.              

 Over 200,000 Iraqis Demonstrate in Baghdad and other cities: "Iraq for the Iraqis!"

Frontline: 04/18/03

By Frontlines correspondents, with additional information from AFP, Reuters, AP Al-Jazeera, Al-Arayiba and Abu Dhabi

Tens of thousands of Iraqis demonstrated following Friday prayers. There were Shias from the Eastern parts of the City and Sunnis from the West and Central Baghdad: clerics, Muslim organizations, but also members of professional associations, small merchants, lower strata of the Baath Party and students, some of them from the left wing Iraqi National Liberation Front.

The largest of the demonstrations occurred when 50,000 people jammed the streets of Al-Sadr City, formerly known as Saddam City, patrolled by Kalashnikov-wielding guards.

But other hundreds of thousands poured out of mosques around the city and in a number of other cities around the country, like Najuf, Karbala, Mosul and Basra, and demonstrated against Washington's presence.

While some mainstream media reports in the US focused on one of the demonstrations, with 12,000 people who marched through Downtown Baghdad, the scope and breadth of the mass mobilizations at many other sites went mainly unreported.

Baghdad: Downtown Demonstration

The marchers came from several mosques and converged in a central district, Aadhamiya, for the peaceful protest.

One of the biggest columns came from Abi Hanifah Nouman mosque. Its dome was bombed during the recent war.

Earlier, each Mosque had its own rally and marches through different neighborhoods.

``Leave our country, we want peace,'' read one banner aimed at the Americans who seized control nine days ago but failed to check looting, power blackouts and chaos in the aftermath.

``No Bush, No Saddam, Yes Yes to Islam,'' read another.

Some of the organizers of the "unity march" in Downtown Baghdad called themselves the Iraqi National United Movement and said they represented both Iraq's majority Shi'ite Muslims and powerful Sunnis.

Shi'ites, close to Iran's leaders, were marginalized under Saddam's Sunni-dominated government and some Iraqis have feared sectarian clashes could erupt.

``No Shi'ites, No Sunnis, Yes Yes for United Islam,'' another banner read.

Strong opposition to US occupation

The sermons around the capital offered a taste of the first clear reaction among Muslim clergy to the three-week war and US occupation.

At the Al-Hikma mosque Sheikh Mohammad Fartusi said the Shia would not accept a brand of democracy “that allows Iraqis to say what they want but gives them no say in their destiny.”

“This form of government would be worse than Saddam Hussein,” he said. He also urged the faithful to follow the Hawza in Najaf.

According to Al-Jazeera "If they initially offered a cautious hand, Iraqis are becoming increasingly critical of the US failure to restore order and basic services such as water and electricity."

But others at the demonstrations offered a different explanation: that Iraqis are not only against the US presence because of its failure to restore order and stop looting, but also because the US attacked the country with no reason but to take over the oil and impose a government that would obey orders from Washington.

The head of the Tehran-based Supreme Assembly of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SAIRI), which has a major following in Iraq, has called for a “political regime guaranteeing liberty, independence and justice for all Iraqis under the reign of Islam.”

Lebanon's top Shia cleric Sheikh Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah urged Iraqis on Friday to open their eyes to the US occupation and to rebuild Iraq without Washington or London supervision.

“We call on the oppressed good people of Iraq…to prevent the birth of a new dictator from inside and abroad and to open their eyes to the methods of the occupier,” said Fadlallah in his sermon.

“We trust you…to come together without American or British oversight to build a new Iraq that respects the people and gives them their rights,” he said.

The Mosques and neighborhoods are now patrolled by Kalashnikov-wielding volunteers who are trying to control looting. These volunteers, most of them young Iraqis, were also in force to protect demonstrations.

Waving banners in English and Arabic reading “Leave our country, we want peace,” protestors outside of the Abu Hanifa Al-Numan Mosque chanted “No to America, no to Saddam” and “This homeland is for the Shia and Sunni,” in a sign of unity among the two groups. One of the groups, about 500-strong, carried a banner saying "Iraq for the Iraqis."

