In this morning's edition of Il Manifesto, Giuliana Sgrena tells the story of her harrowing experiences in captivity and of the extraordinary series of events surrounding her liberation on Friday. She refers to Friday's release from captivity and the notorious incident at the airport as "the most dramatic day of my life."
She says that when she was first informed of the decision to liberate her by her two "sentinels", she felt ambivalent and uncertain because she "had understood that this was the most difficult moment of the whole crisis." Her captors, she claims, had warned her repeatedly that she should not emit "any signs or signals of your presence with us otherwise the Americans might intervene."
She says that almost immediately after getting in the the car that was to take her to the point of transfer, she was frightened by the sound of "a helicopter conducting surveillance at low altitude exactly above the zone in which we had stopped" in order to carry out the tranfer.
Contradicting the official US military and Bush administration's version of the events, she insists that:
the driver had communicated twice by cellphone to the [Italian] embassy and once to the government in Italy that we were headed to the airport
.
In her words:
We were less than a kilometer from the airport...when...a rain of fire and projectiles fell on us silencing forever the joyous voices of a few minutes earlier.
The driver began to shout that we were Italians, "we are Italian, we are Italians"....", Nicola Calipari threw himself on top of me in order to protect me, and immediately, I repeat immediately, I heard his last breath while he died on top of me. But I had a lightning-flash of illumination, my mind went back immediatly to some words that my kidnappers had said to me. They declared to me that they felt deeply commited to my liberation, but that I must be careful "because their are the Americans who don't want you return alive." Back then, when they originally told me this, I dismissed those words as superflous and ideological. In that moment, for me, they were risking to acquire the flavor of the most bitter of truths.The rest of the story I cannot yet divulge.
Thus she leaves off. And the most tantalizing of mysteries and unanswered questions in this whole extraordinary international affair must continue to roil and infuriate the Italian public and the entire globe:
Does this woman really possess some extremely delicate information and knowledge about the US mission in Iraq, or the US military's treatment of journalists and Iraqi citizens, or, perhaps, about the Bush adminitartion's collaboration and deliberate fomenting of the insurgency and the kidnappers? And, if so, why is she not yet able to recount it in public? For fear of being sent to Guantanamo or assasinated in yet another Camp Victory-style hit operation? Is it possible that the US intelligence thugs have actually already acheived their objective by sending the message to Giuliana Sgrena and all other rogue, independent journalists and investigators everywhere on the face of the earth that "you are either with us or against us" in our god-ordained crusade against the infidel non-western civilizations? The message that if you cross a certain line, your very life and that of your dearest and most cherished companions and protectors will be placed in jeapordy now and forever?
Giuliana ends her article with an important observation which cannot be overemphasized and which I have written about in a previous
diary:
I have always maintained that it is a moral obligation to go and write about that dirty war. I have failed in my certainties. And I found myself faced with the alternative of staying in a hotel to wait or to be taken captive because of the nature of my work. I wanted to tell the story of the blood-bath at Fallujah from the perspective and in the words of the refugees. And already that morning the refugees, or some of their "leaders" wouldn't listen to me. I had in front of me the detailed proof of the analyses of what Iraqi society has become as a result of the war and they threw back in my face their own truth: "We don't want anyone, why don't you stay at home, what good can this interview do us?"
The collateral damage worsens, the war that kills communication was falling on top of me.
On me, who risked everything, challenging the Italian government which wished to prevent journaists from being able to reach Iraq, and the Americans who don't want our work to stand as testimony as to what that country had truly become as a result of the war and notwithstanding that farce which they call elections."
In my
diary, I wrote this:
The Bush admininistration and their corporate allies in the mainstream media are celebrating some absolutely unprecented historical victory for democracy and freedom in the Islamic world, especially after the recent elections. I see very little evidence of this vaunted democracy and freedom. But even granting that Iraq were to become a somewhat more stable, relatively democratic and peaceful place, I still ask the fundamental question: Was it worth the price? Was it worth the loss of the lives of 1,463 US troops and counting; the physical maiming of up to 20,000 US wounded (according to Democracy Now); the loss of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians (according to a study published in the Lancet medical journal)? Was it worth the price in terms of the loss of international esteem and respect for the american people? Was it worth the irreparable damaging of all the most fundmantal principles of universal human dignity and decency through the illegal abuse and torturing of, mostly innocent, prisoners? Was it worth the extraordinary set-back in inter-racial, inter-cultural and inter-religious (and non-religious) comprehension and tolerance which is implied by the whole idea of a clash of civilizations? Was it worth the loss of faith in politics and politicians, the media ---the whole fundamental infrastructure of power---which systematically and unconscionably lied to us and deceived the entire world both before September 11, 2001 and after? Was it worth the price of the diplomatic (undiplomatic?) sabotaging and verbal savaging of such invaluable international legal instituions and treaties as the International Red Cross, the UN, the Geneva Conventions, the International Criminal Court, and NATO, to name just a few. And, above all, was it worth the price that the inevitable escalation and broadening of terrorism to include even journalists like Giuliana Sgrena among its victims will bring? Was it worth the loss of the freedom of journalists, those imperfect but indispensable purveyors of information, knowledge and facts about the modern world which surrounds us every day, to travel freely and conduct their profession without the fear that something like what is happening to Giuliana Sgrena might not happen to them?
Unfortunately, I don't think so!!
I still don't.