Don't look at President Clinton. "
The instructions were given to Raed Ahmed, an Iraqi athlete who participated in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, United States.
The Iraqi weightlifter has been told that Clinton and the United States want to destroy their country, so there is no need to respect them. The message from Saddam Hussein's eldest son was relayed to him by officials of the Iraqi Olympic Committee.
Raed said he was told not to look around because the president would be there and he wouldn't look at him.
"I said there is no problem."
Raed, with his country's flag in hand, ran to the stadium, his face whimpering with delight. At the age of 29, he had the honor of raising the national flag at the opening ceremony of the World Olympic Games. Previously, two other Iraqis had won the award.
The Iraqi authorities were keeping an eye on him, but he still turned to the right.
He said he couldn't believe it. "Clinton was watching us. I saw they were very happy. They got up from their seats and started clapping."
It was a moment that changed Raed's life.
Raed was born in 1967 in Basra, Iraq, into a Shiite family. His father taught bodybuilding.
He made a name for himself in weightlifting in the early 1980s. In 1984 he became the national champion in the 99kg category.
But his success began in the face of chaos in the country.
In 1991, the Shia Arabs in southern Iraq and the Kurds in northern Iraq revolted.
The revolt began shortly after the first Gulf War. A year before the uprising, the Iraqi forces that invaded Kuwait were driven out of Kuwait by US-led multinational forces.
Prior to the coalition's ground offensive in February 1991, then US President George HW Bush told the Iraqi people in a televised statement that blood was the only way to prevent bloodshed.
"It is up to the Iraqi army and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force the dictator Saddam Hussein to step down," he said.
The country's Shiite and Kurdish populations understood that this meant that the United States would support a coup against Saddam Hussein and rebelled in March.
Hundreds of unarmed civilians took to the streets in Basra and other cities, seizing government buildings, freeing prisoners and looting small arms.
At the height of the uprising, 14 of the country's 18 provinces had fallen into the hands of Saddam Hussein's army, and the fighting took place a few kilometers from the capital, Baghdad.
When the uprising in Iraq engulfed the entire country, US officials said that interference in Iraq's internal affairs and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein were never part of their policy.
After the end of the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein launched the worst offensive against the Shiite and Kurdish population of the country, killing thousands of civilians in a few months.
Raed recalls that Saddam Hussein's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as chemist Ali, charged with quelling the uprising, shot at Basra University students in a row.
The situation of ordinary Iraqi citizens was also deteriorating with the sanctions imposed by the United Nations. Raid says people couldn't even afford bread and rice. They were forced to think about how to get out of the country.
Unlike many Iraqis, Raed has had the privilege of traveling overseas to compete in international competitions.
Being a top-level athlete in Iraq meant facing Saddam Hussein's most oppressive son, Adi Hussein, who was president of the Iraqi Olympic Committee and the Iraqi Football Federation.
Adi Hussain didn't shy away from making minor mistakes like missing penalties, red cards and shocking players for not showing their full potential, throwing them down the drain and even killing them.
"He could do what he wanted, he was Saddam Hussein's son," Raed said.
To protect himself from Uday's wrath, Raed tried to keep Uday's expectations to a minimum before any major international competition.
"I've seen people come out of prisons," she said. "The football and basketball players told us to be very careful when we went out to compete."
“When asked if I could bring a gold medal, my answer was no. It takes at least four years of hard work to win a gold medal, and it is difficult to do so in Basra, where there was no water and food The Uprising Weight training requires a lot of food and body massage.
Raed began to see international competitions as a great opportunity to say goodbye to Iraq forever. They worked harder than before and started training hard twice a day to reach that level.
In 1995, he had the opportunity to go to China for the World Weightlifting Championships, but he thought it was more likely that the Chinese authorities would extradite him to Iraq, so he didn't try to escape.
His performance was enough to make it to the Olympic team. They were going to Atlanta. He knew that the 1996 Olympics in the United States would be a great opportunity for him.
Before going to the Olympics, Raed contacted his friends in the United States. They began to assess the dangers.
