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=> The forgotten allies

The forgotten allies

Posted by Tiglath (Guest) - Tuesday, July 24 2007, 1:37:33 (CEST) from 58.104.2.52 - d58-104-2-52.dsl.vic.optusnet.com.au Australia - Windows XP - Internet Explorer Website: Website title:

The forgotten allies Despite calls by soldiers and diplomats, only a handful of the Iraqis that help US forces are granted refugee status in America Suzanne Goldenberg in New York Monday July 23, 2007 Guardian Unlimited An Iraqi woman walks under a banner at the UNHCR office in Duma, Syria. One in seven Irais has been displaced by the war, according to Un figures. Photograph: Louai Beshara/AFP/Getty Images There is an unseen presence in the flat in New York's East Village that Lisa Ramaci-Vincent and Nour al-Khal now call home. It's that of Steven Vincent, a freelance journalist killed by an Iraqi death squad in Basra two years ago. Ms Ramaci-Vincent is his widow; Ms Khal was his translator and was with him when he was kidnapped off a busy street, bound, beaten and shot dead. On June 26, the two women met for the first time at John F Kennedy airport when Ms Khal was among the first contingent of 63 Iraqis to be granted refugee status in America since the 2003 invasion. In her arrival lies a story of the bonds that are forged in wartime and the bureaucracy that would stand in their way. The 63 Iraqis who landed at JFK last month are the only refugees of Iraq's post-war chaos to be admitted to the US to date. With one in seven Iraqis now displaced by war, the people on the plane were the chosen ones. Each had a patron waiting in America, a connection that propelled them to the front of a seemingly endless queue of people looking to live in safety. Also on the flight that day was Khalid Abood al-Khafajee with his wife and two adult daughters, bound for a new life in Brooklyn. In 2003, when even a chance encounter with US officials could lead to a job, Mr Khafajee - like many English-speaking Iraqis - was taken on as a translator by the US military. He rapidly found his job expanding into informal courses teaching Arabic and local customs and religion. The job was also becoming exceedingly dangerous. By 2004, the translator, then in his late 50s, was taking sniper fire during house searches in Falluja with marines young enough to be his sons. One marine captain, Zachary Iscol, so trusted Mr Khafajee that he called him his Iraqi father. When three militia men dressed in the black uniform of the Mahdi army came searching for Mr Khafajee, and he was forced to flee, Capt Iscol determined to get his translator out. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that nearly 4 million Iraqis have been forced to leave their homes since 2003. About 2 million of those are in Syria and Jordan. Two thousand more arrive every day. The situation has grown so dire that the US ambassador to Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, asked Washington this month to grant immigrant visas to every single Iraqi employed by the US government in Iraq to stop them quitting or fleeing the country. At least nine Iraqi employees of the embassy in Baghdad have been killed since 2004. The plea from Mr Crocker, reported in the Washington Post, gave voice to increasing distress among Americans who have served in Iraq about the fate of their Iraqi colleagues. It was a remarkable admission from an administration that was reluctant to acknowledge the scale of the exodus from Iraq - and came only after Democratic senators began campaigning for legislation to allow in more Iraqis. Although the administration promised last January to admit 7,000 refugees, the state department now says it hopes to get in 2,000 by the end of September. Refugee agencies fear that at the present pace of arrival, even that lower target now seems unlikely to be met for years. Homeland security officials in charge of interviewing prospective refugees make only periodic visits to the region. Obtaining security clearance has also become vastly more complicated since the September 11 2001 terror attacks, for fear that potential terrorists might try to enter the US as refugees. As the stories of Ms Khal and Mr Khafajee show, if an Iraqi is to have any hope of making it to America, he or she needs powerful friends and connections. "It's not like a bouncer with a velvet rope at a nightclub," said Capt Iscol. "But it's an incredibly difficult process to figure out. If you are an Iraqi in Jordan or Syria who speaks very little English, it is probably difficult to know where to start." Capt Iscol had already started investigating routes for bringing Mr Khafajee to America when he got word late last year that his translator had fled Baghdad on 48 hours' notice. The marine consulted immigration lawyers, and collected about a dozen commendation letters from other members of the US military who had worked with Mr Khafajee. He assured US officials that he would provide financial support for Mr Khafajee and his family. Capt Iscol also tried his hand at lobbying, making a trip to Washington from his base in North Carolina to try to make contact with influential members of Congress. In Amman, Mr Khafajee could only wait. He was acutely aware that his work made him a marked man among some members of the Iraqi exile community. "There were too many people there who liked Saddam Hussein and considered him a hero. I could not tell anybody that I had worked with the American forces because that meant I could get hurt at any time," he said. But by January, Capt Iscol had made the crucial connection; he was invited to testify to Congress about Mr Khafajee's life in limbo in Jordan. During the hearings, an embarrassed administration announced it was prepared to admit people fleeing post-2003 Iraq as refugees, and in Amman, the wheels of bureaucracy began to turn. For Ms Khal, the connection was Vincent. By the summer of 2005, when Vincent made his third and fatal trip to Iraq, the journalist and translator had both begun receiving threatening calls on their mobile phones after his stories appeared about Shia militia death squads in Basra. Vincent, in a panic about what might happen to his translator once he left, decided to take her as a second wife - apparently with Ms Ramaci-Vincent's knowledge - and get her out of the country. He was killed before he could put the plan in action, but his widow made it her mission. "It was what I needed to do in order to continue considering myself a human being. There was no way I could leave her there not after what she had done for Steve," she said. By December 2005, she had established email contact with Ms Khal in Jordan, and began emailing officials in America. At that point, Ms Ramaci-Vincent recalls, there was no public discussion in America of Iraqi refugees. It took a year of nearly constant telephone calls and emails before she saw any chance of a breakthrough - and it was a matter of pure luck. A human rights activist heard Ms Ramaci-Vincent on a call-in radio programme, and put her in touch with Democratic senators. Last January, Ms Ramaci-Vincent testified to Congress about Vincent's death and Ms Khal. Within weeks, Ms Khal had her first interview for refugee status, but neither she nor Ms Ramaci-Vincent are under any illusion that the path will be as quick for the millions of other Iraqis looking for a safe haven. "It took me a year and a half of almost constantly making the rounds," Ms Ramaci-Vincent said. "So for the millions of refugees who do not have someone advocating for them for months and years, I do not see how they are going to make it. I really don't." --------------------- - BACK TO INDEX - REPLY - QUOTE - EDIT - DELETE -

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