take place which might modify in any way the present state of the territories of which the final fate will depend upon that decision.”

Unfortunately, Angora (Ankara) never liked the provisions of this article believing that Mosul should be included in the new Turkish state. The British and Turks met in May 1924 in Constantinople trying to resolve this issue without success. From August 1924 to the end of 1925, the Council of the League of Nations became involved in attempting to find a settlement over the disputed Turco-Iraqi frontier. The British stuck to their original plan of keeping Mosul within the Iraqi Kingdom despite Turkish incursions into the dispute frontier (also known as the Brussels line).

Finally on June 5, 1926 the Turco-Iraqi frontier was resolved with the signing of the Anglo-Turkish-Iraqi Treaty in Angora. Article 14 of this treaty was intended to mollify the Turks. It states that the “ Iraq Government shall pay to the Turkish Government for a period of twenty-five years from the coming into force of present Treaty ten per cent on all royalties which it shall receive from the Turkish Petroleum Company.…”

Mosul Agreement: Belgian and Italian Press Comment

The Belgian press operated under the democratic model where it was not subject to press censorship. It was free to publish articles commenting, criticizing and advising the government on how to conduct or improve its foreign policy. The Belgian press comment was overall favorable to the Mosul agreement for example with the Le Flandre Liberale considering it a “triumph of British diplomacy.” The avoidance of conflict between Britain and Turkey is reflected in all the Belgian press articles.

In Italy, the press operated under the fascist system where the government of Benito Mussolini imposed press censorship. Any newspaper that failed to support or criticized the government’s domestic or foreign policy faced closure. Therefore the Italian press followed the official government line. Throughout 1926 Italo-British, relations were considered to be satisfactory.

The Italian news stories were very favorable to Britain with Corriere d’Italia reporting “the settlement increased the strength of Great Britain, economically and morally.” On the other hand the Tribuna reporting on June 5 stated “that Turkey has given proof of an accommodating spirit.” The Popolo d’Italia was the only Italian newspaper dissatisfied with the Mosul agreement. It thought “there was no ground for jubilation” as Italy “had been excluded [from the distribution of war time booty.]”

It should be noted that in November 1926 a number of newspapers –Mondo, Avanti, Stampa and Lavoro - considered hostile to the regime were suspended for an indefinite period by the Italian Ministry of the Interior. It is against this background that the news articles reproduced below are best understood.

From an Australian perspective these news summaries sent by Richard G.Casey, the political liaison officer in London, provided the Australian Prime Minister Stanley Bruce with information on the attitude of the Italian and Belgian press on the settlement to the Mosul issue.

Stavros T. Stavridis
Australia

[Z-info: The scanned document is from National Archives of Australia (Melbourne Office) M1135/0 4 Confidential Correspondence to Australia From April 1 to August 5, 1926 nos.303-400 Volume 4 R.G Casey 1926. Mr. Stavros T.Stavridis is a historical researcher at the National Center for Hellenic Studies and Research at Latrobe University, Australia. A significant contributor to the pages of this magazine, Mr. Stavridis will be a guest speaker at the Genocide Conference in August in San Jose, California.]

ANNIVERSARY OF THE MURDER OF DR GHASSEMLOU

The Kurdish Politician with Assyrian background

July 13, as in each of previous 13 years, marked the anniversary of the assassination of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou (Ebdurrehman Qasimlû) in Vienna, Austria. Dr Ghassemlou was known as the political representative of the Iranian Kurds. What may not be of common knowledge is that he was in fact half-Assyrian – born to the family of a Kurdish notable married to a young Assyrian woman.

As is clear from the memories of Dr Ghassemlou’s relatives and friends, he was well aware of this background although his “mother tongue” and major identity was Kurdish.

Since his accession to the head of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan in 1973, Dr Ghassemlou established himself as the leading personality of Iranian Kurds. After the Islamic revolution of 1979, he was the only non-cleric elected to the new, post-revolutionary Iranian parliament. Before the Majlis assembled for the first time, Khomeini in a televised speech addressed direct threats to Ghassemlou and his wife. Notified by his friends about the fact, Dr Ghassemlou chose not to travel to the assembly in Tehran and remained in his area of action below the Zagros mountains. That was in late July of 1979, only two weeks before the Islamic government began bombing the villages in that area.

Ghassemlou’s “European life” was bound to Czechoslovakia where he had obtained a degree in economics and later worked as Assistant Professor specializing in the global petrol industry. As many long-time foreign residents in this country, he had to leave during the notorious Communist “normalization” process in 1975, and found in Paris the new refuge for his family. Still since 1978, and even after the armed confrontation with the ‘mullahocracy’, he was spending most of the time in Iran.

His party’s slogan “Democracy for Iran, autonomy for Kurdistan” assumed a gradual return to negotiation. That took a more specific shape in 1988 when secret talks with Tehran were initiated. The series of discrete talks were to continue in 1989. Ghassemlou, convinced in the necessity of sincere conduct on both sides, refused to bear arms when coming to the negotiation table.

Such are, at least, the facts proved by the ultimate incident of his life: Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was shot dead in an apartment in Vienna on July 13, 1989. The scene of crime was originally designed to accommodate the meetings with the Iranian government’s officials: Hajji Mostafavi and Mohammad Ja’far Sahrarudi, both accompanied by Amir Mansur Bozorgiyan introduced as their bodyguard. Despite the death toll of 3 – as Ghassemlou’s secretary Abdollah Qaderi-Azar and even the mediator in talks, Iraqi Kurdish academic Fadhil Rasul, were also killed – the Austrian authorities showed a breathtaking, and probably deliberate, mismanagement in the investigation. All three Iranian officials faced no obstruction in returning to Iran, including Sahrarudi, scratched by his companion’s bullet, who was treated in an Austrian hospital for ten days.

According to Ms Helena Ghassemlou, by whom Dr Abdul Rahman is survived, the Assyrian question was until the 80’s not on the agenda of the Iranian Kurdish politics. Had it been so, however, Dr Ghassemlou would have been most likely to stand open to reasonable solutions. Already in his lifetime he won an undisputedly high credit among many ordinary Kurds – unlike a number of their other leaders – as well as among the outer spectators of Kurdish developments.

Petr Kubalek
Czeck Republic

[Mr. Kubalek, a journalist for Radio Free Europe, is a Senior News and Information Researcher for Zinda Magazine working from his office in Prague.]

GOOD MORNING BET-NAHRAIN

ASSYRIAN LIEUTENANT KILLED IN KIRKUK

(ZNDA: London) The Information Office of the Assyrian Democratic Movement has confirmed the death of Lieutenant Nazar Yousif Aziz of the Al-Qadesiya Police Force in the South East sector of Kirkuk. According to ADM, the incident occured on Tuesday, 22 July at 8.30 in the evening (Kirkuk time).

Lieutenant Aziz, 22, was killed when an RPG grenade was launched into the Kirkuk Police Station. He was critically wounded and rushed to a hospital where he died shortly after.

Lieutenant Aziz was a member of the Assyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa). The armed assailants are thought to be members of the ousted Baath party.

ASSYRIAN KILLED IN BAGHDAD, ATTACKERS ESCAPE

(ZNDA: Baghdad) According to a report from the office of the Assyrian Patriotic Party in Iraq, on 2 July Mr. Fawzi Hormiz Shaayouka and his unidentified nephew were attacked at the al-Sadeq Dairy Factory in Baghdad. Mr. Fawzi was killed during this attack and his assailants are reported to have escaped to the Diyala region.

Mr. Shaayouka’s nephew, according to this report, is in a hospital recovering from multiple stab wounds.

Mr. Shaayouka is survived by his wife and three daughters; Valentina, 8; Fabiana, 4; and Flona, 2.

SYRIAN ORTHODOX BISHIP IN IRAQ CONDEMNS US

Courtesy of the BBC News (17 July); by Tom Geoghegan

(ZNDA: Baghdad) One of Iraq's most senior archbishops has sharply criticized the US for its administration of Baghdad. Severius Hawa, Archbishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Baghdad and Basra says the electricity shortage was crippling the city and putting lives at risk.

People were sweltering in temperatures of 50C, with no telephones, no jobs, food shortages and increased illness and disorder, he said.

Speaking through an interpreter, at the end of a three-week trip to the UK, the archbishop, who opposed the war, said even supporters of the invasion were now losing patience.

But he praised the British for getting Basra back on its feet, and said the anti-war stance of the Church of England had prevented a Muslim backlash against Iraqi Christians.

His trip to the UK included preparing for the proposed visit to Iraq in October by his English counterpart, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams.

