[imc-baghdad] APPEAL/UPDATE from Al-Muajaha, Baghdad 15 May

[Ramzi Kysia]

All,

The first issue was printed last night. Unfortunately,
power went out mid-print & it wasn't ready until 11am
(too late to sell it to the news "vendors" here, and
the staff didn't have much success trying to hawk it
themselves, lol). Will try again tomorrow morning...

The costs for printing this first run came to $1,150
for 5,000 copies. The dollar has been dropping
steadily, and is worth less than 25% of what it was
just after the war, so... costs are up. I covered the
first run out of my pocket, but... if we don't have
too much success selling the paper this first time
out, we're going to be in pretty big trouble, pretty
quick... 

I passed along the request for the folks at Al-Muajaha
to write something about their political leanings, and
they responded with the below message. Usually I help
them with their English, but they asked me to send
this out as is, so...

I have, of course, kept folks here updated on what's
happening on the list, but it might be useful if
someone would write a detailed letter to them, from
the list, post it to the list for comments/feedback,
incorporate that feedback, and then tell me to foward
it to them (just a recommendation :-))

-Ramzi

15 May 2003

To Whom it May Concern,

The staff at Al-Muajaha like to say and express all
the troubles that we are facing. First we don't have
funding, although we put a lot of announcement in the
website, and in all the hotels in Baghdad that full
with press and TV channels. We were asking for a small
help, but no one responded. That's right, they said
it's a great thing, no one did it before, especially
for young people like us, but what we get until now
it's just compliments - which it can't be exchanged in
any bank.

You know that don't make any sense, because they paid
for this war billions. One missile cost more than $1
million. They're paying a lot of money for those war
things, but no one paid any attention for a group of
young people trying to do a precious thing for the
Iraqis, and Iraqis trying to represent the masses. No
one, no one - and by they way, we didn't ask for
millions or billions. We're asking about 25 or 30
thousand dollars only just to bring some equipment in
order to make the work. Because we don't have an
office, we don't have computers, we don't have the
telephones, we don't have electricity, we don't have
anything, and you going to see the pictures of the
first issue - it's good, but we shot these shots by
cheap camera. 

We try to be independent. If you don't help us to do
that, should we go three different ways to do it? 

1) Should we ask American military for help?
2) Should we ask the Parties and Factions (like Ahmed
Chalabi) for help?
3) Should we ask the fancy people in Iraq for help?

These will be the same thing. Our repsonsibility as
Iraqi youth, to make a start for Iraqi independent
media, as the base of a great building, but you know
that great pressure is on the base.

We as Iraqis not used to ask anyone for help, like the
very difficult life for 30 years. When we asked now it
is because we are witnesses. We call our paper "The
Iraqi Witness." We want to tell you that we are
independent media and you can support us, but we are
not for sale.

Sincerely,
Haider Hamza
Yassar Farouk
Mohammed Al-Jubaili
Salaam Al-Jubouri
Khalid Jarrar
Majid Jarrar
Waleed Rabi'a Al-Merza
Hamsa Mohammad
Hekmat Mohammad
Hosni Mohammad
Salaam Al-Onaibi

Al-Muajaha Core Staff



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