Special Interview 2 "Conversing on Iraq"
Responding to the Spirit
Neville Watson is a minister for the Uniting Church and has worked as a barrister & solicitor for the past fifty years. As a member of the Gulf Peace Team, mounted anti-war protests for forty days in 1991. He then became involved in an organization called Voices in the Wilderness, an organization to oppose the sanctions on Iraq. Neville Watson then helped form The Iraq Peace Team, which was recently in Iraq for four months, in an effort to comfort Iraqi victims of bomb attack, prevent an escalation of the war and ensure it received a balanced media coverage.

>What was the purpose of your visits to Iraq?
The purpose was to keep the humanitarian aspect before the world and we certainly weren't going to be pushed out by war. All the time, all we could hear, especially on the ABC, were tactics and strategies and everything like this. We never heard enough of what war does to people.

>Does religion play a role?
Yes a lot, I think, in the end analysis. I'd have to say that I see it in terms of call and response. I'm responding to the spirit. In responding you have a call to be there at that particular time.

>Were you made to feel welcome by the Iraqis?
We were made to feel magnificently welcome by the Iraqis. Even when they knew I was Australian and Australians were becoming involved in it, they were still as accepting and as loving as ever. I think that's part of a philosophy and their religion of hospitality. That always amazed me. I only struck it once when there was hostility. I went into a hospital, to where this child was dying, or had been seriously injured in the bombing, and the father was standing up on the side there. He saw me and he let go. He said "In the name of democracy you kill and slaughter our children." And that was the only amount of hostility that I met the whole time I was there.

>Do you feel that this method of occupation was necessary?
I myself don't. I think we've had examples, there are plenty of models around, there's Ceausescu in Romania, Soeharto in Indonesia, Marcos in the Philippines, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, I'm thankful that Howard and Bush weren't in power when that was on. Otherwise we might have had a nuclear war so I think there are models that could have been applied, but I don't underestimate for a moment the brutality of Saddam's regime. It was horrific.

>Do you think that Iraq could have/would have removed Hussein without external help?
Fortunately we didn't start bombing Russia during the Cold War and that collapsed eventually but the argument against that of course is that people suffer a hell of a lot in the meantime. But I doubt very much that you can overthrow oppression from the outside.

>Do you think the war has created more problems than it had with Hussein?
No. I think it's going to create problems but not more. It was a brutal dictatorship. The kind of problem which could come up now, is the fundamental question of an Islamic State. It's sixty percent Shia and the Shia have organized themselves. I was talking to many of them and they're going to put into operation civil disobedience which is very clever because the Americans are going to have to depend on the cooperation of the Iraqis to get anywhere at all. And if these people say "no we're just not cooperating" I would think that we'll have an Algeria situation, where by democratic process they decide to put an Islamic State in. And then the military, of course, take over. There isn't anything definite in Iraq at the moment but I wouldn't be at all surprised if there is a very strong movement by the Shias for an Islamic State. That's going to cause all kinds of problems.

>Did you witness any events that the media didn't cover but should have?
I witnessed events -all the time. The tragedy is that we don't see the incidents. There have been several in the last two weeks where there've been an anti-American crowd and the forces have opened fire on it. Now this morning's was at Falluja which is about thirty miles West of Baghdad. And thirteen were killed and about seventy-five were injured. Another before at Mosul, there were six killed and many injured. That's going to be the tragedy. I think both of those aspects need to be shown. The anti-American crowds need to be shown just as there were those who were saying "anything would be better than Saddam." My concern is that we see the toppling of Saddam, over and over again. I haven't seen any footage of Mosul, or Falluja or anything like that. That should be balanced. I'm not saying that there was not a sense of liberation. What I am saying is that it was balanced by an opposition to Americans being in possession of their country. I mean they're saying it very clearly now "thanks very much but we don't want you."

Neville Watson feels that the task of The Iraq Peace Team is resolved. "There are many other Non Government Organizations operating in Iraq and there's a peace movement now that is growing in strength from year to year. Evidence of this is that I see a far better appreciation of the effects of war now than I did ten years ago." Neville Watson's future is open but he remains adamant that his next mission will be "guided by the spirit."

-30 Apr 03 Interviewer: Tim Holland