He said: "Since the Americans have been in Iraq, nothing good has happened for us.

"What we were looking forward to did not happen.

"In Basra, it is better because the British know how to administrate and know the thinking of the Iraqi people because they share a history."

Mr Hawa met BBC News Online in Croydon, south London, at the rectory of Fr Toma Dawod, parish priest of the Syrian Orthodox Church in London.

Fr Dawod, who also acted as translator, blamed the recent death in Iraq of a 45-year-old relative with high blood pressure, on a health system under chronic strain.

The archbishop said mounting disorder was also preventing some people from leaving their homes at night.

He said: "My message to Tony Blair and George Bush is to think about us, about our people, to make peace and security grow in Iraq.

"And to deal with people in a Christian spirit as Christ taught us, not to punish all the people just because one person may be crazy against the Americans. Not all Iraqis are against the US."

He said he was unable to say yet whether he was happy to see Saddam Hussein toppled.

"There were people suffering under Saddam, but now everyone is unhappy," he said.

"We cannot say if it will be better or not until power and security are returned."

Saddam Hussein fostered good relations with the Christian Church, giving it money to restore monasteries, and allowing worship without persecution.

The archbishop said: "Whenever I met Saddam, like anyone else, I met him with happiness, patience and good spirit. And he gave the help I wanted."

Converts killed

The Iraq leader had a habit of putting a glass of water on the tomb of a holy person, to bless the water before drinking it, Mr Hawa said.

Baath party laws prevented the use of Biblical names or Christian schools, and Muslims who converted to Christianity were killed.

But Christianity was allowed to co-exist with Islam and the Catholic communities, with no animosity between the religions.

Even as the unpopularity of the West increased, there were no repercussions for Iraq's Christians because of the anti-war stance of Christians in the UK.

"Muslims did not hurt or kill Christians because they understood the Church of England was against war, and we saw the protests by people in England, France and the US," the archbishop said.

One Muslim leader who returned to Iraq from exile was thankful to the Anglican Church for helping his passage back, the archbishop said.

Describing the nightly bombing of Baghdad, Mr Hawa said there were missile attacks every 10 seconds.

But the fear within the capital did not prevent the churches from being full for Sunday worship, as people's faith seemed to strengthen in the face of adversity.

But since the war, donations have dwindled and the church could lose the lease on many of its buildings.

In order to ease fears the eventual government in Baghdad could be anti-Christian, talks have taken place in Jordan between Iraq's religious leaders to ensure continuing good relations.

Mr Hawa said: "We don't have any problems for the future. The problem is the people suffering now, with no money, no work and growing illness and disorder."

News Digest

PACHACHI & CHALABI: RIGHTS OF MINORITIES GUARANTEED

(ZNDA: New York) On Wednesday, 23 July, C-SPAN aired the speech by Mr. Adnan Pachachi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, addressing the Security Council of the United Nations. Mr. Pachachi is among three Council members visiting the United Nations. The other two Council members are Mr. Ahmed Chalabi and Mrs. Akila Hashami. Mrs. Hashami was a midlevel Foreign Ministry diplomat under Saddam who is one of three women on the council.

At the following news conference, Mr. Chalabi stated that despite the fact that Arabs are the majority in Iraq, they recognize the Kurds and the other ethnic groups that makeup Iraqi fabric, including the Turkomans and Assyrians. Pachachi stated that whether a federal system for Iraq is applicable is being debated at this time and he stressed that the constitutional rights of all ethnic groups will be guaranteed.

ASSYRIAN VICTIM OF TORTURE & RAPE RECOUNTS HER NIGHTMARES

Courtesy of the Washington Post (21 July); by Peter Finn and contributors Souad Mekhennet and Hoda Lazin

(ZNDA: Baghdad) She was walking hurriedly, as if in a trance, oblivious to the weakness in her legs, not seeing the bewildered looks of the American troops trailing her, not hearing her own cries of anguish. Jumana Michael Hanna, tears streaming down her face, had slipped into the darkest recesses of memory.

Hanna cries at the memories of torture while revisiting the police academy. Photo by Dana Smillie

Hanna, a 41-year-old Assyrian Christian from a formerly rich and prominent Iraqi family, returned last week to the well of her nightmares: the police academy in Baghdad, a sprawling complex of offices, classrooms, soccer, polo and parade grounds -- and prison cells, some of them converted dog kennels, according to American officials who now control the campus.

This is the place where in the 1990s Hanna was hung from a rod and beaten with a special stick when she called out for Jesus or the Virgin Mary. This is where she and other female prisoners were dragged outside and tied to a dead tree trunk, nicknamed "Walid" by the guards, and raped in the shadow of palm trees. This is the place where electric shock was applied to Hanna's vagina. And this is where in February 2001 someone put a bullet in her husband's head and handed his corpse through the steel gate like a piece of butcher's meat.

Hanna has come back here to help the new occupation authorities in Iraq find the men who tormented her. After she identified some of the men through a series of photos of officers in the new Iraqi police force and provided other corroborating information to American and Iraqi officials, on Saturday morning an Iraqi police anti-corruption squad detained three men, including a brigadier general. U.S. and Iraqi officials are talking to a fourth man and seeking his cooperation. As of yesterday, none had been formally charged, but the investigation is continuing.

"For two months I've been here and heard the rumors about what happened to women, but no one came forward," said Bernard B. Kerik, the senior policy adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Interior and former police commissioner in New York City. "This is the first case where someone has given us information that appears to be credible and that we can corroborate and act on. A lot of Iraqi women will see that we are serious. This is an event that will lead to closure for a lot of people -- and justice."

Hanna, who agreed to the use of her full name, is just one of hundreds and possibly thousands of women who were tortured and sexually assaulted by the agents of the last government, human rights officials said. For those who survived, their ordeal was often left unspoken, swept behind a cloak of family and societal shame. That will make prosecutions extremely difficult, American officials said, and makes Hanna's determination to expose her jailors all the more dramatic for an occupying authority eager to build a clean, new police force.

A month ago, homeless and seeking assistance from Americans for her mother, her two children and herself, Hanna went to the Baghdad Convention Center. A leadership conference was underway for about 60 officers in the reconstituted Iraqi police force. There, in the crowd, she said she saw the man she and the other female prisoners knew as the Major. She recalled he was the man who had laughed at their pain as he inflicted more and more of it, the man who extinguished his cigarette on Hanna's leg on the day she was ordered released. "Pain that no one can imagine," said Hanna. "Terrible, terrible pain. Pain that steals your honor."

Hanna fled the convention center in a blind panic, wandering aimlessly through the streets. Nearly two weeks later, she made her way to the Human Rights Society of Iraq, housed in a two-story building near the Ministry of Justice. Activists there told her that the U.S. occupying authorities in Iraq would want to know about her jailors, especially if they had returned to the police force.

And so, trembling, Hanna stood last week at the arched entryway of the police academy, seeking justice but fearing what lay beyond. Between tears and bouts of breathlessness, her story tumbled out in fragments as she guided her hosts, U.S. officials working to rebuild the Iraqi police force, from one scene of torture to another.

She pointed to a wall in a cell and said it hid a stairwell; the academy's Iraqi commissioner later confirmed its existence, U.S. officials said. At one moment, she walked through an open yard trying to find a second tree trunk, just like the first one, "Walid," but used only to tie prisoners for beatings with sticks or cable wire. She was convinced it was there, but no one could see a second trunk. And, finally, there it was, hidden behind some wild reeds and heaped brush. The guards called that one "Haneen," she said.

"We'll nail the bastards," said Dennis Henley, the American director of reconstruction at the police academy.

Among those detained Saturday morning was the one-star brigadier general, who Hanna identified as taking part in her initial detention in November 1993. U.S. officials have not been able to identify the Major, who was Hanna's principal tormentor, and whose family name Hanna does not know. U.S. officials hope the detentions will provide further leads, Kerik said.

An Iraqi judge and an Iraqi female prosecutor were assigned to the case by the Ministry of Interior. U.S. officials said they planned to offer security to Hanna, who has been sleeping in an abandoned school on some nights in recent weeks because her friends were not able to house her entire family. She remains afraid that her future testimony could endanger her and her children.

A Dangerous Love Affair

The torment of Jumana Michael Hanna began as a love story in the summer of 1993. She was the only child of a venerable Iraqi family. She met Haitam Jamil Anwar, then a 30-year-old wood carver, son of immigrants from pre-independence India. It was an unsuitable match for Hanna's mother and, much more dangerously, Saddam Hussein's paranoid state.

