News & Views 11/21/07

Photo: Taken from Middle East Online website. The caption says “From US-backed sanctions to US-led invasion.” The story with it has been linked on this blog already, but here is a short piece from that report: “In hospitals throughout the country, it is not uncommon to hear the wails of grieving mothers, such as 30-year-old Zaineb Mohammed, whose two-month-old baby died after she failed to get him to hospital in time. She told IWPR that en route to the hospital in the impoverished Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, her family was repeatedly stopped at roadblocks and checkpoints erected to combat security problems there. The delays caused the child’s condition to worsen and when they finally arrived there weren’t paediatric specialists to treat her.” [How could anyone hurt this darling little girl with her “princess dress” and cute little shoes? I just do not understand adults and their vicious behavior. And I fail to understand how anyone associated with the White House or the US Congress can sleep at night with so much blood on their hands. They are swimming in blood! – dancewater]

REPORTS – LIFE IN IRAQ

Dying alone

Within two months I lost two of my best friends without say goodbye because they dead alone and far. Sorrow breaks my heart and I need to blame some one for that but how I could blame? Why death happens in that difficult way in Iraq only? Have you ever experienced the feeling of losing dears of your heart while you can not be beside them, sharing them the last moment or say goodbye to them. Anwar was a journalist who was kidnapped and killed by terrorist in Baghdad. I couldn’t say goodbye to him he just disappeared suddenly. His body found in the street three days after the incident. Ahmad used to work with UN when the terrorist threatened him. He was forced to leave the country to protect his life. Yes to run from death that was waiting for him in his exile….. unfortunately Ahmad infected with kidney cancer while he is in exile. Another time I couldn’t say goodbye to my dear friend. He is dying alone and far from his lovely land, no friends round him to share him his last hours as if that our destiny….die alone by terrorist or abroad far from whom we love.

FEATURE-War-weary aid groups weigh risk, need in Iraq

Some Western aid groups driven from Iraq in recent years are cautiously coming back, weighing the danger to their staff against the lives they may save among increasingly desperate Iraqis. "The risk is still high but ... right now you need life-saving operations in Iraq," said Kasra Mofarah, who heads the NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq, an umbrella aid group. Non-governmental groups like Medecins Sans Frontieres and the International Rescue Committee both set up offices in safer parts of northern Iraq this year after earlier withdrawing from the country. "The security situation remains dire," said Melissa Winkler, an IRC spokeswoman. Still, she said, "we felt compelled to return and respond to the growing humanitarian crisis".

IRAQ: Children with serious illnesses abandoned

Nine-year-old Faleh Muhammad was abandoned by his family in April 2006. He was left to fend for himself in the streets of Baghdad, and later he was diagnosed with leukaemia. “I miss my mother… in the last days before they left me, she was very sad. One day I woke up in the morning to find my father and mother had disappeared,” Faleh said. “We were living in an abandoned building near Hay Jamia’a District with three other families. I asked them about my parents and they told me they had left. So I had to work to be able to eat because those families couldn’t feed me,” he said. Faleh said he started begging in the streets of Baghdad and one day he had a serious headache and fainted. Helped by passers-by, he was taken to Yarmouk hospital and after two days diagnosed with leukaemia. “I remember my father saying I was useless because I was rotten from the inside and I never understood why, but now I know that the reason for abandoning me was my disease,” Faleh said, adding that his father was poor and could not afford the treatment. Faleh, who is now receiving treatment, is being looked after by a local non-governmental organisation (NGO) Keeping Children Alive (KCA), which estimates that in Baghdad alone over 700 children have been abandoned by their families since January 2006. However, the KCA lacks the resources to help him to get proper treatment. “The problem is even more serious among new-born babies and there are many cases of children aged 1-12 abandoned,” said Mayada Marouf, a spokesperson for KCA. “Most of them have a life-threatening disease and their families cannot afford treatment.”

