PVCC Puma Press: April 2006

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	pPhoto by Zach Kamnitzer
	Forever grateful, Mohammed Haitham Jasim plans on returning to Iraq after college to help rebuild Baghdad and assist his friends and family.
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The telephone rings at dawn. Mohammed answers it with the haste of a jackrabbit evading a hawk.

“This is my only chance to stay alive,” he thinks.

Mohammed has waited for this call for three months, ever since his parents sent him to hide from the Iraqi Army at a friend’s farm a few miles outside Baghdad. The unnamed caller tells him to leave immediately, with nothing but the clothes on his back. An SUV waits for him outside as he prays for the strength to make it through this most important day of his life.

As Mohammed races out of the farmhouse, he notices the SUV is swelling with eight strangers; he soon finds out that they are all fugitives hiding from Saddam Hussein’s government. Their plan is to cross the Iraq border into Jordan where visas are waiting and then board a plane to the United States.

Paradise Valley Community College student Mohammed Haitham Jasim never imagined that one day he would be heading to the United States, studying to become an architect, and building a dream to repair a war-torn Baghdad. As he climbs into the SUV, he realizes this is his only chance.

The eight-hour ride to Jordan is long and uncomfortable. Mohammed is anxious to get it over with. As the men drive through an endless desert landscape, Mohammed remembers the videos he has seen of fugitives being tortured by the government. He remembers the machines that worked like giant meat slicers, dicing victims as they were fed into the side. He remembers the screams as other people were dipped into barrels of acid. He wonders what would happen to him if he is caught at the border.

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	Mohammed remembers the screams as other people were dipped into barrels of acid
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He thinks about the time when Saddam’s special army came to his university in Baghdad to recruit all men 18 and older. He remembers telling them in front of a crowd of students that he disagreed with Saddam’s beliefs on war and saying, “I’m not risking my life for something I do not believe in.” Three soldiers with machine guns took him into the middle of the crowd and told him, “We will come back next week, and if you say this again, you will die.”

Despite the threat, Mohammed managed to get seven other students to join his rebellion. One of them was his cousin with whom he grew up. The week came and went, but the soldiers never showed up again. He remembers thinking, “Were they just trying to make me afraid?”

Mohammed was not at school the day the soldiers returned. They came unexpectedly, and this time his cousin was yelling and disagreeing with them. They shot him once in the head and a half dozen times all over his body, killing him. Later, they threw out his body onto the street in pieces. He was only 19-years old.

Because Mohammed was now considered an enemy of the state, his parents sent him outside Baghdad to hide until they could find a way to get him out of the country. They told him to expect a phone call at any moment.

Mohammed’s parents knew they had to move fast to get their son out of the country, so they arranged to get a visa through his aunt who had gained asylum in the United States and had been living there for a few years. They also managed to find a guard at the border of Jordan who would grant a passport out of Iraq for $5,000 a person. Now all they needed was a strong plan to keep Mohammed safe during the travel.

As the ride toward the border continues, Mohammed notices that the back of the SUV is loaded with gourmet food. Mohammed will pose as a relative of the person who works at the border. The food is for him and his fellow guards. When everyone is distracted by the excitement and is busy eating, the bribed guard will process the passports and grant the SUV and its precious cargo safe passage across the border.

Mohammed taps his foot rapidly against the floor of the SUV. The approaching border is nothing like he imagined. It is old, rundown, and overstaffed with 20 guards patrolling the area. “How am I going to find a person wearing a uniform whom I have never seen or met before in my life? All I have is a name,” he thought. Approaching the wrong person would be the biggest mistake he could ever make.

Mohammed is nervous about his role in carrying the food. He feels a heavy burden of responsibility. “I have seven people with me in the car,” he thinks. “I’m risking their lives too, so I have to do it right.”

The SUV rolls to a complete stop parallel to the guardhouse. A soldier approaches the window. “Hey,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for you. Did you bring the food?” Mohammed moves to the back of the SUV and opens the trunk. He starts to remove the food while secretly handing the guard the eight passports. The soldier examines them for a moment, pausing. Mohammed’s heart is racing. “Let’s get this food into the building; everyone is starving,” the guard says.

The food is laid out across the banquet table in glorious fashion. There is enough here to feed all the guards three times over. The hungry men jump on the food and within minutes they are all in the room; all except one.

As promised, the bribed guard has taken the passports and stamped them. He allows the SUV to leave just before sunset.

Mohammed screams and smiles for the first hundred miles after the border. He yells, “Stop!” to the driver, gets out of the SUV, and proceeds to jump and dance in the street. “It is a miracle,” he thinks. “It is the happiest moment of my life.”

Mohammed goes to the American Embassy in Jordan and gets his visa. He is told that it will take four days before the flight leaves for the United States. “That’s all right,” he jokes. “Today is just like my birthday.”

Thanks to this miracle, Mohammed celebrates the sixth anniversary of his escape this year.