Their first encounter was at Anwar's workshop when Hanna brought an old ornamental box inlaid with fine Iranian stones to the Indian craftsman for repair. He was funny, charming and flirtatious, she remembers. There was a promise that the box would be ready in two days and an immediate attraction that left her giddy afterward. The courtship began when, upon her return for the box, Anwar asked if he could see her again.

Because of Iraq's tribal traditions, where each marries his own, Hanna said she felt forced to hide her relationship from her mother. "I wanted her to marry an Iraqi man, a Christian man, not a foreigner," said Hanna's mother, Jeanne d'Arc Jacob Bahnam, 73, the daughter of an iron merchant who married a pharmacist from her own community. Her husband died in 1974.

The family lived in a fine house in Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, were members of the exclusive and largely Christian al-Hindia club, and vacationed in the United States and Europe. Wealthy and well-known, Hanna didn't lack suitors, her mother said. But she rejected them. She wanted, Hanna said, to fall in love.

On Aug. 15, 1993, Hanna and Anwar eloped and were secretly married by a sympathetic priest. In Iraq, however, the country's citizens needed state permission to marry a foreigner and the newlyweds had broken the law. A trip to the immigration authorities in Baghdad might have solved the problem, but Hanna, confident of her status as a member of a prominent family, went instead to the Olympic Committee in hopes that she could shortcut the bureaucracy. The Olympic Committee was the personal fiefdom of Hussein's eldest son, Uday, a psychopath and serial rapist whose penchant for cruelty and violence led him to even run afoul of his father when he bludgeoned to the death one of Hussein's close associates. The Olympic Committee building, now a burned-out ruin abutting the police academy grounds, was a symbol of the venality of Hussein's rule.

Hanna arrived at the building at 10 a.m. on Nov. 15, 1993. It was the beginning of a prison sentence of two years, three months and seven days without the approval of any court of law. Through much of that first day, she waited in one room after another on the promise that a meeting about her problem was imminent.

In the last room, where she was held for several hours, the door was locked. At sunset two men entered. She recalled they said they had to take routine security precautions in advance of a meeting with Uday Hussein. They slipped a black hood over her head and tied her hands behind her back. The anxiety, which had mounted through the day, flared into terror.

'They Took My Honor'

She was taken down to a lower level in an elevator and then along a passageway that seemed narrow because of the way the two men bumped against her. She was pushed into a room and tied, spread-eagle, to a bed.

"All of this period, I didn't resist," she said. "But on the bed, I knew. I said, 'I am like your sister; please don't do this.' I started to beg. They said if our sister married an Indian and started a network against the government, we would kill her. I kept praying, calling for Jesus and the Virgin Mary. I prayed to Muhammad. They damned them all."

"They raped me twice that first day," she continued. "I don't know the persons. Two of them. I couldn't see them. They kept raping for four days as well as I can remember. They took my honor."

A guard, who was not one of the rapists, took her periodically to a bathroom and washed her himself because he said he couldn't untie her. He lifted the hood to allow her to smoke a cigarette before taking her back to the room in which she was held. "I thank him for this small favor," Hanna said.

On what she believes was the fifth day, another man entered the room. She recalled he railed at her about a British spy network. He told her she had wanted her papers stamped so he would stamp them. He applied electric shock to her vagina; she lost consciousness.

Hanna awoke in what she thought was a veterinary clinic for dogs because of the sound of barking. She was, in fact, in a room adjacent to the police academy kennels. A woman applied alcohol to her vagina in a crude attempt to clean it. Hanna was given a painkiller and put in a cell with 17 other women where she was kept for 10 days before she was questioned again.

"We were one body and soul," she said of the women in the cell. "We helped each other." All of the women, she said, had been detained or kidnapped and then raped, some for as long as six months before they were discarded by their captors and brought to the police academy. She remembers, in particular, a Christian girl, a 16-year-old from Baghdad who said she was kidnapped outside her school. She was beautiful, "like Barbie the doll," said Hanna, who speaks some English and French.

On the 10th day, Hanna said, she met the Major, then about 35 years of age, a broad-shoulder man with curly black hair balding at the temples. "He wanted to know about a British network," said Hanna, who said he began by slapping her in the face. "He was sure I was working for the British. He gave me names, Iraqi names, men. I said, 'Yes, yes. I signed every paper he wants.' "

Over the next seven months, Hanna said, she implicated people she had never heard of in a spy network she knew nothing about. She was routinely beaten and she said the Major, in a grotesque joke, kept three sticks on a wall hanging under the names Jesus, the prophet Muhammad and Imam Ali, whom Shiite Muslims believe is Muhammad's true heir. Whichever holy man a prisoner called out for determined which stick they were beaten with. The Major, she said, also routinely used electric shock and once set a police dog on her in a small room; the scar of the bite mark is still on her arm.

The Major "is a sadist," said Hanna. "He loves torturing, especially in the sensitive spot." But, she added, the Major never raped the prisoners. The women were sexually assaulted by other guards, particularly at night when they would come to the cells. "They choose a girl and take her to the yard," Hanna said.

Family Bled Dry

For months, Hanna's mother thought her daughter had simply fled with her new husband. But he had also been arrested. "I asked my relatives if they knew where they were," Bahnam said. "No one knew. I thought she had disgraced me."

After seven months, three men arrived at Bahnam's house and told her that her daughter had been arrested. They produced a handwritten letter from Hanna, secured by the Major, asking Bahnam to sign over her house to them in order to secure her daughter's release.

"I agreed," said Bahnam. "I asked for time and they said they would give me 15 days to get out." The house has since been sold and re-sold and is one of thousands of similar cases that may clog the Iraqi courts for years as victims of the last government seek compensation.

"I took my gold and went out," said Bahnam. "I went to a Muslim house and begged him and he said, 'You are welcome.' " That man, Ahmed Safar, who is still living in Baghdad, said he sheltered Bahnam because it was his obligation as a Muslim once she asked for his help. He had never seen her before she showed up at his doorstep.

Over the next 19 months, the security officers drained Bahnam of her remaining wealth, forcing her to convert her gold into cash -- about $25,000 in all, she estimates.

In early 1996, Hanna and her husband, who had been held in a detention center directly across from the police academy, were finally released. Anwar's body bore the marks of torture and one of his legs had been broken while he was in custody, Hanna said.

Moving from rental to rental over the next few years, the couple subsisted on part-time jobs. They had two children, Sabr, a girl, and Ayoub, a boy, but they never had their marriage sanctioned by the state.

In January 2001, Anwar went to the Ministry of Interior to try and sort out his children's papers before they started school; he also needed the papers so their church would baptize them. He was arrested and taken back to the cells near the police academy where he had been held before.

"He never came home," Hanna said. On Feb. 14, 2001, Anwar's body was passed through the front gate of the detention center to Hanna after she had been summoned there. "I lost my mind," she said. "I was hysterical." A taxi driver agreed to take the body to her church, where Hanna washed and dressed her husband for burial. Anwar had been shot in the head.

With her husband's body, she was also handed a piece of government paper recognizing her as the two children's legal guardian. They could now be baptized and go to school.

Finding Her Tormentors

Last Wednesday evening, Henley and Gerald F. Burke from the U.S. occupation authority's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance took Hanna to a trailer near the former Republican Palace to examine photographs of officers who had joined the reconstituted police force since the fall of Baghdad.

As an American soldier scrolled through pictures on a computer screen, Hanna suddenly said, "Go back, go back." Klumb gave the mouse to Hanna, who stopped at one picture.

"This is Salah, this is Salah," shouted Hanna, dressed in black, as she has been since her husband's death. "He brought me to jail."

The computer showed a brigadier general, a smiling, gray-haired man, in the photo. Hanna said he was the man who detained her at the Olympic Committee when a hood was placed over her head before her supposed meeting with Uday Hussein.

Hanna continued to click through pictures. "No, no, no," she said.

And then: "Saddam, Saddam." She identified a police sergeant, the man who washed her in the bathroom at the Olympic Committee and gave her cigarettes.

Then she found two of the men who allegedly raped her and other women at the police academy, a police captain and a senior sergeant.

"They raped us, they raped us in the night," she said. The pictures continued to scroll, hundreds of them, and she identified two men who escorted her to interrogations but did not abuse her.

"This is Raad, Raad," she said at another point.

"He was responsible for the dogs. For the dogs." He was among those detained on Saturday. Hanna said that this man brought her and other women out to the tree trunk known as "Haneen." One of his preferred forms of torture, she said, was to order the women to strip, then tie them to the tree trunk, and smear wet sugar on them so the dogs would terrorize them as they licked it off their bodies. Hanna also identified his superior at the academy.

