The 12-year-old orphan remembers Marla Ruzicka as a smiling blonde apparition who gave him a glass of juice and changed his clothes when bullet splinters in his spine made it painful to move, walking virtually impossible.
The American rights activist took up Rakan Hassan's cause, securing a surgeon in the US to perform the operation he needs to recover from the attack that killed his parents. But Ruzicka died before she could complete her mission, cut down by the same relentless violence that has shattered the lives of the many Iraqis she tried to help.
Ruzicka was killed with her Iraqi translator and another foreigner a week ago when a car bomb exploded as they drove in two vehicles along the treacherous road leading to Baghdad's airport. She was to be buried yesterday in her home town of Lakeport, California.
PHOTO: AP
At the time of her death, Ruzicka was in contact with officials from the US Embassy and State Department to arrange Rakan's medical evacuation. Since then, however, his cause has stalled.
Everyone who knew the 28-year-old activist -- from the Iraqi families she helped, to the US Senators and war correspondents she lobbied -- extols Ruzicka's relentless campaign for compensation for the innocent victims of war.
A one-woman human rights movement, Ruzicka was instrumental in securing millions of dollars in aid for distribution in Iraq. She'd been traveling to and from the country since US-led forces invaded in March 2003, often going door-to-door to meet wounded Iraqis and collect the figures for her surveys on the number hurt and killed.
She badgered the military for numbers and Washington for money. She sweet-talked journalists and soldiers alike into helping her out. And everyone got a hug.
Ruzicka refused to accept the official line that the US military does not keep track of civilian casualties, writing in an op-ed piece the week before she was killed that this position "outraged the Arab world and damaged the US claim that its forces go to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties."
An AP survey of deaths in the first 12 months of the occupation found that more than 5,000 Iraqis died violently in just Baghdad and three provinces.
Since then, however, neither US nor Iraqi officials have produced a complete tally. Ruzicka thought she was close to uncovering the figures.
"Recently, I obtained statistics on civilian casualties from a high-ranking US military official. The numbers were for Baghdad only, for a short period, during a relatively quiet time," she wrote in the article published posthumously in USA Today and posted on her Web site.
It wasn't clear if the deaths were caused by US troops or insurgents, she wrote, but it was clear the US military did actually keep track of the civilian dead. A US official told her it was "standard operating procedure for US troops to file a spot report when they shoot a non-combatant," she said.
This last trip to Iraq, Ruzicka investigated the detention of an Iraqi woman, offering to visit the camp near Baghdad International Airport where the woman was held to check on her condition, according to her colleagues from the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC), the organization she founded. She was on her way to visit an Iraqi girl injured in a bomb blast when she was killed, CIVIC said.
And she still had Rakan to save: the slight youth now lying motionless on a bed borrowed from neighbors.
"I say to her parents: God bless her soul, God give them strength to endure this tragedy," Rakan said.
"I lost her, they lost her and every poor Iraqi has lost her," he said.
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
RELEASE: The move follows Washington’s removal of Havana from its list of terrorism sponsors. Most of the inmates were arrested for taking part in anti-government protests Cuba has freed 127 prisoners, including opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, in a landmark deal with departing US President Joe Biden that has led to emotional reunions across the communist island. Ferrer, 54, is the most high-profile of the prisoners that Cuba began freeing on Wednesday after Biden agreed to remove the country from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors — part of an eleventh-hour bid to cement his legacy before handing power on Monday to US president-elect Donald Trump. “Thank God we have him home,” Nelva Ortega said of her husband, Ferrer, who has been in and out of prison for the
RSS