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Ken wades in...
Posted by Tiglath (Guest) - Tuesday, August 29 2006, 12:44:00 (CEST)
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Donny Leaves Iraq!

Donny George, the President of The State Board of Antiquities and Heritage and one of the most prominent Assyrian Christian in Iraq
has left the country.

Much like the “canary in the mine”, he was watched by many as a barometer of how things were going in Iraq.

Well known for his hard work preserving the Baghdad Museum, of which he was also director with over 30 years in the field, the
situation had become “intolerable”.

“The board has come under the increasing influence of al-Sadr – the party founded by the radical Muqtada al-Sadr. I can no
longer work with these people who have come in with the new ministry. They have no knowledge of archaeology, no knowledge of
antiquities, nothing,” he said speaking from Damascus to Art News.

Further he commented on the dramatic increase in a radical moslem and anti-western atmosphere. “A lot of people have been sent to
our institutions. They are only interested in Islamic sites and not Iraqis earlier heritage.”

Donny George is also, just one of the nearly 100,000 Assyrian Christians who are the original people of Iraq – the people of
Nineveh and one of the last major Christian communities in the Middle East.

The Christian population of the Middle East was approximately 20% in the 1950s – now it has fallen to under 2%.

Baghdad itself in testimony to its former cosmopolitan nature, had one of the largest Jewish communities in the Middle East at it
peak nearly 30% of the city of Baghad.

Analysts view what is happening in Iraq as avoidable. The reason for what is happening in Iraq is actually quite simple.

In Japan it took seven years to get the country back on its feet. A year and three months was far too short.

I wrote a piece in July of 2004 entitled “June Is Too Soon” protesting the upcoming handover as being far too soon for the
situation on the ground.

My points then were sadly prophetic.

Further, the reason for the specific situation Dr. Donny George comments on can be traced directly to the election of January 2006.

Unfortunately for the Iraqi people the elections were neither free nor fair. The President of Iraq said before the election that a
large number of false ballots – up to three million have been shipped across the border from Iran to alter the voting.

Further, the UN designed Electoral System was carefully designed to give small, radical parties – i.e. moslem dominated parties
– the benefit.

Anyone with even a cursory firsthand experience with the UN in the Middle East will find it dramatically supporting the islamic
agenda.

Meeting with the UN Director for Human Rights in Baghdad we were told directly `My job is to protect the rights of the moslems.
Christians should leave.`

Needless to say, we immediately left the office. In true middle east irony the headquarters was bombed by the same radical moslems.

Large amounts of people, in particular the Assyrian Christians and other minorities in the North were denied the vote and the few
who tried found closed voting centers and intimidation.

The result was an election that proceeded exactly as planned by the UN in consultation with the pro-Iran groups taking over the
Government exactly as has happened with Hamas in the Palestinian territory where the close relationship between the UN Forces in the
south of Lebanon and Hezzbollah are legendary.

What is happening today in Iraq is not a failure of democracy, but a failure of the free world to stand up to totalitarian forces
that are on the march with the likes of Hamas, Hezzbollah and others.

The fatal seal was when Paul Bremer, the Czar of Iraq refused to follow the recommendation of the Iraqi Constitutional Committee
which had voted that the Iraqi Constitution be free of any “religion and ideology”.

The words “Islam is the official religion of the state” were inserted into the constitution.

The Iraqi people, longsuffering under Saddam Hussein, nevertheless had one very big distinction – they were not religious. They
were very open, free and within the terrible confines of the Saddam nightmare against the radical religious thought growing in the
region.

Is Iraq too far gone to be restored? The answer is an overwhelming “no”! While the southern part of Iraq has for all practical
purposes been annexed by Iran, the Northern Part of Iraq is going gangbusters!

Donny George and the other Assyrian Christians who have fled the country will return under only one condition – the establishment
of an Assyrian Province as promised by the Iraqi Government and guaranteed in the Constitution.

With the establishment of the Assyrian Province in Northern Iraq as promised by the Iraqi Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and
others, the fourth major historical group in Iraq will have a home where they can live under their own laws, rule and be free of the
“thugs” that forced Dr. Donny George to leave.

Iraq can still be saved if the world will take note of the message Dr. Donny George and the Iraqi people are sending out.

As the Iraqis have told me so many times “We just want to be free – Saddam was terrible, but it would be worse to become like
neighboring Iran! We want to be normal, to have a regular job, to be with family, to travel, to think, to live.”

It will be the North of Iraq that will be the shining example to the region that in fact, freedom, democracy and the rule of law can
grow in the soil of the Middle East . . . if the world has the will to stand up for the “silent majority” in Iraq who did not
elect the current Government and only want to be free.

Ken Joseph Jr. directs Assyrianchristians.com



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