But Hanna failed to find the Major among the photographs. U.S. officials promised they would continue to look for him.

Once he is found, she said, "I will take off my black clothes."

[Z-info: The two sons of Saddam Hussein were killed this week during a 6-hour intense gun battle with U.S. soldiers who raided an opulent stone mansion in Mosul. The charred bodies of Qusay Hussein, 37, and Uday Hussein, 39, were identified by the U.S. military on Wednesday morning. A more detailed examination is expected later.]

ASSYRIANS HOLD INTERNATIONAL SPORTS EVENT IN URMIE

Courtesy of the IRNA (19 July)

(ZNDA: Urmie) The Third Tammuz Cup opened on Friday in the city of Urmie in the province of Western Azerbaijan. This 10-day international event is held each year by the Assyrians of Iran.

Regional teams from Salamas, Urmie, and Tehran are joined by the Georgian, Russian, and Armenian teams this year.

The competitions will be attended by 35 teams comprised of 317 athletes.

The male and female contestants will compete in various fields including volleyball, basketball, football (American soccer), table tennis, tennis, and even chess.

Addressing the inaugural ceremony of the Tammuz Cup was the Deputy-Governor (or Nayeb Farmandar) of the Western Azerbaijan, Mr. Abbas Khorshidi. Mr. Khorshidi said that the Islamic Republic of Iran feels committed to providing the religious minorities with the necessary grounds for their activities.

Expressing satisfaction with the ongoing festival in the city of Urmie, Mr. Khorshidi noted that the contests "prove that the Assyrian youth are determined to strengthen friendly ties through sport such games."

"The Assyrian community along with other minorities have played a decisive role in providing an atmosphere of consensus and brotherhood in this country," he added.

The opening ceremony was attended by the Members of the Majlis (Parliament) from Urmie, Mr. Karim; from Makou, Mr. Mohammad Abbasipour, and a number of officials from the provincial state departments as well as Assyrian religious authorities.

At the conclusion of the inaugural ceremony, the competing teams paraded and acrobatic shows were performed by a number of sportsmen.

FORMER CHRISTIAN BAATHIST NOW LIVES IN FEAR

Courtesy of the USA Today (18 July)

(ZNDA: Baghdad) Salem Behnam is talking cheerfully about how he and his friends meet almost every day at the Al-Daraji Cafe to play dominoes.

Then he's asked whether they talk about politics. Within seconds, tears stream down his face.

''I was a full-fledged Baath Party member,'' he says. ''Now I cannot go to my home because people are looking for me to hurt me. I was forced to be a party member to keep my job. I did not report on anybody (to Saddam Hussein's Baath agents). I did not hurt anybody. It's been two months since I've seen my family. If I had done anything wrong, I could accept this punishment. But I did not.''

Behnam, 54, a Christian in a Muslim country, says he collected monthly payments of 1,000 Iraqi dinars each (about 60 cents) from businesses to give to the party. The money was supposed to go to an insurance fund for trade union members. He was paid 20,000 dinars (about $12) a month.

It's likely Behnam received favors for being a Baath collector, though he won't say. Party members owned property, ran businesses and sent their children to better schools. Business owners who didn't pay taxes probably couldn't get government permits or other necessary documents.

Behnam left the home in south Baghdad that he shared with his wife and six children when he heard that angry residents were seeking revenge against Baath members. Since then, he says, he's been moving from one relative's home to another's almost daily.

''For me,'' he says, ''this new life is also a nightmare.''

Surfs Up!
Letters From Zinda Magazine Readers

WE NEED MORE LIKE REV. JOSEPH

God Bless Rev. Ken Joseph, Assyrian Man of the Year. Finally a Man who whether he is 100% Assyrian or not speaks from his heart and mind not to mention knows what he is saying. Why does that puzzle you? It's about time.

Why hasn't he been invited to speak in Chicago? Are we jealous now? He should be at all of our top speaking engagements. I asked the AANF if he would be speaking at their 70th convention and they said not yet....exactly why not?

If you want the real Assyrian people to come out instead of the one's that have forgotten what Assyrian is all about and have been with the Arabs too long and project the "thug mentality" instead of the Assyrian mentality then invite intelligent, enlightened, humanitarian, spiritual speakers who are RIGHT not necessarily just in it for the Money to speak or should I say ZOOZA.

Sick of the same old …then invite Rev. Kenneth Joseph from www.assyrianchristians.com and you'll see a lot more Assyrians not Arabs disguised as Assyrians!

Salim Louai
Chicago

THE LONG-AWAITED RECOGNTION

I admire and am thankful to Zinda Magazine for its article regarding Mr. I. Kakovitch's Assyrian Manifesto. As far as I am aware it is the first time Mr. Kakovitch has been acknowledged publicly after all those years of hard work for Assyrian causes. Unfortunately over some personal reasons he has not been supported and mostly misunderstood. Hopefully this time on August 7 he will be supported and recognized by our attendance in his event.

David Gavary
Los Angeles

KAKOVITCH IS IMPRACTICAL AND IDEALISTIC

Dr. Kakovitch is presenting a plan that is, at the moment, practically inexecutable. He is dreaming of an independent Assyria – when he knows very well that we are a tiny minority in our homeland. In all seriousness, he is aiming too high and his ideas are very unrealistic. An independent Assyria – something every true Assyrian wishes for – will not come through congresses and meetings. These are things that will have no effect if we do not have more important things first.

Our major problem is the name debate and the state of our churches. This has started to improve somewhat in the recent months. Please let us try and nurture that. Without common support from all our religious denominations, any national venture will indeed fail.

We have to worry first and foremost about education. How to establish and support Assyrian schools, from pre-school to high-school levels, as well as Assyrian colleges, libraries, archives and museums in the homeland and the Diaspora. We can maintain our language, history and heritage through education even without having an independent state.

We also need to build bridges to each other. It is highly comical how Assyrians in Australia do not even know – or even worse don’t care to know – about their brethren in the Ex-Soviet republics or in South America. We have to network with each other and maintain strong links between our Diaspora communities, as well as the communities remaining in the homeland.

We need also to have a high standard of media – television, radio, print, etc. I would invite Dr. Kakovitch to count the number of current Assyrian television and radio programs, newspapers, magazines, books, and even orchestras, theatrical groups and dance troops – that are of a standard good enough to influence and inspire our youth. All this could have been established while the Assyrian political groups in the Diaspora were so vainly looking for an independent Assyria.

This search has instead created a vast generation-X of alienated Assyrian youngsters, who know little of their culture and what it means to be Assyrian. At the rate they are going, I would love to see if they can even realistically think about establishing an independent Assyria in 50 years or 100 years time.

Then the way Dr. Kakovitch delegates representatives from the different countries of the world is also quite amusing. He gives representatives to Spain (where there are only about 250 Assyrians) and the Ukraine (which has little more than 1,000 Assyrians) but neglects the Assyrians of Egypt and Sudan (numbering 5,000) and Israel / Palestine (numbering 7,000) – not to mention the 20,000 or more Assyrians in South America. Then he gives 4 seats to the Russian Federation (where there are only 40,000 Assyrians) and 1 seat to Syria (where there are 250,000 Assyrians)!

Apart from that, Assyrian communities are not united enough to accept any representatives - and this plan would make no improvement on that. We are still tribalistic and sectarian in our outlook and that will only change with education, media and good networking.

It made me want to run in circles when he called the provinces of Kirkuk, Arbil and Dohuk ‘Kurdistan’ and he wanted to move the Assyrians there all to the province of Nineveh. May I remind him that some of the communities in those regions have been living there since time immemorial and have the monuments to prove it! Nearly 10 times their number live in Baghdad – where there is almost nothing older than the 19th century linking Assyrians to that city. It would make more of a difference if they moved to Nineveh now wouldn’t it?

Dr. Kakovitch and other Assyrian idealists must come to terms and accept reality. Assyrians in the Middle East can have nothing better now than the national, religious, linguistic and cultural rights that come with recognition as an indigenous minority. We cannot come from above and put conditions on the majority populations now residing on our land. It is now too late for that. The best Assyrians can hope for in terms of self-determination are protected enclaves in Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkey – very much similar to Native American reservations.

Bear in mind that in the USA – with a population of more than 250 million people – Native Americans number only 2 million and make up only 0.8% of the population. Canada – with a population of 30 million – has only about 1.1 million Native Americans, making up 3.7% of the population. Even in Australia – with a population of 20 million – the 350,000 Aborigines make up only 1.75% of the population. All are recognised as indigenous peoples, are treated with respect and given their rights. How much more so, then, for Iraq’s Assyrians who make up nearly 5% of its population!

