Hollis Author Recounts Past as Both a Child and Prisoner of Iraq
By Joseph G. Cote
Nashua Telegraph
June 22, 2007
Dr. Henry Astarjian has a unique perspective on the war in Iraq and the
tensions in the Middle East.
He’s not only an Iraqi native; he also knew some of the major players in the
Iraqi government before the reign of Saddam Hussein.
It’s what he knew that prompted him to leave the country more than 40 years
ago.
The 73-year-old Hollis resident’s first book, `The Struggle for Kirkuk: The
Rise of Hussein, Oil, and the Death of Tolerance in Iraq,’ hit bookstores
this month.
The book details Astarjian’s life in Iraq from a boy living in Kirkuk to his
arrest, torture and imprisonment in a military prison by a childhood friend.
Astarjian’s book is a mix of his life story in Iraq and the political events
and ethnic tensions during that time, but only as he experienced them.
Astarjian, who is now a neurologist for the Massachusetts’s Department of
Disability Services, said he wrote the book to educate more Americans about
the country the U.S. military is fighting in and why he believes democracy
will never take hold there.
`I thought American people should know the area and the people we have
invaded in the name of bringing democracy and freedom,’ he said.
Astarjian’s parents survived the Armenian genocide in 1915 and relocated to
Kirkuk – one of the three principal cities in Iraq along with Baghdad and
Basra. Astarjian said he isn’t Arab but rather an Armenian Christian.
He lived in Kirkuk until 1952 when he left for medical school in Baghdad.
Growing up he attended lunches with his school friends, including Adnaan
Azzawi, who were budding communists despite the royal regime that ruled Iraq
at that time.
By the time he moved to Baghdad in 1952 to attend the Royal College of
Medicine, he was known as an outspoken anti-communist, a label that would
prove problematic when the Royal family was overthrown by communist
sympathizer Abdul-Kareem Qasim in 1958.
`I was an anti-communist. I was an outspoken guy,’ Astarjian said. `I always
have been, and I have paid the price.’
Astarjian was an eyewitness to the revolt on the morning of July 14 that
year. He describes vividly the `decrees’ broadcast on the radio and the mood
of the mobs as they dragged and desecrated the bodies of their former
rulers.
After college, Astarjian was stationed near the Iranian border to complete
the required one-year term in the army as a medical officer. It was there
that Astarjian was taken into custody by members of the communist party and
accused on smuggling guns from Iran to support an uprising in Mosul.
When he was dragged into the room where the `torture party’ was to be held,
Azzawi was there. According to Astarjian, his childhood friend from Kirkuk
didn’t help torture him, but he didn’t stop the `party’ either.
Astarjian refused to confess to smuggling weapons across the Iranian border.
He continued to refuse even when he was tied down and the soles of his feet
were beaten with wooden dowels, and his face and torso were punched and
kicked.
But he did give in when his torturers threatened to kidnap his sister and
rape her in front of him.
After he signed the confession, he was transferred to Rasheed Military Base
in Baghdad.
It was in the military prison that Astarjian met some of the future leaders
of Iraq – the ones who convinced him he needed to find a new life in the
West. They were his cellmates. He shared a cell with men including Jameel
Sabri Al-Bayaati, Abdul-Azeez Al Uqayli and Abdul Ghani Al-Raawi.
`Knowing them individually, I didn’t think these were the proper people to
create a peaceful and modern Iraq,’ he said. `I didn’t see a future there.’
When those men helped lead a counter-revolt against Qasim in 1963, he knew
it was time to leave the country.
Astarjian said he hasn’t looked back and has committed to being an American.
`What brought me to this country was a bill of rights,’ he said. `You pledge
allegiance to your new country and that’s that. I don’t look back, but one
does remember. There were good things before all these revolutions. Life was
good.’
Astarjian’s family left Iraq shortly after he did, and he hasn’t been back.
He said he would like to visit his birthplace someday, though.
Astarjian, who has been a legal citizen since 1970, said he doesn’t believe
democracy will succeed in Iraq because of its tribal roots. The tribal mores
that dominate the rural areas of the country call for `one person who is the
boss,’ he said.
`We are cheating ourselves and the government is cheating us, the American
people, in the reason we went: to spread democracy,’ he said. `That is a
deception.’
Astarjian’s book is published by Praeger Security International General
Interest. PSI is the newest branch of Greenwood Publishing Group and
specializes in material on international security, according to the company
Web site.
Joe G. Cote can be reached at [email protected].
Photo: Dr. Henry Astarjian, an Iraqi native and the author of a new book
titled `The Struggle for Kirkuk: The Rise of Hussein, Oil, and the Death of
Tolerance in Iraq,’ stands in his Hollis home June 5 (Staff photo by Emily
Berl)
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
