The Liberace Of Baghdad » Page 6

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Fear

“Put that camera down will you!!” Samir screamed at me today. He normally does this when we are driving through his resistance stronghold neighbourhood, but this time it was in downtown Baghdad. A convoy of American tanks and humvees had passed us and I wanted to get shots of them. I’d always been over-cautious but after 7 months in Iraq I was feeling brave. With the handover of power I stupidly thought that the Americans may be less gung-ho. The situation has cooled since the boiling point in April when kidnapping was rife and beheadings made headline news. So much so that I shaved my beard completely today. Samir was shocked, “Sean you look so beautiful… do not grow another!” he insisted, “You look so much younger.”

But he was less at ease on the road with American tanks. So were the other drivers. The tanks passed and a humvee was swaying from side to side across 4 lanes refusing to let any traffic overtake. This is normal practice since a few passing cars had taken shots at the soldiers in the past. But still, in the sweltering heat people get frustrated. So I pulled the camera out against Samir’s better wishes and got this in the frame. Suddenly 3 soldiers jump to their guns and aim, right at us. “Sean get that fucking camera down .. they’re gonna kill us.” I pulled the camera down and the humvee took off.

Samir grabs hold of my camera, “Can’t you see this prick-looking thing (the microphone) looks like an RPG – (rocket propelled grenade) to them. I lowered my camera .. We continued driving in shock. Samir was shaking. I was stupid. “Don’t you realise, since the handover of power they can do whatever they want, there is no come-back on them, it is their agreement for staying to patrol new Iraq”.

I shuddered to think of the consequences. I began to think about the atrocities I have heard about during the past year, when frightened American soldiers first response is to fire, and ask question’s later. Marla’s workload flickered past my mind. If all that happened when there was come-back on their actions what could happen now? Later in the hotel a journalist confirmed my fears, just 2 days ago an American patrol had let rip into a car killing all. No-one knows the reasons, no-one cares now. Without any investigation what is there to go on? The Americans in such circumstances never stop. It is against rules. Just like when a friend saw a tank cross lanes on a motorway and a passing car had no time to move, the tank went straight over it killing the family inside. Still they never stop, it is against the rules. It is up to relatives to make the claim for compensation. Yet still knowing all this I felt things had changed, after all I’d shaven my beard, a symbolic move after months of itching.

It reminded me of when I first arrived here in January this year.. “Just how dangerous is it out there?” I asked someone in my hotel. “Just keep well away from the Americans” I was told. “You’ve got more chance of being killed by them in this place then by any resistance fighter.”

Later we watch American convoys pass from my hotel balcony, they are pointing their guns at everyone and everything they pass. Samir shakes his heads looking concerned, “Look at them poor American soldiers thousands of miles away from home. They must be so scared.” Fear is the most dangerous thing here.

Gun Rage

Samir came into my hotel room shaken this morning. He was caught up in another bout of road rage, Baghdad style. Despite the new Iraqi Government taking control on the 1st July things are still relatively lawless here. A driver was arguing with another driver both pointing a gun at each other. Samir’s car was sandwiched in, he couldn’t move. The police arrive grab the man’s hand and he starts firing.

The daily perils of living in a country where most households have guns. I remember when I first arrived, it seemed crazy. But now having lived here for over 6 months it makes sense. I would want a gun if I wasn’t living in my well fortified hotel. And when Samir’s neighbour was murdered on her doorstep back in March I took ‘the law’ into my own hands. Fadi, Samir’s 25 year old son had sold the family Kalashnikov thinking things were going to get better. Samir was worried about his son and daughter living in the resistance stronghold neighbourhood with only a hand pistol in the house. So I gave Fadi $120 to buy a Kalashnikov. He got one the very next day. It seemed a sensible thing to do at the time.

But Fadi has temper tantrums. He was involved in a punch up the other week with a driver who cut him up. Thank God he didn’t have his gun with him. There is a hole in the hallway of Samir’s home where he let a round off from the Kalashnikov I bought him. He had been arguing with his sister about the Muslim girl who he hopes to marry. Samir’s family are Christians and he feels it will bring shame on the family if Fadi marries her. He will have to become a Muslim himself in order to marry her. Anyway when the subject was raised, it led to an argument and Fadi grabbed the gun. Samir fought with him trying to pull it off him and a bullets fired into the ceiling. It could have killed either of them. I thought of taking the gun back but then thought about the risks they are living under in this part of Baghdad. In the end I decided to leave him with it hoping that he can marry his Muslim girl without the loss of any life.