Let us not stretch our legs further than our carpet will allow us to and please let us not jump the gun. Our leaders and ideologues must set realistic goals and plans for our nation, that work from the short term to the long term goals. We don’t need more AUAs and ANCs. The ones already existing are enough. Let Dr. Kakovitch try and work with the structures already in place to make change – instead of creating a superfluous one.

Nicholas Al-Jeloo
Australia

THE MISSING BISHOPS

Your editorial titled "What happened to The Assyrian Church of The East on Saturday". I attribute that to the pitiful state of the Leadership of the Church of the East. The question is not why any of our Bishops did not attend the funeral, but why His Holiness Mar Dinkha did not designate an official representative of the Church to be there. Yet we sometimes wonder why our Church does not get the recognition it deserves.

The funeral of His Beatitude Mar Raphael I Bidawid in Beirut, Lebanon

Edward Mikhail
California

BISHOPS TURNING TO HISTORY’S REVISIONISTS

Something is very wrong. We thought that by introducing and accepting the name “Chaldo-Assyrians” the members of the various Syriac-speaking churches in Iraq would have finally united. For a moment everything was rosy, today we are facing with the same troubles of three years ago with Bishops Sarhad Jammo and Ibrahim Ibrahim in the background promoting Chaldeanism .

There was a small gathering with Mar Sarhad Jammo at the St. Mary's Assyrian Chaldean Catholic Church in San Jose on Sunday June 29, 2003. The meeting was semi-formal with only a limited and selected invited members of the parish. Mar Sarhad Jammo brought up the name issue as usual. His argument about the name issue could be summarized in one sentence. The bishop claims that in the beginning, we were all Assyrians, but after the fall of Nineveh, the ancient Chaldeans of southern Mesopotamia took over Assyria of northern Mesopotamia, thus we all became Chaldeans. It is for this reason that the bishop prefers the term Chaldean over the name Assyrian!

It is unfortunate that Mar Sarhad Jammo is not giving his presentations before the people who know how to defend real history, or do indeed know real history but do not stand up to challenge a bishop. A religiously devoted and oriented community shy away from challenging clergymen and those who do stand up to challenge church hierarchy could face humiliation, ill-favored treatment, and even personal attacks and thus isolation by the church and the community.

At this junction, I would like to ask HG Bishop Jammo certain questions and I hope that he would address them kindly in his future classes and presentations.

Bishop Jammo:

1. What do you call a person, especially one raised in a Middle Eastern culture, who looks at his ethnic background as something different from his own parents? Your own father, Yousif Hermiz Jammo, in his book "The Remains of Nineveh or the History of Telkaif" stated that the towns and villages of northern Iraq were basically Assyrian and the inhabitants of these villages today, hence himself included, were in essence the descendents of the ancient Assyrians. Why are you propagating something different?

a. Click below to read about what Bishop Jammo's father wrote: (http://www.atour.com/education/20030622a.html).

2. Please name ONE ancient Chaldean king who was referred to as the Chaldean king of Nineveh, or the Chaldean king of Assyria. Only one.

3. Please name ONE historical document in which it describes clearly any aspects of the daily life of the claimed ancient Chaldeans inhabiting and ruling in Nineveh, only one.

a. Click below to read about the fact that ancient Chaldeans did not rule Assyria among other issues: (http://www.atour.com/education/20001021a.html)

4. If, and I stress the IF, the ancient Chaldeans ruled Nineveh and therefore everybody became Chaldean, as Your Grace claims, what did then happen when the Sassanid Persians ruled Mesopotamia from the third to the seventh centuries (411 years)? Did everyone in Assyria become Persian? What happened when the Arabs ruled the region from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries (621 years)? Did everyone in Assyria become Arab? What happened when the Ottoman Turks ruled our lands from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries (384 years)? Did everyone become a Turk?

Why is it that we remained Assyrians during 411 years of the Sassanid rule, 621 years of the Arab rule, and 384 years of the Ottoman (Turks) rule, but became all Chaldeans because of 80 years under the rule of ancient Chaldeans in Mesopotamia? Where is the commonsense in your theory?

5. If, and I stress IF again, everybody did become Chaldean after the fall of Nineveh, why and how did our people call themselves as Suraye in our mother language. Suraye, is a term that all Syriac-speaking churches denominations agree upon. The question here is, what is more logical linguistically: Suraye originating from Asuraye and Ashuraye (Assyrian) or Suraye originating from Chaldaye? Click below to read 66 quotes by scholars, historians, and notables proving that Chaldeans are Catholic Assyrians: (http://www.atour.com/education/20030615a.html)

6. Are the Nestorians of Cyprus, who asked the Pope to call them Chaldeans after converting to Catholicism in 1445 a different brand of Chaldeans, or are they Chaldeans from Babylon just like Your Grace claims? Please explain.

7. If, and one more time I stress IF, the ancient Chaldeans ruled Nineveh, then they must have left behind something that could tell us about them and their lives in northern Iraq, just as the Assyrians did. Accordingly, please list the name of ONE monument, artifact, obelisk, stone slab, or stele unearthed in Nineveh that is described as Chaldean, only one.

I challenge Your Grace to answer the above questions clearly substantiated with reliable historical documentation.

Your Grace,

Northern Iraq, today's region of Mosul and Arbil specifically, was known as Assyria well into the Christian period. Any reference to this land or its inhabitants being Chaldean is nothing but a historical myth. It is unfortunate that you try to take advantage of your position as a clergy in the church to force a historical mistake and heresy on the congregation of your church. As we know, our people never had the chance to adequately investigate their true history. Therefore, by propagating a myth, you are in fact misleading your congregation and acting against the words of God.

Upon his return from Iraq and meeting with the ADM in Baghdad and reaching an understanding on the unified compound title Chaldo-Assyrians, Mar Ibrahim Ibrahim, Bishop of the St. Thomas Chaldean Diocese of Eastern United States in Detroit, had made an interview with a local station. In that interview, televised on AssyriaSat, Mar Ibrahim is quoted to have stated that Chaldeans were a unique ethnic group. Days prior to his departure to Iraq and meeting with the Assyrian Democratic Movement (ADM), he had signed a public statement to the effect that there were two Chaldean political organizations that represented the Chaldeans: The Chaldean National Congress and the Chaldean Democratic Party (also known as the party of the Chaldean Democratic Union). Yet, when visiting north of Iraq, the bishop did not visit the headquarters of the Chaldean Democratic Party. Worth mentioning that in their press release on June 18, 2003, the latter organization had embraced the Chaldo-Assyrian name. Why all these mixed signals, flip-flops, and confusing actions? Is it true that Mar Ibrahim is juggling between the Chaldo-Assyrian card in Iraq and the extremists Chaldeans in the USA to challenge Mar Sarhad Jammo for the patriarchal see?

Fellow Assyrians,

Individuals like Bishops Jammo and Ibrahim are classified in general as history revisionists, who naturally find a place and followers among the naïve. However, in this specific case, I do not blame Bishop Jammo, I blame rather his California congregation that sits idle and allows him to spread fallacious history lessons about its origin. To add insult to injury, the bishop is allowed to spread such fallacy while preaching in the middle of the congregation of the Syriac-speaking Catholic Church in California, a congregation that in majority refers to itself as Assyrian!

The majority of the members of the Chaldean Catholic Church in California, with the exception of a segment of the community of San Diego, does not accept the empty and corrupted history lesson propagated by its bishop Jammo. My question to this community is “What are you doing about it?”. When are you going to be pro-active and do something besides the useless venting off in your private homes? You prefer Catholicism and that is fine, the question is what holds you from establishing a proud Assyrian Catholic church? Do you really need a bishop like Jammo and a church like the Chaldean Catholic Church misrepresenting you?

Unity, fellow Assyrians, is a shiny word and I, just like everyone out there, am thirsty for it. However, true unity comes only because of genuine intentions for a better future for an endangered people. I personally do not trust Bishops Jammo and Ibrahim, because the last five years have taught me a lesson. Yes, people change, but we must learn from our experiences and be aware, otherwise, we are doomed to fail time after another. Some individuals who are involved in the community and representing it have obligations to other parties, in our case the Vatican, certain Kurds and Arabs factions; such obligations, in many times, limit their abilities to do what is best for their people.

