The Plight of Iraqi Academics
Assassinations of Iraq academics in Iraq never existed prior to April 2003.
Numerous reports for many months have stated that with collaboration from American occupation forces, Israel's espionage apparatus, Mossad, slaughtered at least 530 Iraqi scientists and academic professors.
Assassinations of Iraq academics in Iraq never existed prior to April 2003. Persistent Israeli hit squads against Iraqi scientists had been active in Iraq since April 2003, but the latest chapter was uncovered on Tuesday, 14 June 2005 by the Palestine Information Center which, citing a report compiled by the United States Department of State and intended for the American President, stated that Israeli and foreign agents sent by Mossad, in cooperation with United States, to Iraq, killed at least 350 Iraqi scientists and more than 200 university professors and academic personalities .
According to the report, which was referred to the U.S. president George W. Bush, Mossad agents had been operating in Iraq with the aim of liquidating Iraqi nuclear and biology scientists, among other scientists, and prominent university professors.
That was after the U.S. failed to persuade those scientists to cooperate with or work for it.
"Israeli commandos had been operating on Iraqi territory for more than a year, the focus of their activities being the assassination of Iraqi scientists and intellectuals. The Zionists resorted to the large-scale assassination campaign after the failure of American efforts that started immediately after the American occupation of Iraq, aimed at attracting a number of Iraqi scientists to cooperate and go to work in the United States," The Palestine Information Center quoted the report as saying.
"Some Iraqi scientists were forced to work in American research centers; however, the majority of them refused to cooperate in certain fields and fled the U.S. to other countries", it further stated.
The Pentagon agreed with the suggestion of Mossad, which believed that the best way to get rid of those scientists was to "physically eliminate them".
The American security service provided Israel with complete biographies on the Iraqi scientists and academics to facilitate killing them, the report said, adding that the Mossad campaign targeting Iraqi scientists is still underway.
Below is a presentation by Dr Ismail Jalili titled "Plight of Iraqi Academics", in which he details Mossad crimes against the Iraqi scientists.
The presentation was made during Madrid International Conference on the Assassinations of Iraqi Academics on 23-24 April 2006.
Dr. Jalili notes that:
Many assassination attempts resulted in the death of other family members and escorts which have not been included or referred to in this study.
Multiple assassination attempts are ongoing.
Repeated threats to life are made to force people to leave Iraq.
Considerable numbers of threats to life go unreported.
In the last week of April 2006, a mass campaign was reported in Mosul of threats to doctors calling on them to leave Iraq.
Assassinations of Iraq academics is a new phenomena in Iraq, that never existed prior to April 2003.
The pattern indicates a sinister campaign and motives.
The assassinations, kidnaps and threats to life forcing academics and doctors to leave Iraq do not follow any religious or sectarian pattern.
The only dominant pattern is that the absolute majority of victims are ethnically Arabs.
The presentation affirms the following:
The defence of Iraqi academics and medical professionals should begin by condemning the illegal war and occupation that created the situation in Iraq where assassinations are endemic and go unpunished.
Occupying powers and their collaborators are responsible for the protection of the lives of Iraqi civilians and imputable under international law for the failure to do so.
The assassination of Iraqi academics and health professionals is part of a conscious attempt to prevent Iraq from regaining its just independent and sovereign status.
Defending Iraqi academics and health professionals is not separate from the necessity of being in solidarity with the Iraqi people and their national anti-occupation movement.
Iraqis, like all people, have a right to science and education and to enjoy the inalienable rights of freedom of thought, expression, research and innovation.
The right of families of assassinated health professionals and academics to have the killing of their loved ones investigated by an independent and competent body, and compensation paid, must be assured in all cases.
Delegates who attended the seminar reaffirmed their commitment to work with determination to raise at all levels the issue of the criminal destruction of Iraq's professional and intellectual wealth.
In particular, delegations committed to:
Demand that UNESCO act in defence of Iraq's intellectuals and professionals.
Demand that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights fulfill its duty to protect the lives and human rights of Iraqi doctors and academics, and all Iraqi civilians.
Spread awareness of the issue of the assassination of Iraqi academics and doctors with the appreciated commitment of Autonomous University.
Madrid to transmit the key concerns of this campaign to Spanish universities, the International Federation of Universities and the Association of Arab Universities of the Arab League.
Call upon the world's media to understand that the killing of Iraqi academics and health professionals is a result of the occupation, not sectarian civil war.
Continue working to build an international solidarity campaign linking Iraqi academics in exile and in Iraq with their peers in universities worldwide.
Press national and regional parliaments to raise and discuss the criminal destruction of Iraq's intellectual and professional class.
The undersigned affirm that they will continue to cooperate in their denunciation of the occupation and its numberless crimes and always stand in solidarity with the people of Iraq.
Source: Axisoflogic
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