Iraq: Ali Al Hailla
by Kechia Smith-Gran and Brandon Sprague
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| After Ali Al Hailla wrote a poem about an Iraqi shepherd who went to war, the authorities put him in jail for four years. (AP photo) |
 Al Hailla's poem The tragic story of a shepherd who goes to war. |
Ali Al Hailla knows that words can be powerful. The former poet and soldier
is from a small Iraqi town near Babel where, according to the Bible, the
diffusion of different languages originated. As the story in Genesis goes,
the denizens of Babel tried to build a tower to Heaven. They would have
succeeded too, had not god confounded their words so they could not communicate.
But Al Hailla's words, in the form of an anti-war poem, communicated
his sentiment all too well to the Iraqi secret police agents who have
the habit of trolling for the smallest signs of dissent among its citizenry.
In 1983, Al Hailla was a sophomore studying English literature at Baghdad University. He joined a student club that was, through poems and short stories, protesting the Iran-Iraq war. Al Hailla wrote an allegorical poem about a musical shepherd who was drafted into the army only to lose a hand and foot to a landmine while on the frontlines.
The tale pointed out that not only did the shepherd lose his livelihood
because he could not walk, but also without his hands, he could not play
his flute, the one means of comfort he had Al Hailla said an informant
went to the authorities. Listen to Al Hailla's poem.
"Under the one-party governmental dictatorship, I wasn't encouraging
people to go to the army and I spent four years of life in jail for that,"
he said, the bite evident in his voice.
In prison he was given no writing materials, but it didn't matter. Al
Hailla has not written a word of poetry since his release from jail.
"I learned my lesson. It's basically killing your spirit and that's
what happened," Al Hailla said, the sadness and finality behind them
poignant.
Al Hailla said he could not reveal his true identity out of fear that
there may be retaliation against his family, some of whom still live in
Iraq. And now, even though the 38-year-old has been away from Iraq for
10 years, the pain still remains. To use his gift of words would only
unlock that pain.
"I tried to write sometimes but, you know, it gets you to the whole
experience you had before and you suddenly feel there is some line you
don't want to cross. You don't want to go there at all."
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| Bodies of Iranian soldiers in Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. (AP photo) |
Trying to write Al Hailla has not written any poetry since being released from prison. |
Released in 1988, Al Hailla went back to his family home in Hailla (also
known as Al Hillah) in Babel, 50 miles south of Baghdad. It was the place
he had spent a fairly idyllic childhood among the ruins of the ancient
Babylon City two miles to the north.
As a child he played on the backs of the Babylonian lion statues and later on, as a teen, he took dates to the site of the hanging gardens, one of the seven ancient wonders of the world. He went off to university to seek more wonders. But he returned five years later looking so thin, so disheveled and so long in the beard, his mother did not even recognize him. She had believed him to be dead, which was not a surprising assumption since when people are arrested by the so-called 'civilian intelligence bureau,' they disappear completely. Their family cannot make inquiries; they are not allowed to see a judge or a lawyer. No one asks questions out of self-preservation. "They can't ask about you so basically they don't," Al Hailla said. "And when you get out they hide their eyes."
The ordeal extinguished Al Hailla's light. He quietly returned to the university to finish his studies, receiving his degree in English Literature in 1989, but from there on, his choices were limited. Although he wasn't inducted into the wartime draft -- the Iran-Iraq War ended in August of 1988 -- he was conscripted into the Iraqi Army for two years, the usual amount of time for a college graduate.
Personal choice is really a myth in Iraq, Al Hailla said. And that myth
is exploded by the time children reach the sixth grade. That was the year
Al Hailla and his classmates were forced to sign a pledge to become a
member of Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'ath Party. "It's part of the
life there and you are in sixth grade, but what do you know about politics?"
he asked. "So you make a decision for your life on a paper that you
sign when you are 12 years old." Everyone in Iraq signed these cards,
he said. Each and every one.
"With time, you find you signed basically to be executed if you
are working with an opposition group or you want to work with secret party."
But despite the risks, Al Hailla broke his loyalty oath for a second
and final time. When his unit, stationed in Al Amarah in southern Iraq,
received orders to march on Kuwait in August 1990, Al Hailla decided not
to go.
"My decision was to desert the army," he said. Al Hailla took
a bus to Babel and hid at his uncle's farm nearby for four months until
the United States and its coalition of allies began airstrikes on Iraq.
By Jan. 17, 1990, the Iraqi army was in retreat. A month later, Al Hailla
said, he heard of President George Bush Sr.'s call to the citizens of
Iraq:
"There is another way for the bloodshed to stop," Bush said
on Feb. 15, 1991, "And that is, for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi
people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein,
the dictator, to step aside and then comply with the United Nations' resolutions
and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations."
