Baghdad (Fides Service)-“Give space to positive events in Iraq, not only to attacks and the dead” Iraqi priest Father Nizar Semaan in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul told Fides. “I urge all the media not to present the situation in Iraq only in a negative manner. We want to build a new Iraq and to do this we need the help of the international community, But how will we obtain this help if the media shows Iraq only as a place of desperation?” Father Nizar asks.
“It is true that there is fighting in several parts of the country but even where there is fighting the people strive with courage and determination to carry on with day to day living. No one mentions the 5,000 university students now under exams. School examinations are in underway and the students have protested that the questions are too difficult. This news may appear commonplace but it shows that the majority of Iraqis are preoccupied with problems of every day like those which concern people in other countries ” Father Nizar told Fides.
“The work to rebuild the country goes ahead. In Mosul, for example there are plans to put all the homes in contact with the Internet, something unthinkable under the previous regime” the priest told Fides.
“Highlighting only violence is playing the game of the extremists who want to make Iraq precipitate into chaos blocking all chance of development” Father Nizar told Fides. “In Iraq there are all kinds of infiltrated extremists. This is demonstrated by the question of the Italian hostages. The management of the kidnap is very sophisticated: these are surely foreign minds very familiar with the situation in Italy. I do not think these minds come from the old secret services of Saddam, because when they operated outside the country they kept strict control on the opposition and they were not interested in the domestic policy of the hosting country. No, although the agents are almost certainly Iraqis, the strategic direction of the kidnapping comes from outside Iraq” Father Nizar concludes. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 4/6/2004 righe 30 parole 358)