Unity does not manifest through cheap talk or meaningless declarations; it is born due to genuine concerns of divided and distressed communities that feel the urgency for progress and survival. True unity is born with the actions of leaders who believe in it heartedly and they filter this vision to their corresponding communities. The welfare of their communities is the sole priority for such true leaders, who put their money where their mouth is; they talk the talk and walk the walk. For how long are we going to be misled and what would it take to undress the cloths of uncertainty we so passionately claim to despise? The way I see it, we deserve this backwardness and sense of no direction we are living in because we, the people, refuse to take matters in our own hands. We continue to live the status quo few bankrupted organizations and so-called civic and religious leaders put us in.

The actions of Bishops Jammo and Ibrahim have been anything but admirable in the past. I cannot accept excuses and justifications made by the learned few on behalf of these bishops. My post is not intended under any capacity to be directed at these two individuals alone. It is only that Bishops Jammo and Ibrahim have been and continue to be so much involved in dividing that one cannot avoid the issue. The question that haunts me is how do the two Bishops face God every night before they go to sleep knowing that they are spreading pure lies about the origin of their congregation. I wonder how is God looking down on bishops who are supposed to be a role model for the community and on such men who are supposed to be God's representatives on earth.

What is going to happen now that Mar Raphael BiDawid I, bless his soul, has passed away? Are we going to see further unrest and struggle in the Chaldean Catholic Church? Would the moderates in the church allow bishops like Jammo and Ibrahim lead this Arabized church, or would a new blood and vision take control and stop this madness called Chaldeanism?

Fred Aprim
California

TRANSPOSING THE ASSYRIAN NAME IS BLASPHEMY

Lord, You bestowed upon Your army the Assyrian name, and You declared them to be the rod of Your anger. You first mention them in The Bible in Genesis 2:14 Your Assyrian Empire, with its capital at Nineveh, demonstrated its greatest influence on Bible History during the period from about 900 to 600 B.C. As You know Lord, Assyrians were the first to accept Your Son in the first century A.D. You used this nation Assyria, which repented at the preaching of Jonah, to destroy Israel who rejected Your prophets. Through the preaching of Jonah, Assyria bowed the knee before You, “Jehovah”, in deep contrition and fear. Lord I beg You, send a second Jonah to impose the following demands on Assyrians:

• Undo the schism that started when the Patriarch of the Old Church had ceased to be elected, and the office began to pass in one family, generally from uncle to nephew.
• Remove the notion that Assyrians are always, at least in theory, regarded as a self-governing minority to be administered only indirectly through Patriarch as the head of the nation.
• Create a spirit of unity among the political leaders that is unique and separate from that of the religious leaders. I pray for these leaders to be politically savvy, nation builders, meek, and possess great fortitude.
• Spark a hope of unity among Your church flocks, and encourage them to recall their Assyrians’ ancestry.

I appeal to every Assyrian to use all the influences at their discretion to keep the Assyrian name intact, public, and support it whole-heartedly by keeping it before their respective church, and country. I should like to emphasize the fact that I’m making this appeal because we need the Assyrian name to keep us united and un-wavered.

I hope prior to the arrival of the second Jonah, Assyrians would have believed God's warning; AGAIN. The church leaders would have commanded everyone, including animals, to stop eating and drinking! Wear black clothes to show their sorrow. Call out to God with all their hearts. Stop doing evil and don't harm others. Who knows, maybe God will have pity on us so we don't perish as a nation.

Shamasha Dan Daniel
California

WE MUST RISE TO THE OCCASION

First of all, I would like to make it very clear that I am a concerned Assyrian and not a member of any political party, and I am asking all parties from all ranks and sectors who are deeply concerned about our nation’s fate to be more proactive, realistic, brave and try to understand how to accept the facts we are facing and take our actions accordingly.

Fact 1: Iraq is facing today and in the coming years drastic changes in its political, legal, social, educational and other most effective sectors. These changes will, with no doubt, have potential impact on all Iraqis including our nation (Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syrians).

Action: We ought to stand united behind a strong leadership backed from all parties, groups and organizations, otherwise we would definitely lose this opportunity and regret it forever with no one to blame except ourselves.

Fact 2: We all know that we can’t agree 100% on everything and we all know that this is the basic behavior of the human being as well.

Action: However, I think that these disagreements and different views or various opinions should be constructive and be invested to strengthen our stand and improve our efforts. We should rather be supportive and helpful when we are in such a delicate and fragile situation and facing these limited choices, and at the same time, not forgetting that we definitely have the right to convey our voices clearly and loudly when needed and even change our leaders should that be required.

Fact 3: From the first day of announcing the 25 Iraqi representatives, may be even before that, we could hear opposing voices responding to the selection of Mr. Yonadam Kanna and even to how was he referred to in the news! Are we really so much naïve and inexperienced people to this level? One could easily notice the unpleasant response from most of our organizations and intellectuals to the fact that Mr. Yonadam Kanna being selected as the only representative of all Christians of Iraq.

They began criticizing him from the first day, even before he commenced his duties, as if they were just waiting for this moment to discredit him for doing nothing!

Action: Should we not rather, at least, show our support to make him feel the strength he is coming from being backed by all Christians? Do we realize what would be his position in the negotiations yet to come when he feels his weakness and the others realize that? Do we have the courage to ask ourselves these questions, or do we only have the power to destroy, deny and negate everything even any efforts to reach for our rights? Do we all know that you need less than a day to demolish a building, but you need more than a month to build it again!

Fact 4: This selected Iraqi council has many crucial tasks to work on within its short term (expected 1-2 years) and the most important task is to write the new Iraqi constitution and present it before the Iraqi people, and only with the declaration of this long awaited constitution, we as a nation, shall have our right recognized and fulfilled.

Action: Don’t we need to be prepared and ready for this historic change in our country? Don’t we need to put all our efforts and pledge to our nation to achieve our goals no matter what it takes?

Fact 5: I think there will be no harm done if Arabs and Kurds are willing to recognize our national rights by referring to us as Christians - as we all failed to show them otherwise that we are one nation baring one name.

Action: If we would ultimately reach our rights through this recognition, then I think that this approach is much more realistic than trying to convince other Iraqis to recognize three or four divided ethnic/religious groups with different demands and conflicting interests that could result in more divisions and consequently loosing most, if not all, of our rights.

Fact 6: I think we all agree and sincerely hope that the coming era is Iraq of democracy, and we all have our obligations and rights to denounce and replace our representatives should be held incapable of handling their duties and unable to convey, negotiate and fight for our demands properly and efficiently.

However, before we even get there, should not we ask ourselves, why and how would Mr. Yonadam Kanna come with different agenda than that of his own nation? What is he seeking of doing so? Did we even discuss our demands internally on all levels (except for fighting, which is our most proficient talent, each other on the name issue!)? Finally, did we announce publicly our agenda and our demands for our internal debate?

Action: We should rather sit together to discuss our demands and work diligently devoting ourselves to present the best picture of our united nation and only then we could present these demands to the Iraqi public and to the whole world. At the same time we must start a solid international campaign to attain adequate support and backed from other nations and organizations that are recognizing our rights, until these demands are fulfilled and our rights are fully recognized. It is quite obvious that we could not reach these goals with our present divisive, selfish attitude and with all this anger, and we may take examples from other countries and nations.

Fact 7: Let us make no excuses of being different or what ever reason and take a simple and very close example. The selected Iraqi council itself is composed of representatives from all Iraqi ethnic groups, religions and political parties and yet they have all agreed to sit together and decide the future of the Iraqi people for one simple and yet very important reason that is being all responsible before the Iraqi people and accepting this historic responsibility.

Action: Should we not do the same and feel this same historic responsibility and sit together to negotiate the best interests of our nation, which I believe is a much easier task than that of the Iraqi council. We could then present our case to the Iraqi council with one strong decisive voice and only then we could prove to the Iraqis and to the world that we are as good, responsible and united as we claim to be.

After all, we know all the facts now. Here is the promised Iraqi council selected. Here we are given only one seat, whether we like it or not. Here is the interim period to be 1-2 years for the council to finish the job.

What are we planning to do if not any of the above?

Are we going to fight and criticize each other forever, or we will keep on blaming and discrediting our representative for this reason or that, or just sit, watch and enjoy the fight that he will be involved in for some agenda that we don’t agree upon, or may be wait for any mistake or non-preferred outcome from this process to grill him!

Alfred Alkhas
California

Surfer's Corner

BNDP CONFERENCE IN BAGHDAD

The Bet-Nahrain Democratic Party (BNDP) has called for a conference in Baghdad to be held on July 25th at 12:00 PM Baghdad local time. Invited guests and speakers from all segments of the Assyrian population in Iraq (political parties, writers, religious leaders, and activists) will present their views on the current Assyrian affairs in the post Saddam Iraq, especially on the name issue.