I came back to my hotel to find the guard standing proud with a golden plated Kalashnikov. It looked like something out of James Bond. “Where did you get that ?” I asked. “$300 on the street.. it is beautiful isn’t it?” In a funny sort of way it was.

IRAQI’S NEED ANOTHER SADDAM

“Hide that camera will you..” Samir screams. “I told you my area is full of insurgents, they will kill us both. These bastards are destroying everything now. They should kill them all.” I pull the camera down, we continue driving to Samir’s, listening to Mozart on the stereo, the baking heat making us both drip with sweat. Samir’s air conditioner in the car is broken, he doesn’t have enough money to buy a new radiator, he lost all his piano students after the war a year ago. It is not safe to travel anymore, and the roads here are gridlocked since the American’s closed so many main streets.

“You know I wish you could have seen me a few years ago. I was never like this. I had $200,000 in the bank before the 1991 war, then the sanctions came and the money was devalued, and so was all our lives. We were a first world nation reduced to a third world country. Can you imagine that? all the luxuries you like having in Britain suddenly being taken away from you overnight’.

We pass an American patrol. “But I blame Saddam for everything, he gave the American’s the excuse to be here now. He stole 30 years from every Iraqi’s life’. There is a road block, now guarded by Americans and Iraqi soldiers. this is new Iraq.

So why are the insurgents still fighting then? I ask him. Samir believes they are Saddam loyalists and foreign fighters. But many tell me they are ordinary Iraqi’s fighting to liberate their land from the American occupation. We reach Samir’s home, I quickly disappear inside the house, keeping a low profile. The house is hot, the electricity is not working and the generator is not strong enough to power the air coolers. Then the electricity comes on and the air coolers work.

We watch an interview with an Iraqi minister from the new interim government, defiant words on tackling the insurgents. “We will deal with them in our own way, in a way only the Iraqi people know” he smiles, and so does Samir. His words send a shiver down my spine. I see Ariel Sharon appear momentarily in his face. Samir gets agitated, “Iraqi’s need another Saddam, they need a dictator here. There are too many little Saddam’s out there to control.”

Then the electricity goes out again. Samir is angry. “They’ve had a year to get this right… Saddam sorted this out in 3 months after the war in 1991 and look at the place…” he goes off into another rant. I looked out of his window at the war torn neighbourhood, riddled with bullet holes, a US tank lies on a roadside destroyed.

Samir puts his arm around me. “Saddam knew how to run this country. He knew how to deal with his people.”

Small World

Sean McAllister and Samir Peter covered in mud
Sean McAllister and Samir Peter from The Liberace Of Baghdad enjoy some mud
Floating on the Dead Sea looking out to the promised land, it was quiet, peaceful, like biblical times. Then Samir got water in his eye, it burned. We were both covered in black mud, I had to guide him to the shower over the hot burning sands. For a moment I was Jesus and he was the blind man, then I heard him scream. I wasn’t looking and he hit his head against a pole, stuck out there in the sand.

Back home in Amman, a friend of Samir’s calls round. An out of work saxophone player who left Iraq 10 years ago after his house was taken from him by Saddam’s men. He is depressed so we drink some beer, then we end up here in the Sheraton where I write now. We watch the musicians play and then the singer comes over smiling at Samir “Are you Mr Peter?” “yes” Samir answers, he holds a card out, “Do you know this man?” we look at the card, it is Robert’s card. The billionaire mystery from a couple of weeks back.

Robert had promised to ship Samir’s grand piano to America, but we never heard from him again. He was an enigma, we explained to the singer that Robert had made Samir play the piano down his mobile phone to friends in America. He told us they were important White House people, then the singer smiles at us, “He told me to do the same.” Samir looks embarrassed. Well it is a small world.

Today fresh air

Samir made it through the desert with his daughters and granddaughter. I made it through the air, the dangerous airport road was empty, the corkscrew take-off exhilarating. We met for hummus in Hashem’s, the best hummus out here, drank wine and smoked cigars in the Four Seasons hotel, pretending we were rich for half an hour then went back to the humble apartment Samir has rented.

Tomorrow we see lawyers and plan for Saha’s visit to the US embassy. The weight of the war zone has been lifted from all of us and although we face impending goodbyes we are on holiday doing normal things like shopping in Safeway’s.