by Fatma Salih Uthman, Iraq
Today Baghdad is witnessing her darkest days since the invasion of the allied troops three years ago.
With the attack on the holy shrine of the 12th Imam in Samara last Wednesday the situation in Iraq is getting worse day by day. While life was nearly normal in Baghdad during the first two days of the official mourning now it has been stopped completely. The whole city is under a curfew. The streets are empty, shops and market places are closed, and even the mobile phone lines are cut. Till now more than one hundred Sunni mosques have been hit; concrete numbers of the casualties are not available as the operations are yet continuing, but some hundred dead are estimated. The crash of bombs and the sound of fire arms are doped by the noise of the helicopters that are permanently flying over the city.
Everything seems to go in accordance; still we have Muharram the holy month of the Shiites to keep in mind the martyrdom of the first Imams; which is celebrated severely by the Jafari government. In this very emotional atmosphere it was easy for the Ayatollahs to call the people for revenge. At least this attack should not pass without vengeance. Jafari who was re-elected some days ago promised not to give up until he has not got hold of the terrorists. In a pogrom like atmosphere the reprisal of the government and the anger of the people are going hand in hand. While the people are yelling slogans of revenge the militias are killing Sunni Iraqis in public like the 46 people on a bus in Baquba. But the pictures on TV are misinforming; after the protests of the first days in which some thousand people took part now there are mainly vehicles that belong to the government driving through the empty streets with Shiite flags and music.
The pursue on the Sunni population in central Iraq did not only start five days ago. For a couple of months Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces backed by the occupiers have been terrorizing people. While critical voices became louder because of the terror practice of the Ministry of Interior during the last weeks after the assault in Samara nobody is criticizing the cruel behaviour of the government nor asking for the legitimacy of its actions nor asking why the police is not safeguarding people’s life.
When the USA and her allies had bombed the Iraqi government from office they had to work with different collaborators. For the first there were the Kurdish parties in the north, in the south of Iraq there were Shiite groups and for the centre of Iraq there were the former CIA agents, Iyad Allawi and Ahmed Chalabi. While from the point of view of the occupiers there are not any serious problems in the north the USA is at the point to lose the control over the rest of Iraq and after the last election Allawi lost most of his political influence and it could not be anticipated that we will come again into a key position; while Ahmed Chalabi could not even win a single seat in the new parliament.
All this could change if the talks on the new government are not going to be continued what would not be a big surprise after the current massacres. Allawi, the man who bears responsibility for the massacre of Falujjah could perhaps be made secular saviour from the political crisis that was caused by “Islamic irrationalism” as it has shown itself in the latest discussion on the picture s of the Islamic prophet and the statements of Ahmedinejad on Israel. The Allawi option is what the Iraqi Kurdish parties in accord with the USA have demanded for weeks.
So we come again to the question who has got an advance of the actual crisis? Have perhaps Jafari und Sistani stepped into a bad trap when they attempted to make use of the emotions of the people to increase their power? The Iraqi parties that are backed by the religious powers believe that they will become stronger now, but they have not only lost international prestige but also could face the risk to come under the direct control of the USA, which they hoped to get freed from.
It is the Iraqi people that have to endure the results of irresponsible imperialist politics that is poisoning the social climate more and more. Was it in the beginning the allied troops led by the USA that tortured the so called insurgents and combatant enemies so later the American trained puppets have made use of the new chance to increase their power. Today it is not only the government paid forces that have become a tool of its own ruin but very normal people are helping, too.
In any case Iraq will never be the same after the last days. The wounds of these days will not heal easily and any kind of emotionalizing will deepen the crisis. But what ever will be the end of this tragedy it is the Iraqi people who are the loser.