BNDP is inviting all those who are interested to attend to ask questions and express their opinions in a free democratic debate. The conference would be carried LIVE (audio only) on AssyriaSat and the Internet (11:30 PM Thursday California Time). Please fell free to attend or submit your questions via the Internet at http://www.BNDP.org/bndp_contact.htm .

AssyriaSat
California

A POLITICAL DEBATE ON THE COMPOUND NAME

An Invitation to the Assyrian Nation

Our nation is currently passing through a decisive stage in its contemporary history, in which our people are facing the issue of compound name that raises a lot of reactions among supporters and dissidents. Accordingly, our people are invited to share their thoughts in the political debate organized by the AssyrianSat and Bet-Nahrain Cultural Center in Cerese, California.

Participants of our debate are:

1. Mr. Hirmiz Aboona: Assyrian Historian and researcher.
2. A panel of Assyrian Activists
3. Assyrian callers from around the world

The debate will be managed by Dr. Sargon Dadisho and is held in the Bet-Nahrain Cultural Center in Cerese, California. It will start at 11:30 AM on Saturday, July 26th 2003.

Refreshments will be served during the break time. We encourage your participation in person or with phone calls.

Bet-Nahrain, Inc.
California

THIS IS THE VOICE OF ASSYRIA

Through the radio service of “Voice of Russia” a Russian National Broadcasting station the radio program of “Qala Atouraya” has been broadcasting since 1993. World Radio TV Handbook (WRTH) notes the parameters of “Qala Atouraya” in the Directory of International Broadcasting, 2001, page 337. The program is broadcast at Wave 612 kHz, 20 kW, every Saturday from 16.00 to 17.00 Greenwich time, it covers the South of Russia, countries of Transcaucasia and the entire Near East.

Qala’s staff prepares for another weekly program.

The regular programming includes the following:
(a) News
(b) “Problems, events, people”
(c) Literary pages
(d) Announcements
(e) A short overview of the program in the Arabic language
(f) A new section “Culture, education, science”,

The program is embellished with the best songs performed by Assyrian entertainers.

For the first time during the last years we changed this scheme only on the 12th of July, 2003, because the whole broadcast was devoted to the memory of His Beatitude Mar Raphael I Bidawid, the greatest son of the Assyrian Nation and the Chaldean Catholic Church.

Dr. Osipov discusses Assyrian culture, education, and science

The section “Problems, events, people” discusses actual problems and events in the Assyrian Diaspora and also the most prominent articles and statements of famous Assyrian leaders and public figures.

A short section in the Arabic language which gives the most interesting information broadcast in the Assyrian language has become of great interest to people. This part of the program is intended, first of all, for the Assyrians who speak the Western Syriac language.

The editorial staff of Qala Atouraya considered it necessary to introduce a new section “Culture, education, science”. This section may be especially interesting for the Assyrian youth and will cover a wide range of information.

As you know Radio broadcast companies such as BBC, “Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty”, “The Voice of America” etc. broadcast their programs to the Middle East daily, but in the Arabic language. And there is no program broadcast in the Assyrian language. On behalf of the Assyrian Diaspora broadcasts from Moscow remain the only ones directly reaching directly Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon and broadcasting in the Assyrian language.

We believe that the whole Diaspora including the Assyrians of America, Australia and Western Europe could unite and carry on propagandistic work aimed at protecting the Christians’ interests and, first of all, the Assyrians in the Middle East with the help of “Qala Atouraya” from Moscow.

Being adequately financed we could broadcast several times in a week. All Assyrian organizations could provide us with their material and we from Moscow would ensure their broadcast to the Middle East in the Assyrian and Arabic languages. We are ready for cooperation and we will be glad to carry out this work with benefits for our entire nation irrespective of the place of residence.

Dr. Sargis G. Osipov
Qala Atouraya
Moscow

[Z-info: Zinda Magazine congratulates Dr. Osipov and the staff of Qala Atouraya in Moscow on producing a high quality radio program in the Assyrian language for such an extensive audience. Qala Atouraya is a prime source of distributing Zinda Magazine’s news and information in Russia, other fomer Soviet republics, and the Middle East.]

9TH ANNUAL ASSYRIAN YOUTH EXCELLENCE PAGEANT

The Assyrian American National Federation and the Midwest region affiliates for the 70th National Convention, along with the National Youth Excellence Pageant Committee would like to invite qualified students to participate in the 9th Annual Youth Excellence Pageant.

This is a program that promotes and rewards education, talent, knowledge of the Assyrian language and history, and good character among our young Assyrians. The pageant is also intended to instill the sense of Assyrianism in the hearts and minds of our youth.

The pageant will take place during this year's AANF Annual National Convention, August 28th, 2003 to September 1st, 2003 in the City of Rosemont, Illinois.

Please go to the link below for the Application packet which includes the criteria required to participate in the pageant, the application form and other necessary documents.

http://www.aanf.org/convention2003/graphics/YEP%20Application.pdf

For more information contact:

Denise Gewargis
YEP 2003 Chairperson
[email-masked]
(847) 910 - 2218

ASSYRIAN ROMANTIC COMEDY: "AKH MIN KHIMYANI"

Press Release
9 July 2003
Chicago, Illinois

Strategic Entertainment Inc., in association with Assyrians Around The World, proudly presents “Akh Min Khimyani”, a 90-minute long Assyrian romantic comedy set in modern times. It was just another normal day in the life of marriage counselor Nazar Nisan (Nazar Amedin) until his 11am appointment. Not realizing what he will undergo in the next few hours, Nazar Nisan invites his new clients to have a seat and that is where the “love story” begins.

Akh Min Khimyani is a story that defines the trials and tribulations of love, as seen from two arguable perspectives. The story follows Ashoor (Jimmy Khnanisho), who is married to the beautiful young Assyrian woman Ashoorina Sargis (Sharokina Hasso). Amo Sargis (Abby Sarkis), Ashoorina’s father is very upset that his only precious daughter is in love with a loser twice her age.

Strategic Entertainment Inc., is an offset of Babylon Productions, a company founded by talented aspiring Assyrian Film Producers four years ago. Since its original inception, SEI has produced two American Films. “The Other Side” and “Sunshine 220". The first film project was a 45 minute drama about a drug user who had one too many relapses and saw his whole world come to a screeching halt. The second, a comedy, brought forth the truth behind blind dates made over the Internet. SEI has also produced various commercials and music videos for Assyrians in the Chicagoland area.

Assyrians Around the World, a Chicago based media organization, has been producing Assyrian Television for the last 20+ years and distributing their multi-faceted programs to all parts of the world. Helping promote previous Assyrian movies and drama, Assyrians Around the World has been an integral part of the Assyrian filming and Television broadcasting world.

Entertainment, in its various forms, serves as a fundamental element in preserving the Assyrian Culture. Our endeavor is to help create an Assyrian film industry that captivates the true flavor of the Assyrian people. The Assyrian Community is comprised of very qualified Assyrian men and women that can contribute to the longevity of the Assyrian Culture. Through music and video the Assyrian language and customs can be heard and seen in a creative mode of communication.

Billy Haido
Vice President
Strategic Entertainment Inc.
[email-masked]
(773) 562-7320

Literatus

IRAQ: FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE?

For weeks, I’ve been hearing members of the media pose the question to “pundits” as to whether Iraqis are better off today than they were four months ago. Am I the only person who thinks this is a stupid question?

Ask the average third grade child if he would be better off if the meanest bully in the class got expelled. Ask the average single female if she would be better off if the serial rapist who was terrorizing her neighborhood was finally jailed. See what they would say. Have people lost their minds or simply their common sense?

“Are Iraqis better off today than they were prior to April 9 under the Saddam regime?” I say, ask the Iraqis, not the people who want to speak for them on cable news. Better yet, let’s ask the very people who were terrorized most severely under Saddam Hussein? the women of Iraq.

Under Saddam’s reign, the evil dictator and his posse of thugs not only targeted men who threatened his power, but just to make sure that the Iraqi people got the point, they routinely and sadistically included Iraqi women and children in their “training” exercises. Rape, torture and murder were all condoned, if not encouraged, techniques.

For years, I had heard stories from Iraqi-Americans of Saddam’s vicious rule?most of which, frankly, seemed unbelievable- like something out of a twisted horror novel. My mother, an Assyrian native of Baghdad herself, would share accounts that were far too unspeakable for public consumption.