IRAQ: Extremists fuel anti-women violence in Basra

Anti-women violence in Basra, Iraq's second largest city, about 600 km south of the capital, Baghdad, has increased markedly in recent months and has forced women to stay indoors, police and local NGOs have said. "Basra is facing a new type of terror which leaves at least 10 women killed monthly, some of them are later found in garbage dumps with bullet holes while others are found decapitated or mutilated," the city's police chief Maj. Gen. Abdel Jalil Khalaf told IRIN in a telephone interview. "The perpetrators are organised gangs who work under religious cover pretending to spread instructions of Islam but they are far from this religion. They are trying to impose a life style like banning women from wearing western clothes or forcing them to wear head scarf," Khalaf said. In September, Khalaf added, police found the body of a decapitated woman with that of her also decapitated six-year-old son lying beside her. "We do believe that the number of murdered women is much higher as more cases go unreported by their families who fear reprisals from extremists," he added.

Universal Children's Day: Iraqi children's plight

On November 20, the world celebrates the Universal Children's Day with many children around the globe who were not given the best start in life. In a country that has been deeply traumatized by war, many Iraqi children are unable to attend school and are forced to work and support their families. Muhammad Abdul Hadi, a 14-year-old brother to seven siblings and one of many deprived of their childhood, wakes up early in the morning to begin his work pushing a wooden cart that carries worshippers to the shrine of the Shiite’s first Imam Ali in the holy city of Najaf. Hadi, who lives in a fairly modest house in al-Askari neighborhood in northern Najaf with his big family, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) that he was forced to quit school after his father died five years ago. "I had to support my brothers, sisters, and mother. Even my younger brothers work. They peddle plastic bags, tissues and scarves in the streets," Hadi said. When asked whether he celebrates the Universal Children's Day, Muhammad replied, "The children and I who work here do not live our childhood to celebrate this day. I started work when I was nine. Even before that I was in no better condition than I am now. We have always lived at subsistence level."

Petition condemns Iran for "disorder" in S. Iraq

More than 300,000 Iraqis including 600 Shi'ite tribal leaders have signed a petition accusing Iran of sowing "disorder" in southern Iraq, a group of sheikhs involved in the campaign said. The sheikhs showed Reuters two thick bundles of notes which contained original signatures. The sheikhs said more than 300,000 people had signed the pages. Such a public and organized display of animosity toward neighboring Shi'ite Iran is rare in Iraq. Iranian influence has grown steadily, especially in the predominantly Shi'ite south, since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003. "More than 300,000 people from the southern provinces condemned the interference of the Iranian regime in Iraq and especially in spreading security disorder in the provinces," the sheikhs said in a statement. They did not elaborate, but Washington and the U.S. military accuse Iran of arming, training and funding Shi'ite militias in Iraq. Iran denies the charge and blames the violence in Iraq on the U.S. invasion. The sheikhs declined to be identified for fear of retribution. They said various groups had been collecting the signatures for six months across southern Iraq. It was not immediately clear what they planned to do with the petition.

Struggle never ends for Iraqi Kurds in Kirkuk

Driven from their homes in 1987 by Saddam Hussein because they were Kurds, the Fakeh and Nasser families have now returned to the northeastern Iraqi city of Kirkuk. But while the first wave of families to arrive back to this hotspot of sectarian violence have been able to return to their homes, those who followed endure squalor and suffering, forced to squat in abandoned army barracks. "One day Saddam's men came and said 'You are Kurds. You have one week to get out'," says Jiane Fakeh, 45, on the doorstep of a house overlooking the desert outskirts of Kirkuk, an ethnically volatile and much fought over oil hub. "When the soldiers came back seven days later, they took all our belongings." This plump and smiling woman came back to the land of her ancestors in 2003, but in place of their farmhouse, which was torn down by an Arab from the main northern city of Mosul, now stands a huge villa. The walls are decorated with ornate plaster horses and a carved lookout turret. Towering above the entrance sits an enormous portrait of Saddam, dressed in bedouin clothing, still discernable despite a top layer of paint. "The old owner was a mukhabarat (spy) for Saddam, but above all, a massive oil smuggler," laughs Fuad Fakeh, 27. "He thought putting a huge portrait of Saddam outside his house would protect him from the police. The first thing the people did when they started coming back here 20 days after the Americans entered Baghdad, was to paint over the portrait." Hidden away for 16 years in the neighbouring town of Arbil, now the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region of Iraq, the Fakeh family used to regularly pass by their old home. "We saw the house being built but we were not allowed to stop or speak to the people there. The whole village was full of Arabs. Saddam's people. Giving them Kurdish land was their reward," says Adnan Fakeh, 27. "We were lucky because this particular Arab was a crook. He was frightened of the new authorities and he had the money to move away," he adds. "This was not the case for all my friends." Four years ago they began the arduous process of replanting vegetables and corn, buying new cattle and rebuilding chicken coops. "Thank you, America," says Ibrahim Fakeh, 22. "Without you, we would never have been able to return home. The Kurds will never forget that."