"US out now! The Iraqi people never let you in!" said another sign. Many demonstrators were holding signs reading "US=UK=Star of David=Killers; That is what we believe."

Both at the entrance of Mosques and outside, there were impromptu speeches by clerics, but also by secular student and community activists.

A Shia neighborhood activist who was heading a delegation from the Al-Sarl City, formerly Saddam City, in the Eastern District told the crowd "the time for revolution has come, now is not the time of confrontation amongst us, but a time to kick out Americans from our soil."

The majority of Iraq's 25-million strong population is 60 percent Shia, which has been ruled ruthlessly under Saddam Hussein's mostly Sunni elitist regime. In recent days however, there has been mounting discontent from among the Shia to Washington's presence in Iraq.

There were also increasing signs of rejection of the obvious maneuvers by the Anglo-American forces to split the Shia community between "collaborators" and "resistance advocates."

Protestors called for unity among Iraqis and urged all to put aside past conflicts and differences. There were leaflets and some periodicals being distributed among the crowd, the first signs of organized political and religious groups coming to the fore.

"Whe should not be divided by the invaders" - said a young Iraqi who climbed on the shoulders of another student - "we must fight together against them."

Al-Jazeera TV correspondent Youseff Al-Shouly reported it was the first non-state organized protest in the Iraqi capital in decades, describing it as a significant development.

In the first Friday prayers since US tanks rolled into the heart of Baghdad last week, Imam Ahmad Al-Kubaisi said in his sermon that the United States invaded Iraq to defend Israel and denied that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

One of the leaflets being circulated stated, "we have been betrayed by Arab leaders who are now buckling under the yoke of US imperialism."

Many in the demonstration talked about the self-appointed "Iraqi leaders, who are stooges for the Americans."

Meanwhile, Iraqi Christians marked Good Friday with prayers for resurrection of peace and normality at several churches. But many Christians expressed concern that the collapse of Hussein's government and the advent of democracy in a Muslim majority nation could spell an end to the relative religious freedom they enjoyed under the secular Baath Party.

Hundreds of Christians also marched to mosques around town to join Muslims in anti-US demonstrations and to link with Muslims. "We are a minority and our fate is linked to the kind of political system we are able to create out of the ashes of our country" - said a Christian activist at the demonstration - "we need to fight for unity as Iraqis, first and above all."

Simultaneously with the demonstration, the Arab TV station Abu Dhabi released a video tape depicting Saddam Hussein speaking to a crowd of Iraqis and claimed the video was recorded on April 9, the same day that two hundred Iraqis cheered the destruction of Saddam's statue by US Marines.

In the tape, Saddam said "We will win at the end." US High Command cast doubts about the date of the tape and recognized that many at the demonstration in Baghdad were demanding that Iraqis will self-rule.

May US journalists and the US High Command raised doubts about the authenticity of Saddam’s tape, but Abu Dhabi executives offered to disclosed proof of the authenticity of the film and signed affidavits of many people who witnessed Saddam’s appearance.

Many observers and journalists in Baghdad said that they were surprised by the size and organization of the 12,000-strong demonstration. While at the same time ignoring the 50,000-strong march in the Eastern side of the city and many others taking place simultaneously.

"This is not spontaneous activity" - a French reporter noted - "you can see many banners, slogans, organized groups coming from different parts of the city, this is without doubt something that was prepared during the week, with meetings and groups being assigned different tasks."

US troops maintained their distance from Al-Sadr city, except for rapid raids at specific targets, mostly at abandoned sites. During Friday's demonstrations around Baghdad, US troops were ordered to maintain their distance and avoid confrontation.

Among the US soldiers were a variety of reactions to the demonstrations. Some showed nervousness and shock: “Why are they protesting against us?” – said a Marine at the entrance of the Palestine Hotel – “We came to liberate them and now WE are the enemy?”