However, it wasn’t until late 2001 that I truly grasped the depth of evil in the Iraqi leadership. I received an article from the September 2001 issue of Maxim magazine (yeah, I know?!) that detailed the gruesome legacy that President Bush later revealed to the world in his State of the Union address last January 29. The article was the most disturbing one I had ever read, and still is. It recounted a story of Saddam’s son Uday, who was known for preying on young, beautiful Iraqi women. One woman in particular, a college student, who refused his advance, was quickly taken from her home, hauled off to a remote compound in the desert, and for months experienced rape and torture.

When Uday finally had enough of her, he decided upon a creative disposal. Ordering his guards to stop feeding his Dobermans for two weeks, he had the girl stripped, lathered with honey, and fed to the starving animals. I doubt Uday or his father batted an eye.

And this was just one example of the Hussein family’s high esteem for women. Sure, this is one of the worst cases reported, but a number of Iraqis have told me that not a single family escaped the terror of the Saddam regime. If only they could be sure that Saddam and sons were gone for good, they’d be shouting their stories from the rooftops. You can be sure of that.

So, let’s get back to the original question. Are Iraqis better off today than they were four months ago? Let’s use some common sense, since many seem to be lacking it these days: Millions of Iraqis are experiencing freedom for the first time in their lives; Iraqi women are safe from the governmental threat of rape, torture, and murder; and allied forces lost fewer soldiers than they ever expected. Better off? Yes … and frankly, from my point of view, who cares about the other 15 words?

Angela J. Phelps
Washington D.C.

[Z-info: Ms. Phelps, an Assyrian-American whose mother is a native of Baghdad, is the producer of the “Concerned Women Today” radio show- a nationally broadcast radio show. For more information, please visit http://www.cwfa.org/radio.asp.]

DROWNING IN DINARS

When the Iraq Museum put the treasures of Nimrud on display earlier this month, it was heralded by many as a sign — one of the few — that the coalition authority could restore order in Iraq. Maybe, but things are never that simple.

A little history first. I learned about the treasure in 1993 while filming a documentary about ancient Mesopotamia. By then, this golden hoard of jewelry — the burial riches of Assyrian queens — had already disappeared from the national museum. Rumor was that it had been melted down in the face of sanctions or that Saddam Hussein had given it to a mistress.

It was only in the late 1990's that I found out what had really happened: the treasure had been transferred to a vault in the Central Bank of Iraq immediately after Mr. Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.

In May, just after coalition forces had taken Baghdad, I returned to the city with my National Geographic camera crew to search for the treasure. I assumed that it was still beneath the bank. I assumed, too, that it was safe. And then I got into town. The bank building was a burned-out shell. Access to the ruin was tightly controlled by the United States military. Soldiers refused everyone entry.

At the time, news reports were highlighting the looting of Iraq's treasures, and the coalition was under pressure to find missing artifacts. For this reason, we approached the American team investigating the ransacking of the Iraq Museum. The investigators, who didn't have the benefit of my own ten-year quest for the treasure, weren't aware of it. (The Iraqis seemed in no hurry to enlighten them either.) Once they learned about it, they became as keen to ensure its safety as we were. We were cleared to enter the bank.

This, however, was no easy task. It appeared as if the bank had taken a direct hit during the war. Charred Iraqi dinars were scattered on the ground like autumn leaves. Twisted metal blocked the stairwells. Picking our way through the debris, we and the investigators headed for the vaults. But instead of just the massive steel safes we'd been expecting, we encountered another formidable barrier: a flood. It was impossible to tell where the water was coming from, or how to turn it off.

Needless to say, the vaults didn't house just the treasures of Nimrud, they also contained billions of dinars and millions upon millions of American dollars. Still, the Office of the Coalition Provisional Authority — then under the leadership of Jay Garner — did not seem to be doing anything to stop the flooding, though it was certainly aware of the situation. (I ran into an Army Corps of Engineers officer checking out the flood, but he told me that he was just sightseeing.) All this was taking place at a time when people weren't getting paid because there weren't enough dinars in circulation.

Enter enlightened self-interest. My crew and I wanted to film the treasure. So we volunteered to pump out the bank. Though officials at the authority objected, we received approval from Col. Matt Bogdanos, who was coordinating the museum investigation. We hired a crew of Iraqi workers and the water level began to drop.

In the third week of pumping, however, we hit a snag. Officials at the authority, who had always taken a dim view of our exercise in amateur hydraulics, ordered the bank to replace our workers with an Iraqi crew chosen by them. It quickly became clear that the replacement workers were wildly inefficient — so inefficient that the bank insisted that our workers finish the job. This time, the authority did not object. Approximately 650,000 gallons of water later, officials opened the vaults, revealing more than 40 billion (soggy) dinars — and the treasure.

Jason Williams
New York Times

[Z-info: Jason Williams produces and directs documentary films.]

Bravo

AGNES PIREH
Mrs. Connecticut International 2003

A proud Assyrian-American, Mrs. Agnes Pireh was born in Urmie, Iran. Mrs. Pireh was selected on 18 May to represent our the State of Connecticut in the prestigious Beauty Pageant for Married women as Mrs. Connecticut International in Smokey Mountains of Tennessee in Sept. 2003 for the title of Mrs. International 2003.

The Mrs. International Pageant is the premiere pageant for married women. Now in its eighteenth year, Mrs. International celebrates the accomplishments of married women, the institution of marriage, family values and community involvement. Contestants are encouraged to showcase their community involvement through a platform issue that is important to them.

Mrs. Pireh will be competing with almost 60 other ladies from around the world for this title. All contestants will promote a platform issue that is important to them. Mrs. Pireh’s platform is "Freedom for All"; providing refugees with support, education, assistance and encouragement as they complete their long journey to freedom.”

Representatives from each town or region receive a beautiful crystal crown and satin banner with their local title. These will be used for public appearances throughout the year.

Judging for the competition consists of three areas:

50% Personal Interview
25% Aerobic Wear (No Swimsuits!)
25% Evening Gown

Ms. Pireh explained that her platform, “Freedom for All”, involves working with Refugee Services Organizations. “Our goal is to assist people from around the world who have been forced to leave their countries due to warfare, national disaster, and/or political and religious persecution,” Agnes said.

She continues, “This issue is very close to my heart, as my husband and I and our children left our ancestral home of Iran due to the Iran/Iraq war. After several years as refugees in Germany our dream came true and we immigrated to America. I proudly became an American citizen in 1999. Last year we were able to accomplish our family’s goal of bringing my parents to America after they, too, had been refugees.”

She stated, “As a proud Assyrian American, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to share my Assyrian culture and my platform with the delegates at the Mrs. International pageant.” Agnes is enthusiastic about her platform, “I want to share the freedom we have with others. I will continue working with state, local, national and international organizations to provide support, education, assistance, and encouragement to refugees as they complete their long journey to freedom.”

As Mrs. Connecticut, Agnes will continue to be actively involved with three organizations that provide refugee services: Catholic Charity Migration Refugee Services of America, Assyrian American National Federation, and the Hebrew International Aid Society.

ST. ANDREW’S SOCCER YOUTH

Congratulations to Rev. Gewargis Toma and Mr. Ted David, Youth Group Coordinator at the St. Andrews Parish in Des Plains, Illinois on another successful soccer season for the St. Andrews youth. St. Andrews is a parish of the Church of the East.

With the financial support of the Assyrian American National Federation, this year’s enrollment (2nd season) included 95 Assyrian boys & girls ranging in ages from 6 to 14.

“It was a very fun and eventful season and allowed the children to interact at both a competitive and personal level all the while evidencing respect for each other’s company in the Lords name,” comments Mr. David.

Calendar of Events

Visit the Zinda Magazine Calendar at http://www.zindamagazine.com/calendar

Thank You!

Zindamagazine would like to thank:

Mazin Enwiya (Chicago)

Dr. Gabriele Yonan (Germany)

Ashor Giwargis (Lebanon)

Billy Haido (Chicago)

Tomas Isik (Sweden)

Pauline Jasim (Chicago)

Ammanoeal Khoshaba (Syria)

Petr Kubalek (Czech Republic)

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ZINDA Magazine is published weekly.  Views expressed in ZINDA do not necessarily represent those of  the ZINDA editors, or any of our associated staff. This publication reserves the right, at its sole discretion, not to publish comments or articles previously printed in or submitted to other journals.  ZINDA reserves the right to publish and republish your submission in any form or medium.  All letters and messages  require the name(s) of sender and/or author.  All messages published in the SURFS UP! section must be in 500 words or less and bear the name of the author(s).    Distribution of material featured in ZINDA is not restricted, but permission from ZINDA is required. This service is meant for the exchange of information, analyses and news.  To subscribe, send e-mail to:  [email-masked].
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