Turkish interference A peaceful Ashura - Soma Digest

Issue no.19 Feb 8 - 23, 2007
LONDON
Every now and then, the full weight of
reality slaps one in the face, and it is
quite often a small thing that triggers it.
This happened to me earlier this week as I
read a despatch from Reuters Alert News.
One of the pages consisted of a number of
quotations that were compiled for the purpose
of echoing the reality of everyday life in
Iraq today.
I would like to share a few of those distressing
quotations with you today. They
reveal the sad image of a suffering Iraq that
has touched so many different facets of life
in the country today and frustrated the hopes
of so many of its decent people:
“I can't live in Baghdad anymore. It’s
turned into a city for dead people and I’m not
ready to have my children grow up as
orphans” - Asam Rifaat, a criminal lawyer
who has decided to take his family out of
Iraq.
“This is the fastest-growing refugee crisis
in the world” - Refugees International
President Kenneth Bacon to the US Senate
Judiciary Committee on 16 January 2007.
“It is difficult for some Iraqis to meet the
definition of refugees at risk of persecution”
- Stephane Jaquemet, regional representative
of the UN High Commissioner for
Refugees.
“It generally is easier to say no than to say
yes” - Bill Frelick, refugee policy director for
Human Rights Watch, on US reluctance to
take in Iraqis.
“The situation is very dangerous and any
person who speaks out against occupation or
tries to write about the militias and government
corruption is liable to be assassinated”
- Iraqi writer Haifa Zangana, in London
since 1976.
“I can breathe in Amman. In Baghdad I
would go to sleep worrying that they will
come after me” - Iraqi refugee Abdul-
Razzak Al Zobai, talking of Shiite death
squads.
“I never felt I was working for the occupation.
I was proud that I was helping Iraqis
of all sects” - Ahlam Al Jibouri, who fled
after she was briefly kidnapped for working
for a US-backed support group for former
political prisoners.
The war in Iraq has taken a heavy toll on
most Iraqis. Yet, we sometimes talk or write
about political initiatives or situations while
we neglect the human dimension of a conflict
that has somehow been going on both
before and after 2003.
For instance, I wonder how many of us
truly realize that 34,000 Iraqi civilians were
killed only last year. Do we also appreciate
the significance of the fact that 1.8 million
Iraqis have been displaced from their homes
and almost 2 million more have fled to other
countries?
According to the US-based International
Medical Corps (IMC), with its 300 staffers
in Iraq, it is likely that an additional one million
Iraqis would leave their homes in
Baghdad within the next six months. The
IMC further adds what many of us know
already, in that the neighborhoods of
Baghdad are inexorably being re-shaped by
the war along sectarian lines, and that they
are consequently straining the 'already fragile
economic and social fabric' of those communities
that are hosting the displaced people.
Moreover, there is a chronic shortage of
medication, laboratory materials and X-ray
films in the country whereby the illequipped
health care centres are increasingly
unable to cope with extra patients or extra
pressures.
Last month, I wrote an article entitled The
Rule of Law vs the Law of Revenge? in
which I expressed my concern about the
deplorable set of events that led to the cynical
execution of Saddam Hussein. I wrote
that that the Iraqi government had perhaps
seemed more interested in hanging the former
president than in considering the legal
and political consequences of their decision.
I pointed out to the commentaries of international
organizations such as Human Rights
Watch, which stated that there were serious
flaws during the trial itself, as well as an
eagerness by the appeals court to fast-forward
Saddam Hussein to the gallows. In
fact, the indecent triumphalism with which
the witnesses or guards at the execution
scene taunted Saddam and hailed the firebrand
cleric Moktada Al Sadr were at the
very least counter-productive and constituted
perhaps an effort by the Iraqi government
to placate, or perhaps even curry favour with,
its Shiite supporters.
Mind you, Saddam Hussein undoubtedly
deserved no pity for his vile crimes and inhumane
atrocities over long years, but his execution
should have been handled differently,
less shabbily in its procedure and less sloppily
in its mix of law and politics.
However, by being sentenced for the
Dujail massacres of 1982 alone, he was neither
held accountable nor received punishment
for his other heinous crimes. What
about the Anfal campaign against the Kurds
in the late 1980s (where 200,000 Kurds were
killed in Halabja and elsewhere, including
the wholesale destruction of Qala Diza and
Qasr-i-Shirin and the creation of mujamaat /
concentration camps for women and children)?
What about the assault on the Marsh
Arabs in the 1990s and the draining of the
marshes, or the slaughtering of the Kurds
and Shiites who rose against him in 1991
after the first Gulf war? Or, as Dalal Al Bizri
wrote in a powerful editorial in Al Hayat,
what about the scores of ordinary men and
women who were also gaoled, raped, tortured
or killed during his reign but did not
receive any justice or even any attention?
Yet, despite the execution of this malevolent
tyrant, the violence continues at such a
dizzying rate that we in the West have almost
become numbed by its sheer enormity. We
are told that the surge by American troops
would usher in the elusive victory - or at least
the graceful exit - of the US Administration.
However, both Houses of Congress are in
their majority opposed to this surge, concluding
seemingly that the whole episode
was a failure of foreign policy. Besides, the
majority of Iraqis today also consider the
invasion as another act of imperialism by a
western power.
REGION| CURRENT AFFAIRS
NEWS ANALYSIS &
‘We sometimes talk or write about political initiatives or situations while we neglect the human
dimension of a conflict that has somehow been going on both before and after 2003.’
