In Iraq, the silence of the
lambs By Ali al-Fadhily
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.
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