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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Saddam's Chinese laborers: interred in prison they built |
| 2005-04-05 |
| Hat tip: Lance in Iraq. Edited for brevity. FORWARD OPERATING BASE LOYALTY, Iraq — It's a place that still terrifies the Iraqi people. Now home to the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade Combat Team, this base in eastern Baghdad was once the site of Iraq's General Security National Headquarters, an intelligence nerve center used with chilling effect by the Saddam Hussein regime. [US Army MAJ Steve] Rosson said Chinese laborers built all the facilities, including the prison. After construction, Saddam charged them with espionage and they became its first occupants. Cantonese is scribbled on the walls of many cells. "We have no idea when that took place and it's uncertain how many Chinese there were. It's believed they spent many years there and died in the prison," Rosson said. "Apparently, they knew too much to go back home." [Iraqi] Hayder Abdul-Nabi said two of his brothers were inmates. One spent seven years and then did 10 more at Abu Ghraib. His crime? He lost a pistol while serving in the Iraqi security forces. "We didn't know anything about [what happened to] him for seven years," Abdul-Nabi said, conceding he was hesitant to even go inside the prison during a recent tour. "The Iraqi people are very scared of this place. They'd kill people here by pouring acid on them." |
| Posted by:Dar |
| #3 ZF--Thanks for the info! Very interesting-- |
| Posted by: Dar 2005-04-05 9:11:40 PM |
| #2 Article: Cantonese is scribbled on the walls of many cells. This writer is embellishing - trying to show off his (probably non-existent) expertise about both Iraq and China. The written forms of Cantonese, Mandarin and all of the spoken Chinese languages are identical in appearance. There is *no* way of differentiating between them. (There is such a thing as the distinction between "simplified" vs "traditional" characters, but either Cantonese or Mandarin can be written in either character set). As regards to the laborers being Cantonese (i.e. from the Chinese province of Guangdong - formerly anglicized as Canton), that is also unlikely given that Canton is the richest province in China, and construction workers are typically recruited from areas outside Canton, typically from central China. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2005-04-05 4:18:20 PM |
| #1 what are you trying to do, Dar?...embarrass the MSM. |
| Posted by: Whemble Hupens3889 2005-04-05 2:41:51 PM |