Iraq Bleeds: the Remorseless Rise of Violence and Displacement by Ashraf Al-Khalidi and Victor Tanner

FMR IRAQ SPECIAL ISSUE populations. However, as the scope On a regional level, the humanitarian between sister UN agencies in of the humanitarian crisis is beyond crisis has implications in terms these countries have begun. the current response capacity of of outflow, security and access the GoI, the UN will increase its to vulnerable groups. Therefore Ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, current humanitarian activities to neighbouring countries and their a senior Pakistani diplomat and match the increasing needs where NGO communities should be engaged former ambassador to the USA, possible. To that end, the UN is and included in determinations of is the UN Secretary-General’s committed to working directly responses. Humanitarian corridors Special Representative for Iraq. with governorates, districts and between these countries need to community leaders, to ensure that be developed and preliminary The web portal for UN agencies interventions are tailored to the discussions regarding coordination working in Iraq is at www.uniraq.org unique circumstances in each district. 1. www.irffi.org Iraq bleeds: the remorseless rise of violence and displacement by Ashraf al-Khalidi and Victor Tanner “I will never believe in differences between people,” the young rule of law. This was especially true man said. “I am a Sunni and my wife is a Shi’a. I received of Shi’a communities, which had suffered so much under Saddam. threats to divorce her or be killed. We have left Dora now [a once-mixed, now Sunni-dominated neighbourhood in central Even today, many ordinary people Baghdad]. My wife is staying with her family in Shaab [a Shi’a still do not think in terms of civil war. What they see is not neighbour area] and I am staying with my friends in Mansur [a Sunni against neighbour but armed thugs on area]. I am trying to find a different house but it’s difficult all sides brutalising civilians. People now to find a place that accepts both of us in Baghdad.” have tried to protect their friends and neighbours. Shi’a displaced from Mosul and Falluja, interviewed in This comment by a young Iraqi artist is a historical melting pot. Modern Diwaniya in June 2006, told of Sunni to a friend in Baghdad last summer Iraq reflects this. The three great families who had sought to protect captures the essence of the painful cities – Baghdad, Basra and Mosul them, and who had in turn been paradox that grips Iraqi society nearly – have been cosmopolitan centres of targeted by Sunni radicals. Similar four years after the 2003 invasion commerce and learning for centuries. stories came from the other side: we triggered a colossal upheaval. On There may not be any official statistics heard, for example, from residents of the one hand, Iraq is a society where but there are large numbers of mixed the Hayy al-Jaamia area of Baghdad different ethnicities, cultures, religions marriages in Iraq – up to a third of about an incident in which a local and sects have mixed and mingled all marriages, according to a March Sunni grocer was killed by Shi’a for centuries, where people worked 2007 article in the Washington Post. thugs and when his Shi’a neighbour and lived side by side. On the other, it Indeed, many of the country’s tribes – protested, he, too, was murdered. is a country that is now increasingly including some of the most powerful riven by terrible sectarian violence ones – consist of both Sunni and Shi’a. But the situation is hardening. – violence that has forced millions of Violence is reaching deeper into Iraqis to flee their homes, either as True, the regime of Saddam Hussein society. More and more ordinary refugees to neighbouring countries, played on differences between Shi’a people have ties to the radical or as internally displaced within Iraq. and Sunnis, as well as between Arabs groups. In many neighbourhoods, and Kurds, aggravating the tensions it is a case of being either with that exist in any multicultural them or against them. And if the A history of living together society. But when in 2003 the horrors latter, the consequence is to flee or, of that regime were swept aside, often, to be killed. And once kin Living together is a natural part of many Iraqis yearned for a normal and loved ones join a radical group, life in Iraq. The Mesopotamian plain life: security, due process and the the whole family is entrapped. FMR IRAQ SPECIAL ISSUE This Iraqi woman fled her home town after a mortar attack killed several children. UNHCR/K Brooks The hard-liners Sunni leaders in Iraq. “The Shi’a are are pawns they use to further their being killed since the death of the agendas – which are strikingly Since the bombing of the holy prophet. In fact we can’t see any similar. They seek to