Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

. Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Baszn Özeti
Violence and calm: dual realities
inIraq
By Dexter Filldns
DIWANIVA, Iraq: As the area around
Baghdad endure? a week of repeat~
. violence, a happier scene unfolded m
this city, a two-hour drive to the south.
American soldiers, without helmets
or body armor, attended graduation
ceremonies at the Diwaniya University
Medical SchooL .
At ease with the Iraqi students and
. their parents, the marines laughed,
joked and posed for photographs. One
by one, the students walked up to thank
. them, for Marine doctors had taught
ç1asses in surgery and gynecology and
helped draw up the final exams. .
"We like the Americans very much Joao val e New York Times
here," said Zainab Khaledy, 22, who leceived
her medical degree a week ago
WiorkerSin Diwaniya, Iraq, waiting to receive tbeir pay from American marines.
Sunday. "Wefèèl better than under the But the vioiëncein and around the waniya in many ways seems remarkold
regime. We have problems, like se- capital, and the growing incidence of ably stable.
curity, but everything is getting better." terrorism, seen in the suicide bombing There is none of the virulent anti-
Such is the duality that is coming to
define the American enterprise in Iraq,
of the United Nations headquarters in
Baghdad, pose a grave threat to the
American graffiti that marks walls and
alleyways in Baghdad.
a country increasingly divided be- American rebu~lding plan. Both unde~- So far, most of the anger shown ~as
tween those willing to put up with the cut the estabhshment ?f democratic not been directed at Americans. With
American occupation and those few rule and make the ~mencans less.c.on- hundreds of thousands of dollars pourdetermined
to fight it. . fident about ha!ldlOg over pohtlcal . ing into the area, the ci~ and ~ts sur-
While the areas stretching west and power to the Ira.qls. . rounding areas are rapidly belOg renorth
much
from Baghdad roil and burn.
of the rest of the country re-
With the capital un~er threat ~f attacks,
the Iraqi GovernlOg Councll, the
stored and in some cases improved ..
Even when things do not go espeCially
mains, most of the time, remarkably; 25-member body .ultima~ely expected well in Diwaniya, there seems t? be .a
calm. Rather than fight the Americans;' to take power, has lOcr~aslOglyconduc- reservoir of good will, stemmmg, It
most Iraqis appear to be readily acc~pt- ted its busines~ be~md the marble' seems, from the historical predations
ing the benefits of a wide-ranging re-. walls of the preSidential palace - away. suffered by the Shiite people at the hands
construction.' from danger, but aW!lyfrm~e p~ople. of Saddam Hussein. Many in Diwaniya.
The two faces of the occupawn give .The atmosphere 10 DlwaDlya IS far: lost relatives and friends to agents of
U.S. policymakers something/to take different. The 2,300 marines based here Saddam, and t)ley have not torgotten.
solace in and something to wQ.rryover. since April move freely about the. city, Hassan Naji, a records clerk at the
Four months into the occupation, the tossing candy to children, waving to. children's .hospital, is critical of recent
guerrilla opposition to U.S.' forces, parents. None have been killed by hos- changes, but only up to a point. .
though fierce, is stilllargely limited to , tile fire. There is not even a curfew. Like many at the hospital, he ISconthe
Arab Sunni Muslim population and "This is not Baghdad," said Lieuten- vinced that newborns are dying be-,
its foreign supporters and is confined ant Colonel Patrick Malay, who com- cause the hospitallacks the electricity'
to a relatively limited geographic area. mands a force of about 950 marines in to run its sterile ward for premature ba-
In much of the rest of the country, in Diwaniya. "The Iraqis love us here." bies. Before the war, an emergency line'
places like Diwaniya' and Mosul and By any standard, Diwaniya is fraught provided electricity to the hospital.
Amara, the American and British sol- . with problems, many left over from the night and day.
diers are finding a population that has, war. Deprived of electricity and bott~ed Naji also blamed the Americansfor
at least for now, made a fragile and ten- oxygen the wardfor premature babies bringing freedom to Iraq. "Democracy
tative peace with the occupation. at the children's and maternity hospital .has ruined this hospital," he said, sifting
Violence does still occasionally here has all but collapsed, and doctors through a pile of uncollated notes and
break out; on Saturday three British say that babies are dying at à higher rate jottings. "In the past, people really
soldiers were killed in the south, in than before. Electricity shortages led to worked at their jobs, if only because they
Basra. But i'~br~adparts of thecoùÏ1try, the dosing of a textile mill and a tire. were terrified of their superyisors. JO, •
violence increasingly no longer seems factory, which employed hun~reds.. He continued: "Now, With all thiS
the norm. . And some residents are Impatient freedom, no one cares anymore. We
In the north, the Kurds, long the ben- with the pace of progress and ~uspi- - don't keep records anymore. P~ople
eficiaries of U.S. prot~ction, cou~t cious of the occupiers, as shown 10 re- don't come to worle.Nobody c~.res:
themselves as America's mostenthusl- cent outbreaks ofrioting. . Yet even for all ofthat, N~jl said, he ,
astic supporters. In the s