Shia clergy call for US withdrawal from Iraq

According to Al-Jazeera, a cleric at one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines in the Iraqi city Karbala denounced the presence of US troops in the country during Friday prayers, saying it amounted to imperialism by “unbelievers.”

“We reject this foreign occupation, which is a new imperialism. We don't want it anymore,” Sheikh Kaazem Al-Abahadi Al-Nasari told thousands of Muslim faithful at the mausoleum of Imam Hussein, revered by the Shias as the grandson of the Prophet Mohammad.

An Iraqi Shia woman takes her child to the Imam Hussein mosque in Karbala, some 100 km south of Baghdad for preparations ahead of the anniversary of Imam Hussein's death next week.

“We don't need the Americans. They're here to control our oil. They're unbelievers, but as for us, we have the power of faith,” she said.

Friday prayers resumed at this sacred site last week for the first time since May 2002 after being banned by deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, fearful of Shia opposition to his rule.

Iraq's 25-million strong community is 60 percent Shia who were violently repressed and not represented politically under Hussein.

The Shias are flexing their new political muscle

Sheikh Nasri denounced “those politicians who are coming back to Iraq supported by the Americans and British, who given the opportunity would only obey American orders.”

His speech may have been a veiled jab at Ahmad Chalabi, who bills himself as a secular Shia, and who is reportedly a Pentagon favorite for leading Iraq. Chalabi, who left Iraq in 1958 and returned in recent months, said Friday he had no plans for running the country.

Sheikh Nasri also called on Shias to back the Hawza, the Shia religious school in another holy city Najaf, which has witnessed violence in recent days over who will lead the religious community.

Many Iraqi leaders, both from the Shia and Sunni communities, stated their belief that the US encouraged the looting and civil disorder following the US takeover of Baghdad is order to justify its presence in the years to come. "They [US and Britain] would do everything in their power to show we are incapable of governing ourselves" - said one of the speakers at the main demonstration on Friday - "they will try to make us believe that we are children who need the protection of the big parents of the world. But we should fight against the division in our ranks and start ruling ourselves."

At the moment of this writing, reports about demonstrations in Mosul, Basra and Najuf are starting to appear in some Arab media.

Towards a new resistance movement?

It is too early to tell whether this growing opposition movement against the US/British presence in Iraq will develop into a powerful movement of resistance or will be channeled by Shia and Sunni leaders into pressure movements to obtain better positions for emerging leaders of both communities in the face of the collapse of Saddam's regime and the deep crisis of the Baath Party.

An Italian journalist in Baghdad told Frontlines that “I see the evolving political situation as a very complex one. The removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power has removed a heavy lid that maintained all the issues of Iraqi society unresolved, but also created new issues as important as those.”

He explained that old political and social issues, long repressed under Saddam Hussein, like the oppression of Shias, are now coming to the fore. “But they are now mixing with new issues, like the future of the largest, and formerly dominant, minority in Iraq, the Sunnis.”

“They have points of differences” – he said – “but they are also united in the common goal to get rid of the US occupation.” There are also small but powerful layers of society that would like to see a separation between religion and the state or even secular rule by Iraqis.

“At any rate – the Italian said – there is also the question of the exiles, particularly Chabali and others – coming from without and trying to buy positions of power.”

There were 2 million Baath Party members, out of which probably 60,000 were very active and many still remain active. They are not a homogenous force any more. Many felt betrayed by the leadership in their struggle against the invasion, and their structures, mostly around the state apparatus, have been destroyed. “But it was clear at today's demonstrations that many of them were active and they are the ones pushing the line of 'forget past differences, now we have a common enemy'”

With the passage of time, and the uncertainty about jobs, health services, water and power, the lack of money, food, and continuous looting and thousands of other day to day problems, a large layer of society will turn their eyes to the past “there are already many people in Baghdad that say that 'under Saddam we did not have these problems'”

On the other hand, there are many Iraqis that seem to believe that the US is not about to liquidate the former Baath Party structures, but is working towards integrating parts of those structures to its own “colonial administration.”