VOI enters its 4th year

The independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI) entered its 4th year today, confident to continue its steps in boosting the independent information in Iraq. These steps could not be achieved without sincere efforts exerted by our correspondents spread throughout Iraq, who provide the agency with the up-to-date information in a country where journalists and reporters are exposed to a great danger. Last year was the toughest in the history of VOI as we lost three of our correspondents, who died while on duty: Nezar Abdul Wahid al-Radi, VOI correspondent in Missan, was killed on May 30, our correspondent in Ninewa Sahar Hussein al-Haydari was killed on Wednesday June 7 in the city of Mosul, and five days later and while still mourning al-Haydari, we suddenly lost our active correspondent in Diala, Aref Ali, on Monday June 12. They were killed while performing their duty.

REPORTS – IRAQI MILITIAS, POLITICIANS, POWER BROKERS

SIIC leader urges withdrawing parties from government to return

Head of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council Abdul Aziz al-Hakim on Wednesday called on all parties that withdrew from the government to return to bring about a national reconciliation. "Al-Hakim's call came during his meeting with Prime Minister Nouri Maliki on Tuesday," according to a statement released by the SIIC on Wednesday. The cabinet comprises of 37 ministers, but the recent withdrawal from the government by ministers of three major parliamentary blocs: the Iraqi Accordance Front (IAF), the Sadrists bloc and the Iraqi National List, creating a political dilemma. All efforts exerted to get them back failed.

REPORTS – US/UK/OTHERS IN IRAQ

US commander gives part credit to Syria for military gains in Iraq

The number of foreign combatants with Al-Qaeda ties in Iraq is down markedly in recent months, top US commander David Petraeus said in an interview published Wednesday, thanks largely to "more robust" interdiction efforts by Syria. "We have a formula to estimate how many foreign fighters come in a month. We think there's been a reduction by a third or maybe more than that," Petraeus told The Wall Street Journal. "In general, the intelligence is that we have seen a reduction in that flow," he said. In the past, the United States has accused Damascus of failing to do enough to stem the flow of foreign fighters across its shared border with Iraq. Now however, although the US general attributed the reduction to "no single factor," he credited efforts by Damascus in large part. "There does appear to have been more robust action by Syria against some foreign fighter networks," said Petraeus, who cited efforts "to make it harder for military-age males to travel from a city to Damascus on a one-way airticket." Petraeus said Syria also has moved "to tighten the border ports of entry to Iraq, to look at traditional smuggling routes.”

IRAQI REFUGEES

Iraq sets free trips home for refugees

With violence down in Iraq, the country's embassy in Damascus is starting to organize free trips home for Iraqis who fled the conflict and now want to return, an Iraqi diplomat said Wednesday. Free convoys and even airplane tickets are part of a new push by the Baghdad government to reach out to Iraqi refugees in Syria, said Adnan al-Shourifi, commercial secretary at the Iraqi embassy. Al-Shourifi told The Associated Press that the first free trips are scheduled for Monday, when a convoy of buses and an Iraqi Airways flight will take refugees home. He did not say how many people had registered but added that officials expected hundreds to make the trip. The diplomat said that the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had authorized additional trips and that 11 offices had been set up in the Syrian capital for Iraqis who want to sign up.