The full weight of reality
Dr Harry Hagopian
I have constantly repeated the self-evident
mantra that military might on its own would
not yield any positive results in Iraq. For any
chance to move forward, even if only slightly,
military force should go hand-in-hand
with a planned strategy for the improvement
of the daily lives of Iraqis. But this has never
materialized in any real sense. Not only have
the infrastructure or public services and utilities
such as hospitals and schools in Iraq
deteriorated in their capacities, and not only
is electricity still at a rare premium for a
country that sits on huge oil-wells, but ordinary
Iraqis are being kidnapped, tortured and
even murdered with unfathomable frequency
and brutality. Today, sectarian relations
between the different communities have
become so insecure that Iraqis have by and
large lost hope and are fearful for their lives
as much as for their daily piece of bread.
This week, a bleak 90-page report by the
National Intelligence Estimate about the
future of Iraq expressed (in its declassified
portions) deep doubts about the abilities of
Iraqi politicians to hold an increasingly
balkanized country together. Yet, in the midst
of such political maelstroms, with nobody
seemingly able to stem the violence, I cling
to one hopeful outlet - perhaps a last chance
saloon for Iraqis. It focuses on a fresh Arab
League initiative that would strive to bring
together Iraqi politicians from different hostile
parties. After all, the Arab League did just
that in Lebanon 17 years ago when its diplomacy
put an end to a conflict in which tens
of thousands of Lebanese men, women and
children also went to their deaths. Such an
initiative might work because the Arab
League is in fact Arab, and so can count on
a level of trust amongst suspicious Iraqis that
the USA lost long ago. Mind you, Amr
Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab
League, cannot offer miracles given the
volatile situation. But he should mediate in
the conflict with the hope of achieving polit-
ical stability and national reconciliation.
I would like to conclude with one additional
quotation from Samir Ibraheem, an
11-year-old Iraqi boy who studies at the
Mansour Primary School in Baghdad. It
mirrors for me human reality and daily suffering
at their sharpest levels:
“Lately, I have been feeling very lonely in
my class. This week, I was the only student
in class because all my classmates didn't
come to school for various reasons. Since
last September, three of my classmates have
been kidnapped and two have been killed.
One was murdered with his family at home
and the other was a victim of a bomb explosion
a month ago. The others have either fled
to Jordan and Syria with their families or
their relatives have prohibited them from
coming to school for fear that something
might happen to them. The only thing that
makes me afraid is that if they kidnap me, I
know I'll be killed. My family has no money
to pay a ransom. We don't have a house, a car
or any other goods to sell. So for sure I could
be another victim of the terror that we live
with but I have faith that God will protect
me. Most of our teachers have left the
school. I heard that some of them have travelled
abroad and others stopped working for
security reasons on the insistence of their
families. I miss them all. I miss the days
when we used to run in our school and go
home on our own, not worried by the violence.
We were 21 students and today I'm the
only one in class.”
As ordinary people strive to make sense
of the situation in Iraq today, I would suggest
that politicians in the Arab World, let alone in
the USA and Europe, owe it to Samir
Ibraheem - and many other young kids like
him - to put aside their vested interests or sectarian
designs and extricate the country from
this crippling stasis.
© hbv-H @ 27 December 2006
3
‘Sound oil policy
promotes stability’
-- Qubad Talabani
Staff Report
WASHINGTON, DC
Qubad Talabani, the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG)
Representative to the United
States, last Thursday testified before the US
Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the
political strategy for Iraq. He said that a
sound petroleum policy was necessary and
could help to stabilize Iraq. He also stressed
the need to follow the already agreed
timetable for resolving the status of Kirkuk.
Talabani said that any successful strategy
in Iraq “must come from within Iraq and
not Washington”. Imposing a policy that
ignores the realities on the ground would
inevitably fail, he said.
His testimony was part of an ongoing
series called for by Joseph Biden, Chairman
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
and a Democratic Presidential candidate, to
gain a better understanding of the problems
in Iraq and possible strategies to stabilize it.
Senator Biden visited the Kurdistan
Region in 2003 before the liberation of Iraq.
Others that testified in recent weeks included
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
and newly appointed commander of US
forces in Iraq General David Patraeus.
The hearing also received testimony
from Dr Laith Kubba, Senior Director for
the Middle East and North Africa at the
National Endowment for Democracy, Dr.
Toby Dodge, Consulting Senior Fellow for
the Middle East at the UK-based
International Institute for Strategic Studies,
and Rend Al Rahim, Executive Director of
the Iraq Foundation.
Talabani explained that a sound natural
resources policy presents an opportunity to
bring peace and stability to Iraq. He discussed
the significant progress that has been
made in trying to establish a cooperative
agreement on oil: a draft oil law prepared in
December 2006 that includes the creation
of an intergovernmental entity, the “Federal
Council for Oil and Gas,” with both federal
and regional membership. He informed the
committee that a revenue sharing law
would soon be prepared as well.
Talabani stressed that these two laws currently
contain “major concessions” by the
KRG. Although the Iraqi constitution gives
the KRG the sole authority to develop new
fields in the Kurdistan Region and receive
revenue from those fields, it has agreed to
share those revenues with the rest of Iraq.
He made it clear, however, that this cooperative
agreement “will depend on it respecting
the right of regions to make the final
decision on petroleum contracting in the
region, while at the same time respecting
the right of regions to receive their proportionate
share of the national revenue.”
www.krg.org