Self-Appointed Leaders

They point to the fact that Ahmad Chalabi, the self-appointed leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the most pro-US grouping of exiles, is in favor of only going after the high echelon of the former regime, and is for preserving the Baath Party's ranks to “reconstruct Iraq.”

On Wednesday, two close associates of an Iraqi opposition leader said that they had been elected governor and mayor of Baghdad by tribal and religious chiefs acting with the consent of occupying US troops.

Shia and Sunni leaders in Baghdad, however, stated that most people working with Chalabi were former beneficiaries of Saddam Hussein's regime and “very few at that.”

“Chalabi is a crook, a US puppet and he is playing a very dangerous game” – they said – “one in which he plans to transform the militias he armed with the help of the US Special forces into an 'Iraqi' army and buy as many former Saddamists as possible to construct his own power base. Won't work as most Iraqis are against both a new dictatorship based on force and against the US presence.”

According to Al-Jazeera, Captain Joe Plenzler, a spokesman for the US Marines here, shot down the claim. "Anyone declaring themselves as mayor or anything else is just not true. The US government has not appointed anyone."

"Anyone can call themselves anything they want to," Plenzler said, adding "But future appointments like this will be handled through USAID (the US Agency for International Development)."

Mohammed Mohsen Zubeidi, a veteran anti-Saddam Hussein politician, earlier looked official enough with a huge media entourage to boot as he proclaimed himself head of a new interim administration for Baghdad. His “appointment” was one of the two denied by the US. Zubeidi is closely associated with Chalabi.

Zubeidi said Iraq's political life was reawakening, and that he had beeen coordinating with the US forces here and meeting with them every day. But he said he has had no contact so far with Jay Garner, the retired US general named by Washington as civil administrator to overlook the post-war reconstruction of Iraq.

In spite of Captain Joe Plenzler's assertion, both Chalabi and Zubeidi are accompanied by US Marines and US Special Forces at all times and US High Command's spokesperson Gral Brooke stated that they “are emerging leaders with whom we are working … they had not been appointed or elected as far as we know, but that does not mean we would not collaborate with them.”

Contradictorily, the pro-US Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi returned to Baghdad on Wednesday on his first visit to the city since the overthrow of the monarchy in 1958. "Our plans are to establish ourselves here, to set up an office and begin the work towards reconstructing democracy and civil society in Iraq," said a Chalabi aide Zaab Sethna.

"His first plan is to go see his old home and then start building democracy in Iraq," added Sethna. A statement by the Iraqi National Congress of which Chalabi is head said he and the leaders of four other political groups would meet in Baghdad shortly to constitute the Iraqi Leadership Council.

The council of five, which could be expanded, will not have anyone from the US in it. Besides Chalabi, the others are Shia Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) representative Abdelaziz Hakim, Ayad Allawi of the Iraqi National Accord and the heads of two Kurdish groups -- Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani.

But the common objectives of Chalabi and SCIRI on one hand and those of the Kurdish leaders and Chalabi and SCIRI are tenuous at best.

According to a report from AP news services, representatives of other groups jockeying for power in postwar Iraq were unimpressed. Mahmoud Osman, a Kurdish leader living in London, said Chalabi looked like "an American propagandist."

Hamid al-Bayati, a British representative for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said Chalabi might be "gambling on running for office" despite his claims to the contrary.

The Baghdad meeting announced by Chalabi is said to be complementary to the consultation process which began in Nassiriya on Tuesday under US chairmanship. US sources, however, showed concern about Chalabi's moves that they view not as complementary but in contradiction to the US-sponsored Nasariyah meeting which Chalabi refused to attend.

Pro-Imperialist Puppet

According to the London-based Guardian, who attended the first press conference of Chalabi, he was clear on his support for US imperial grabbing of Iraq:

"The US has a record of supporting the liberation of Iraq. President Bush very courageously took up the cause on September 12 2002," he said.