Iraq pays Syria $15 M to host refugees - source

Iraqi Finance Minister Baqir Jabur Solagh will pay a visit to Syria late this week to announce his government's commitment to pay $15 million to the Syrian government in return for hosting Iraqi refugees, an official government spokesman said on Tuesday. "A total of $15 million will be paid in appreciation of the efforts exerted by the Syrian government in relieving the suffering of the Iraqi people," Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement received by the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI). "The visit will also tackle problems pertaining to Iraqi accounts in Syrian banks and the possibility of opening a branch of an Iraqi bank in Damascus," the statement added. According to unofficial statistics, there are currently 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria.

Iraq to punish 3 soccer players over asylum bid

The Iraqi Football Association said on Tuesday it plans to block three players from joining foreign clubs and may try to ban them from international matches after they sneaked off after an Olympic qualifier in Australia with plans to seek asylum. The association's Secretary-General Ahmed Abbas said it was considering "severe punishment" against the players, who secretly left their team hotel just hours after losing 2-0 in a 2008 Olympic qualifier on Saturday. Midfielder Ali Abbas, one of the heroes of Iraq's stunning Asian Cup triumph in July, was among the defectors.

Canada to Fast-Track Iraq Immigration

Canada will hasten the immigration of persons affected by the humanitarian crisis in Iraq who have family ties in this country, Immigration and Citizenship Minister Diane Finley said Monday. "In an effort to further help those impacted by the situation in Iraq, we're giving priority immigration services to those from Iraq and surrounding countries who have close family members in Canada," Finley said in a statement. A visa office in Damascus, Syria, will process on a priority basis applications for permanent residence under a so-called family class for Iraqi nationals directly affected by the situation in Iraq, she said.

UN to Assist Iraq on Return of Relocated, Refugees

The UN Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) said there are currently encouraging indications that limited returns of the internally displaced (IDP's) and refugees are ongoing. A recent UNAMI press release said it is estimated that 2.3 million Iraqis have been internally displaced and two million others have taken refuge in neighboring countries. The UN, together with its multinational partners, intends to support the Government of Iraq (GoI) in its aim at facilitating these and future returns. The United Nations' assistance will include providing technical advice; developing monitoring and data gathering tools; encouraging the momentum of voluntary and safe return and providing capacity-building support to the Ministry of Displacement and Migration (MoDM), the press release added.

More Iraqis seek asylum in UK

The number of Iraqis seeking asylum in the UK has doubled in three months, according to the latest figures. The Home Office's quarterly statistics show 530 Iraqis applied for asylum in the three months to September 2007. That figure is double the rate of applicants from the war-torn country of just a few months earlier. A Home Office spokesman said the overall number of 2007 applications for asylum up to the end of September - 16,700 - was the lowest since 1992. The spokesman said it was too early in the application process to know what percentage of Iraqis were successful in their attempt to stay in the country. So far in 2007, 16,700 people have claimed asylum, 5,890 of them in the three months from July to September - a statistic the Home Office says reflects a routine seasonal increase.

Homesick Iraqi refugees return to uncertain future

Encouraged by the lull in the bloodletting in their homeland, Iraqis are beginning to trickle home, desperate to escape the financial hardships that exile has imposed, but most are still too fearful to return. "There is nothing sweeter than being in Iraq. I will not leave again," says 70-year-old grandmother Saadiya Tawfik, whose family struggled to make ends meet after fleeing to neighboring Syria with more than a million other Iraqis. International aid agencies say the number of people being displaced in Iraq still exceeds the number of returnees. Displacement and Migration Minister

How to Help Iraqi Refugees

ANOTHER Way to help: The Collateral Repair Project

Quotes of the day: Over 1.6 million children under the age of 12 have become homeless in Iraq, according to the country’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. That's almost 70 percent of the estimated 2.5 million Iraqis who are homeless inside the country. – from the article IRAQ: Children with serious illnesses abandoned