What if they sent him back to Iraq? What will happen to your family? How will they escape the control of the Iraqi authorities? When Raed boarded the plane for the United States, he didn't think he could make the escape.
After arriving at the Olympic Village, Raed lived in peace and did not allow anyone to doubt him. He had the honor of carrying the national flag in the greatest sport in the world.
Before the opening ceremony, translator Inmar Mahmood, who accompanied the Olympic team, repeatedly persuaded him not to look at President Clinton.
"I want to show that the Iraqi people don't like the United States, they don't like the president," Raed said.
Mahmoud was right behind Raed when he crossed the Olympic Park on July 19, 1996.
He said Mahmoud noticed he was looking at Clinton but said nothing. He added that Iraqi officials were surprised to see Clinton applaud them.
All doubts were removed from his mind. He wasn't going to go back to Iraq. But now the difficult question was how to stop in America.
Raed contacted another friend, Mohsin Faradi, in the United States and told him of his intentions.
Intifada Qambar, who studied engineering at the University of Georgia in the United States, later entered the Olympic Village and came to visit it.
Raed asked them to help him. They had a secret meeting but their observers suspected they wanted to stay.
"They told me they wouldn't let me stay here and that if I stayed I would go to jail."
Raed's intentions haven't changed. All preparations were made, but they had to participate in the first competition. Unable to train to catch up with his competitors, he finished third from the bottom in his weight class and on two separate occasions he weighed a total of 665.05 pounds.
After the competition, it was time to escape.
On the morning of July 28, 1996, the Iraqi Olympic team was preparing to visit a zoo. When the team came down for breakfast, Raed apologized as if he had forgotten something in his room.
He quickly packed his bags and ran to the gates of the Olympic Village. Qambar and Faradi were waiting for him in the car. Raed got into the car and drove off.
Remembering that moment, Raed says he was worried about his family the whole time. “He was worried about what would happen to them when the Iraqi authorities found out that he had fled. He wasn't worried because he knew he was in good hands and that he was safe. "I was just worried about my family."
Raed had to leave without a passport because the Iraqi authorities had taken all his documents. He arrived to meet an Iraqi-American lawyer who had traveled exclusively from New York. Then they went to the immigration agency to discuss Raed's desire to stay in the United States.
This was followed by a press conference where he spoke to the world media.
According to the New York Times: "I love my country, but I don't like that government."
Raed says that after the press conference, Adi Hussein's office called CNN to relay the message that he would have to return because his entire family had been taken hostage.
When Raed refused to return, his family was eventually released, but he hasn't been able to speak to them for over a year.
"It only occurred to us then. People didn't want to talk to him. My mother was the principal of a school and she fired him.
Raed says that when he was granted asylum, he worked seven days a week to get a fake Iraqi passport for his wife. In 1998 he arrived in Jordan, where he was assisted by United Nations personnel and later by the United States.
Raed and his wife settled in Dearborn, Michigan, and still live today. They had five children. Dearborn is home to large numbers of Arabs, and thousands of Iraqi refugees have settled in the area since the beginning of the Iraq war in 2003.
"Dearborn is like Baghdad," laughs Raed.
He opened a used car dealership and continued his weightlifting training. He has also coached local Iraqi soccer and basketball teams.
He returned to Iraq for the first time since the fall of Saddam's government in 2004.
"Everyone at my house was waiting for me and wanted to see me because they hadn't seen me since 1996. When they saw me they cried only because they thought they would never see me again. '
Raed's parents still live in Basra, but before the global outbreak they traveled to the United States every year.
Raed says he can stay in Michigan in the future, but moving to a part of his hometown was a dream.
"I want to move to Florida because it's like Iraq," he laughs. It is very difficult to live here, especially from December to February. It is very cold and it snows a lot. I've never seen snow before. I was wondering how people get out with three or four inches of snow.
He says that, like every year, he will see the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony in July this year on television.
"It all brings back many memories and reminds me how far I have come." Whenever I watch it, I wish I could participate. "
"Seeing this event will really take me 25 years and I'm sure I'll relive my time."
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