"The security council has been less than helpful in liberating Iraq. It dealt with Saddam Hussein as though he ran a normal state. The UN is not capable and does not have the credibility in Iraq to play a major role. The moral imperative is on the United States."

He accused France and Germany, which opposed the attack on Iraq, of being "de facto allies of Saddam Hussein". Insisting he merely wanted to help to rebuild civil society, Mr Chalabi said he was not a candidate for any government office. But he slipped up when he said that in spite of the French and German positions, "we will maintain... I expect the future government of Iraq will maintain democratic relations with all countries."

Asked whether the war had been worth it, Mr Chalabi said: "It certainly is. The number of Iraqis getting killed now is far less than the number who would have been killed on a daily basis under Saddam."

“Chalabi is both the agent of the US, and a practical politician – observed an Iraqi journalist working for an European TV station – he knows that he can't do anything without the support of the US and the remnants of Saddam's regime, since most other people in Iraq look at him with scorn. The widespread view inside Iraq is that those who stayed and suffered in Iraq are the ones who should shape its future.”

Chalabi will probably become, together with his bosses in Washington and other collaborators with the occupation, the common enemy of all those in other layers of Iraqi society. This will be the closest to an emerging mass movement against the colonial rule of the country. That is probably why Chalabi is trying to show some independence from both the US and the more radical oppositionists of the US occupation.

International events to help shape Iraq's future

One of the effects of the global anti-war movement on the Iraqi people is that ordinary Iraqis are well aware of the world's opposition to the invasion of the US. This, in fact, is a topic of discussion and conversation in cafes and gatherings of Iraqis in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Even religious Shia activists are impressed with the role of the anti-war movement in Europe, the Arab countries and even in the US. This is clearly shown by the fact that while many activists revile the role of the US/British governments in Iraq, most of the time they qualify their comments by saying that they are not against the people in the US and Britain.

On the Arab mass movement against the US invasion, Iraqis feel lots of closeness with the protesters, with as much intensity as they despise the Arab leaders. Many Iraqis hold the view that the people of the Middle East should rid themselves of “the Saddams of their own countries” for the Middle East to be able to rid itself of both “the US and the Zionists.”

Iraq then, and its occupation, may very well be transformed into a critical point for political change in the Middle East and also on the international level. “Our Arab brothers are demoralized, betrayed – said one of the speakers at Friday's demonstration – because they expected us to do more to defend ourselves against occupation and get rid of Saddam Hussein ourselves. Maybe this show of force would encourage them to fight again, not only in solidarity with our cause, but against their own rulers …”

Contacts from other countries in the Middle East and the growing opposition inside Iraq are not limited to the agents of governments but also to organizations, both Muslim and left wing groups, active in Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Iran.

Over time as communications are reestablished, contacts between groups and organizations in the anti-war movement on other continents and those resisting inside Iraq will increase. More and more, a global anti-imperialist movement needs to take shape, based on the right for self-determination of nations combined with mutual help and aid to stop the US Empire from further attacks.

One obstacle, however, is the fact that the anti-war movement around the world is now in a downward spiral because of the sense that US/British imperial forces achieved a decisive and total victory. Yesterday's demonstrations seems to indicate that this is not the case.

“One of the dangers – antiwar activists in the US told Frontlines – is that many people bought the US propaganda that US forces were received as 'liberators' by the Iraqi people. The Anglo-American occupation of Iraq is not the end, but the beginning of a new phase of the movement.”

Update: Numbers at demonstrations.
Baghdad:
50,000 at Al-Sarl City (formerly Saddam City)
15,000 at Downtown Baghdad
Aproximately 30,000 at other Mosques in Mosaud District, Aadhamiya, Abi Hanifah Nouman mosque and others.
Mosul: Over 10,000
Nasariyah: 30,000
Basra: 8-10,000
Najuf: 8-9,000
Tikrit: 10,000
Kut: 5,000 converged at this town's City Hall that remains occuppied by Shia activists.

Power Search