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In Iraq, the silence of the lambs
By Ali al-Fadhily
11/14/07 "IPS" -- -- BAGHDAD - The separation of religious
groups in the face of sectarian violence has brought some
semblance of relative calm to Baghdad. But many Iraqis see this
as the uncertain consequence of a divide and rule policy.
Claims are being made that sectarian violence in Iraq has fallen
because that the US military ”surge” has succeeded in reducing
attacks against civilians. But Baghdad residents say that they
now live in a largely divided city that has brought an uneasy
calm.
”I would like to agree with the idea that violence in Iraq has
decreased and that everything is fine,” retired general Waleed
al-Ubaidy told Inter Press Servce (IPS) in Baghdad. ”But the
truth is far more bitter. All that has happened is a dramatic
change in the demographic map of Iraq.”
And as with Baquba and other violence-hit areas of Iraq, he says
a part of the story in Baghdad is that there is nobody left to
tell it: ”Most of the honest journalists have left.”
Ahmad Ali, chief engineer for one of Baghdad's municipalities,
told IPS: ”Baghdad has been torn into two cities and many towns
and neighbourhoods. There is now the Shia Baghdad and the Sunni
Baghdad to start with. Then, each is divided into little
town-like pieces of the hundreds of thousands who had to leave
their homes.”
Many Baghdad residents say that the claims of reduced violence
can be tested only when the refugees go back home. Many areas of
Baghdad that were previously mixed are now totally Shia or
totally Sunni. This follows the sectarian cleansing in mixed
neighborhoods by militias and death squads. On the Russafa side
of Tigris River, al-Adhamiya is now fully Sunni; the other areas
are all Shia. The al-Karkh side of the river is purely Sunni
except for Shula, Hurriya and small strips of Aamil which are
dominated by Shia militias.
”If the situation is good, why are 5 million Iraqis living in
exile?” asks 55-year-old Abu Mohammad, who was evicted from
Shula in west Baghdad to become a refugee in Amiriya, a few
miles from his lost home. ”Americans and Iranians have succeeded
in realizing their old dream of dividing the Iraqi people into
sects. That is the only success they can talk about.”
Violence is no longer hitting the headlines, but it clearly
continues. Bodies of Iraqis killed after being tortured are
still found in garbage dumps, although fewer than a few months
ago.
”Iraqi and American officials should be ashamed of talking of
'unidentified bodies',” said Haja Fadhila, from the Ghazaliya
area of western Baghdad. ”These are the bodies of Iraqis who had
families to support, and names to be proud of. But nobody talks
about them, there is no media. It is as if it is all taking
place on Mars.”
The Iraqi ministries for health and interior have said that they
are finding on average five to 10 ”unidentified bodies” on the
streets of Baghdad every day. ”Those Americans and their Iraqi
collaborators in the Green Zone talk of five or 10 bodies being
found every day as if they were talking of insects,” Thamir Aziz,
a teacher in Adhamiya, told IPS. ”We know they are lying about
the real number of martyrs, but even if it's true, is it not a
disaster that so many innocent Iraqis are found dead every day?”
Most people blame the Iraqi police for the sectarian
assassinations, and the US military for doing little to stop
them. ”The Americans ask [Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki to
stop the sectarian assassinations when they know very well that
his ministers are ordering the sectarian cleansing,” said
Mahmood Farhan of the Muslim Scholars Association, a leading
Sunni group.
A UN report released in September 2005 held Interior Ministry
forces responsible for an organized campaign of detentions,
torture and killings. It said special police commando units
accused of carrying out the killings were recruited from the
Shia Badr and Mahdi militias.
Ali al-Fadhily is Inter Press Service's correspondent in
Baghdad.
(Inter Press Service)
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