Thursday, April 13, 2006
Iraq NGOs
Hey guys,
I met this Iraqi guy the other day who´s working for a German NGO called Architects for People in Need (Arhcitekten fur Menschen in Not) which sounds like a really good organisation. They focus on refurbishing schools and training young kids with practical skills. and he had a lot of things to say abt Iraq now which I would really like to share with you guys, although most of it seems very obvious.
- Most Iraqis were ambivalent and even cautiously optimistic when the Americans invaded, but became disillusioned after months of occupation life did not improve for them. Rather, it worsened as road condtions deproved (heavy usage of tanks etc), petrol prices increased, electricity became undependeable (2 hrs a day under Saddam, one or never under US)
- If you´ve been fllowing the news, gun use had become increasingly common. This iraqi fellow got his house raked with gunfire and it´s common for them to wear bulletproof vests everywhere.
- Most european NGOs have left the country after the kidnap of 2 girls working for a european NGO. Fell from 100 to just 6 and these have substantially decreased operations in Iraq due to security reasons. They suspect that the kidnapping was organised by a CIA- backed group which basically want these european ngo groups out because they have very strong linkes to the media in their home countries. more difficut to control information flow in that sense.
- us aid to iraq has been largely unaudited and serves to trabsfer money back into the hands of us companies. coruption is rampant in iraq.
im not too sure how true is what he said, but it does give some food for thought. gtg, time running out on com.
btw moving to hk june 26, feel free to visit anytime.
I met this Iraqi guy the other day who´s working for a German NGO called Architects for People in Need (Arhcitekten fur Menschen in Not) which sounds like a really good organisation. They focus on refurbishing schools and training young kids with practical skills. and he had a lot of things to say abt Iraq now which I would really like to share with you guys, although most of it seems very obvious.
- Most Iraqis were ambivalent and even cautiously optimistic when the Americans invaded, but became disillusioned after months of occupation life did not improve for them. Rather, it worsened as road condtions deproved (heavy usage of tanks etc), petrol prices increased, electricity became undependeable (2 hrs a day under Saddam, one or never under US)
- If you´ve been fllowing the news, gun use had become increasingly common. This iraqi fellow got his house raked with gunfire and it´s common for them to wear bulletproof vests everywhere.
- Most european NGOs have left the country after the kidnap of 2 girls working for a european NGO. Fell from 100 to just 6 and these have substantially decreased operations in Iraq due to security reasons. They suspect that the kidnapping was organised by a CIA- backed group which basically want these european ngo groups out because they have very strong linkes to the media in their home countries. more difficut to control information flow in that sense.
- us aid to iraq has been largely unaudited and serves to trabsfer money back into the hands of us companies. coruption is rampant in iraq.
im not too sure how true is what he said, but it does give some food for thought. gtg, time running out on com.
btw moving to hk june 26, feel free to visit anytime.
# posted by MooMooCow @ 8:32 PM 