consolidate Shi’a shrine in Samarra’s Golden difference between the Umayyads3 ‘their’ territory by expelling the Mosque in February 2006, successive and Saddam or the current radical ‘others’. They try to keep some of waves of attack and retaliation Sunni leaders,” said a SCIRI official, ‘their’ people in the territory of the have washed over the country. The interviewed in Najaf. Similarly, ‘other’ so as to maintain a claim on the Samarra bombing marked the end a Sadrist official in the Baghdad local resources. In a context where the of the restraint with which Sh’ia neighbourhood of Shuala declared: central government is facing immense had faced escalating attacks against “The plan is clear to us. They want difficulties asserting its authority them. Now the violence is from both to eliminate the Shi’a in Baghdad across the country, the radical groups sides. The weapon of choice of Sunni and Diyala so they can establish their of all sides are able to pose as both militant groups is the car-bomb, Taliban state in the Sunni areas.” protectors and providers to the most while extremist Shi’a death squads vulnerable. The displaced are also detain, torture and murder people. For hard-line Sunnis, the very essence pawns in the internecine struggles of the situation is sectarian: they see between different groups within The violence is neither spontaneous the ‘new’ Iraq as a creation of US each of the two main communities. nor popular. Whether you ask and Iranian interests – a place where political actors or ordinary Iraqis in Sunnis no longer belong. “The plan As the power and influence of the the street, including those displaced for Southern Federalism allows the radical groups increase, so too does by the violence, the view is that Shi’a political coalition to control the their tendency to engage in repressive more extreme religious fronts drive oil in the south and leaves the Sunnis behaviour. In Sadr City, residents both the violence and the resulting isolated and poor,” said an AMSI say they feel relief when the Mahdi displacement. These groups are the official in Mosul. For a Sunni Waqf Army4 engages in operations outside Office of Muqtada al-Sadr and the Committee official in Baghdad, the the area, because when they are not Supreme Council for the Islamic anti-Sunni attacks are “an organised busy elsewhere, they harass people Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI)1 on the plan against the Sunni Arabs.” in their own area. In Washash, a Shi’a side, and the Association of “This has led us to question who is formerly mixed area now under Shi’a Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)2 and really responsible for the Samarra control, Shi’a households must fly the Islamic Party on the Sunni side. bombing,” he added – a fine example a black flag to demonstrate fealty. of how, in times of extreme violence, Hard-line leaders on both sides view a blend of paranoia and bad faith Likewise, in Baghdad’s Sunni the violence and displacement as can replace rational discourse. neighbourhoods of Ghaziliya and an extension of existing historical al-Khadhra, the Omar Brigades trends. Shi’a leaders point to a The violence gives the radical groups enforce strict Sharia law in a fashion history of anti-Shi’a repression by their raison d’être. The displaced reminiscent of the Taliban. Smoking FMR IRAQ SPECIAL ISSUE is prohibited. Women are forbidden themselves to the bigger groups like to be. Places such as north Babil, from wearing trousers and men from the Shi’a Mahdi Army or the Sunni Salah ad-Din province, Mosul, Basra shaving. Penalties for transgressors Omar Brigades. This only fuels the and especially Baghdad have been are brutal – and sometimes final. problem further, as the radical groups exceptionally violent. In these areas, Recent news from the Dora gain in power at the local level. campaigns to undermine mixed neighbourhood neighbourhoods Iraqi refugees of Baghdad, proceed in in a restaurant in Amman. also controlled parallel. There by Sunni hard- tends to be less liners, has it violence in areas that Christians where there is a are sometimes functioning local forced to make authority – mainly monthly $100 the Kurdish North jizya payments and the southern – a head-tax that Shi’a towns (other able-bodied non- than Basra). Muslim males historically paid The number in Muslim states. of displaced is hard to estimate. It is, on both The only official sides, typical numbers come warlord politics: from the Ministry moderates and of Trade, which people who speak manages the UNHCR/P Sands up in opposition country’s rations, to the violence are but they may targeted, intimidated and killed. The Adding to the grim picture, tribes underestimate the overall problem. only guarantee for survival is silence.

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