'This war will solve nothing'

Paul Willis talks to Amir, an Iraqi living in the North-East.

THE weapons inspectors are back in Iraq, and as we wait for them to report their findings the very real prospect of a war on Iraq continues to dominate much of the political debate in this country. But while figures from all walks of public life add their weight to the arguments, there is one group whose voice has been conspicuous by its absence but, for whom the future of Iraq is more important than for anyone.

Iraqis living in the UK have been almost entirely overlooked in the long-running question about whether to bomb their country. Many have come to the UK to escape persecution and are afraid to speak out because they fear the consequences for themselves or their families back in Iraq. But others who feel brave enough to talk have simply been ignored.

There are estimated to be anything between 500 and 1,000 Iraqis living in the North-East. Exact figures are hard to obtain because Home Office statistics only include those who have applied legitimately for asylum and not those living here illegally.

Amir first came to live in Middlesbrough from Baghdad over 20 years ago. Despite more than two decades in this country, he is still sufficiently nervous about publicly opposing Saddam's regime to want his surname kept secret. However, the prospective bombing of his homeland is a subject he feels too strongly about to stay silent. He says that while he is totally opposed to the regime of Saddam Hussein and has seen at first hand the terrible abuses of his ruling Ba'ath Party, attacking Saddam will not help Iraq.

He says: "A war will not solve anything and it could seriously hurt the people of Iraq. If they destroy my country who is going to rebuild it afterwards?"

Amir, 63, left Iraq in 1978 and came to live in England. Getting out of Iraq then, like today, was almost impossible and Amir was only able to leave because of a contact who worked for the ambassador of one of the Gulf countries. Amir travelled to this Gulf state and then onto the UK where he came to live in Middlesbrough. He has never been back to his homeland.

He says that the Gulf War in 1991 and subsequent UN sanctions have devastated the ordinary people of Iraq and another war would only add to their miseries.

He says: "The Iraqi currency has been massively devalued since the sanctions came in and medicine is now very difficult to come by. Thousands of children have died from malnutrition and treatable diseases as a direct result of the UN sanctions. Unfortunately Saddam's government has used this as a propaganda weapon against the West, so it will let what medicine it has got rot away rather than give it to the people."

The United Nations itself supports Amir's claims. A UN Security Council report on the humanitarian effects of the sanctions published in March 1999 admitted that: "The gravity of the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people is indisputable and cannot be overstated."

According to the report, infant mortality rates in Iraq are among the highest in the world and only 41 per cent of the population has regular access to clean water. The report also noted that the population's dependence on humanitarian supplies has "increased government control over individual lives".

The bombing of Iraq both during the Gulf War and after has led to high levels of depleted uranium, which in turn has led to thousands of cases of cancer among the population. Amir has experienced at close quarters the devastating effects of the depleted uranium on his countrymen.

"I have lost three close members of my family as a result of cancer," he says, "One of them was my brother, who died earlier this year. If they get rid of this regime the UN should set up an investigation into US war crimes in Iraq."

Amir first visited England as a student in the late 1970s where he met and married a North-East girl. At first he and his British wife returned to Iraq and tried to settle in Amir's native Baghdad. Amir worked as an engineer but soon realised the increasingly repressive regime of the Ba'ath Party - of which Saddam Hussein was then only vice-president - and his own political views were making it unsafe for him to stay. He found himself becoming more and more appalled by the abuse of power of the ruling party. He knew the time had come to leave when he was compelled to do military service.

'They wanted me to serve in the army but it would have been very dangerous for me to do that because all army members were expected to join the Ba'ath Party," he explains. "I decided to go because I suspected I would be killed. You could not, and still cannot, speak your mind in Iraq and I did not want to keep quiet my views about the regime."

Here in England he worked as a technician. He is now retired, but he devotes much of his time to running the Iraqi Community Association, a voluntary organisation based in Middlesborough which helps Iraqis who come to settle in the North-East. He says that the highest number of claims for political asylum come from Iraqis.

Amir organises social gatherings on important national holidays and for religious festivals and, though he often yearns for his homeland, he says that in the people of the North-East he has found kindred spirits.

"When I first came here I found the people very friendly," he says. "I'm married to a girl from a mining community. These people look after each other and they have a strong sense of family. They have a very similar mentality to Arabs."

But while Teesside has become a home from home for Amir, even after more than 20 years in exile he dreams of the day when he can return in safety to Iraq. He says: "There are 22 million people in Iraq, but there are around four million Iraqis in exile around the world. If democracy comes to Iraq then a lot of these Iraqis will go back. Iraq is a beautiful country and the life there is very different to here - much less stressful. I would love to go back, even my wife would go back."

But how does Amir see that day coming about, if not through a US-led war to depose Saddam? "The international community should support the opposition party in Iraq, this is the only way to bring real democracy to my country. If the US gets rid of Saddam how do we know they will not put in their own dictator?"

In an Eastern food shop in another part of Middlesbrough, I meet Mohammed, an Iraqi who runs a takeaway in the town. He is cynical about the West's reasons for attacking Iraq and he feels bitter about the harsh effects of the UN sanctions.

"I left Iraq 20 years ago," Mohammed says. "I went back again last year and it was like the country had gone back 20 years, not forward. I heard about a man who had to sell all his clothes to survive. When I talk about it, it makes me angry and I feel like crying. It is the poor people who are punished by this, and most of the people in Iraq are poor."