The announcement was followed up with leaflets and broadcasts. Al Hailla
was one of thousands of Iraqis who answered that call. Most paid with
their lives.
"For two months we were fighting the regime and then, you know,
politics always change and the Americans, their interests (suddenly were)
not with revolution, their interests were to keep the dictator,"
said Al Hailla.
The Americans decided it was more prudent not to support the rebellion
and as part of the Feb. 28 cease-fire agreement allowed Hussein to use
his gun ships to crush the rebels on the ground.
"America left us to be slaughter in Iraq," Al Hailla said.
"Basically there was fighting in Iraq and [the U.S.] said that's
not the way we want it and so they let the Iraqi army kill them. Basically
they killed more than 80,000 from the revolt."
Without the U.S. and its allies to fight, the Iraqi army soon took control
of the borders so that Al Hailla and his comrades could not escape through
Iran. They wandered along the border for two weeks until hearing about
a refugee camp that had just opened up near Saudi Arabia.
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| The no-fly zone near the Iraqi-Saudi border. (AP photo) |
Sand Al Hailla's memory of life in the Saudi camp. |
Little did Al Hailla and the remnants of the rebel army know, but they
were headed for another prison.
"The refugee camp was surrounded by army and we were not allowed
to leave the camp and not allowed to do anything," he said, adding
that they were captured as prisoners of war by the American army, even
though the cease-fire had been signed 15 days before.
The GIs pulled out two weeks later, leaving the Iraqis' uncertain status
and equally uncertain fate to the Saudi government. It was where Al Hailla
would stay -- in a no-man's land in the middle of the desert -- for four
years.
Life was hard. Closed off from the outside world, Al Hailla stayed in
a tent with six other men in the camp, which was called Rafha.
"You know, when you live in the desert under 125 degrees in summertime
and in a tent with no electricity, and nothing there, the situation was
really bad," he said. It took its toll on Al Hailla.
Four years and I never saw green at all, no green. It was basically moving
you know I always say this it is moving. The sand is moving; it is like
the sea. You see the waves and it always sand, sand, sand," said
Al Hailla.
After a year, the refugees in Rafha began radical protests for more rights
and representation -- some buried themselves neck deep in the sand and
allowed the elements to slowly kill them, some hanged themselves on makeshift
crosses, others went on hunger strikes. Many died. According to Al Hailla,
the Saudi guards opened fire on the crowd during a demonstration and killed
80 refugees.
But the protest worked. The United Nations agency for refugees opened
an office to take care of the more than 30,000 Iraqis living there.
Since Al Hailla spoke some English, he got a job as a translator for
the agency. By 1992, people started to leave the camp for Britain, Sweden,
Canada, the United States and any other countries that would grant them
asylum.
Al Hailla's turn came in 1994, when he was finally allowed to go to the
United States. But he said he was lucky. The resettlement program to other
countries was discontinued due to lack of world attention. And after nearly
12 years, there are still more than 5,000 refugees living in Rafha camp.
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| The ziggurat of Borsippa, just south of Babylon, Iraq. People say it is the closest thing to the Tower of Babel in the region. |
Home Al Hailla talks about his home. |
Al Hailla, who now lives in Washington D.C. with his wife Victoria, said
that after Sept. 11, there is even less of a chance to get his former
comrades out of Rafha. "The Congress and the state department said,
'It's over.' We are trying to keep (Iraqis) here out of trouble, not getting
any new people."
Al Hailla said he feels mixed about going home. Two out of his eight
siblings live in Europe after leaving under similar circumstances. But
his family still living in Iraq does not mention their names. "My
family saw what happened to me and my elder brother and my sister and
they don't even want to talk about it. Like they are dead."
Still, it is home.
"Even if it's a really bad experience it's still home that's the
place where you live. And sometimes you think, 'Oh god, I just want to
go back and swim …or sometimes you think, 'Oh no I don't want to
go back to that horror again and sometimes you think, 'I want to work
to change that so next generation will never face what we faced.' You
know home is home."
Al Hailla said until the government changes it is not his decision to
go back. But when he recalls ancient Babel, the village of his childhood,
he finds his words. The words of a poet.
"Life is so simple when there is no war. You know you live and you
don't see limits, you see the open sky and you are a kid and just run
and run and run behind a soccer ball. It's all that. Plum trees. The food
which is different than here. It is in general something forbidden that
you want to see. And you cannot delete your memories."
