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Letter
to US Congresswomen from Dear US Congresswomen: The International Women Count Network in the US is outraged by the suppression of information about the rapes of Iraqi women who are imprisoned in Abu Ghraib and other prisons by US, UK and possibly other Coalition troops, as well as the rapes of US servicewomen by male colleagues. We join our sisters in Britain who have written to women in both Houses of Parliament, and ask that you as a woman legislator help ensure that this information is no longer kept from the public so that strong action is immediately taken to stop the rapes and prosecute all those responsible, beginning with those at the top who bear the greatest responsibility. We enclose the letter to women Members of Parliament and to US Congresswomen from the British-based Black Women’s Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape, “Neither Blood Nor Rape for Oil”. We have been reliably informed by religious supporters of President Bush that photos of rape and other sexual torture of women in Iraqi prisons are commonly used as pornography among US troops. Yet these rapes when referred to at all, have been described as “sex with a female prisoner”. We understand that Congress has seen photos of women being gang-raped, and there is ample evidence that orders to torture, including through sexual abuse, have come from the highest levels – The New Yorker has mentioned Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s involvement. We also understand that some of the top ranking US officials in Iraq presided over torture in Guantánamo, Central America, Haiti and elsewhere. This includes Ambassador to Iraq Negroponte who was directly connected with torture in Honduras. We have also been informed that rape and other sexual torture is common in US prisons, where women prisoners are kept naked in cages, and that some of the military accused of sexual torture in Abu Ghraib were originally US prison guards. Please urgently confirm or deny this, bearing in mind that such things, if true, come out sooner rather than later: nowadays fewer and fewer people are willing to be complicit with such crimes by staying silent. We also have hard evidence that US military women are being raped by their male colleagues. About 10 days ago National Public Radio reported that 100 servicewomen who returned from Iraq claimed to have been raped. Why have we had to hear it from the media and from women themselves but not from the Pentagon or from Congress? Below also is a document on rapes of US servicewomen, military wives, partners and children, from Dorothy Mackey, founder of STAAAMP (Survivors Take Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel), a former US Air Force captain and commander who was herself raped in the military. She testifies to the fact that such criminal conduct goes unpunished, and that it has wide consequences not only for the US military but for civil society. Finally, there have been reports (including in The New Yorker and some of the most reputable British media such as Channel Four News) that thousands of people are being detained in secret CIA centers around the world. We demand to know the truth of these allegations. Have their loved ones been informed about where they are, what their situation is and what their prospects for release are? Are there women or children among those detained? Women have constantly made the case that rape is treated seriously by neither police nor courts nor legislators. What has happened in Iraq proves that case. Not only are Iraqi women and US servicewomen being raped by the military and hired mercenaries, but there is a conspiracy of silence and a screen of protection for this brutalization of women, beginning with women of color. (Those of us who know the civil rights movement were shocked into recognition by the torturers’ use of hoods and dogs.) We demand an immediate response from Congresswomen on this issue of crucial importance to women and men who abhor this descent into barbarism. Either the Pentagon and its military command are incompetent and don’t know what is happening under their command, or they are brutes. In either case they must be prosecuted. We will not submit to this “American value” or allow it to be imposed on any human being in our name at home or abroad. We look forward to hearing from you. Margaret
Prescod and Phoebe Jones, co-coordinators
Margaret Prescod, 323-292-7405 in Los Angeles margaretprescod@crossroadswomen.net Phoebe
Jones, 215-848-1120 in Philadelphia The IWCN worked with the Congressional Black Caucus in the 1990s to get The Unremunerated Work Act introduced in Congress. The legislation sought to implement the 1995 decision we had won at the UN Decade for Women Conference in Beijing, with the support of 2000 non-governmental organizations worldwide, to get women’s unwaged caring work recognized, measured and valued in economic statistics. Enclosures: (1) "Rape in Iraq", letter to the Editor from Black Women's Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape, The Guardian (London, England), May 24, 2004 (2) "Neither Blood Nor Rape for Oil," by the British-based Black Women's Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape (3) Excerpts (in attached file) from "US Government and Pentagon Sanctioning of Abuses; Rapes and Abuses; Physical, Psychological, Mental, Emotional, Sexual Abuses and revictimization," by Dorothy Mackey, Rev., Executive Director of STAMP (Survivors Taking Action Against Abuse by Military Personnel), a former US Airforce Captain and Commander who herself suffered rape as a serving officer. Neither blood nor rape for oil To Women Legislators of the Coalition of the Willing, Coming clean on rape and other sexual torture of women and girls at the hands of US and UK armed forces or their agents in Iraq and Afghanistan, By Black Women’s Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape, 12 May 2004 Rape
and other torture in Iraq Excerpts from a paper by Rev. Dorothy Mackey, former US Air Force Captain and Commander who herself suffered rape and sexual assault while a serving officer, at the hands of her colonel and lieutenant colonel. Neither was ever prosecuted. June 5 Protest in Los Angeles - Neither Blood Nor Rape for Oil "Rape in Iraq", letter to the Editor from Black Women's Rape Action Project and Women Against Rape, The Guardian (London, England), May 24, 2004 |