Self-Sacrifice (33 page)
Authors: Struan Stevenson
My mother had a very resilient demeanour and held her head high. She said no one should feel sorry for her, because her son was not dead, he was martyred, so she should be congratulated instead.
The henchmen did everything to make life unbearable for my parents. They used to send them to other cities under the pretext of telling them their children had been transferred to another prison, just to make life miserable for them. Often the regime’s agents used to attack them on the streets. In one incident one of the agents hit my Mum on the leg with a metal bar and she wasn’t able to walk for months.
When my brother Hassan was released from prison we left the country, and through Pakistan managed to reach Camp Ashraf.’
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Can Iraq Rise from the Ashes?
The Iraqi elections were held on 30 April 2013, and it was widely believed that the results of the election were a sham. Few people accepted that Maliki’s ‘State of Law’ Party could have won 92 seats – three more than last time – following years of violence, venal corruption, repression and economic failure. There was also considerable scepticism about the alleged 62% turnout at the elections, given the background of rising aggression in Iraq and the genocidal campaign being waged against the Sunni population of Anbar Province. Considering the vicious shelling and barrel bomb attacks on schools, hospitals and civilian targets in Fallujah and Ramadi, and more than 6,000 deaths by the early summer of 2014 in Iraq, many political leaders agreed that the 62% voter turnout was a fiction.
Politicians in Iraq also expressed their dismay at widespread vote rigging during the elections. Ayad Allawi, leader of al-Iraqiya, claimed that two million ballot papers were missing, raising deep suspicions that major electoral fraud took place. News that all Iraqi police and army personnel were issued with two ballot papers each, one in their camps and the other sent to their homes, compounded fears that the election was rigged.
Nevertheless, the official election results showed Maliki winning the largest bloc, with a total of 168 seats won by Shiite parties, in a parliament of 328 seats. The Sunnis won 43 seats, the Kurds 62, with 24 seats going to secular parties, 8 seats allocated to minorities and 23 seats won by independents and others.
Although there is an actual Shiite majority in the Iraqi Parliament, it was no guarantee of Maliki’s ability to form a coalition. Many of the Shiia factions vowed not to work with Maliki again, and intensive negotiations began in the weeks following the election as he attempted to buy or bribe different factions to join him. The Iranian regime, which regarded Maliki as their pliable puppet, was
also putting pressure on different political factions to support him for a third term as prime minister.
For the Mullahs in Tehran, a non-sectarian, fully democratic government in Baghdad would be anathema, and they were pressing ahead with their determination to secure another four years of authoritarian Shiite domination of Iraq, with the strings being pulled by Tehran. The presence of Iranian militias in the bloody campaign in Fallujah and Ramadi were visible signs of this interference.
The conclusion was that this election, the first to take place in Iraq since the withdrawal of American troops, had been significantly corrupted to the point where the result was almost certainly fraudulent. There seemed little doubt that hundreds of thousands of people were deprived of their right to participate in the 30 April elections due to violence and intimidation, rendering this the most undemocratic election of the post-Saddam era.
To begin with, as was their usual practice, the UN, the US and the EU stood back and watched developments from the sidelines. Despite the fact that the people of Iraq had suffered enough and were crying out for a non-sectarian government of national salvation, that could stabilise the current situation and allow all Iraqis a fair share of wealth and power, the West was content to act only as an interested observer. It was becoming abundantly clear to many, however, that another four years of corrupt dictatorship by Maliki could destroy Iraq.
Lawlessness, terrorism, corruption and the systematic abuse of human rights are each a daily feature of life in Iraq. The World Bank lists Iraq as having one of the worst qualities of governance in the world. Transparency International lists Iraq as one of the world’s most corrupt countries. It has a dreadful human rights record and now is in third place after only China and neighbouring Iran in the number of people it executes. In spite of vast oil revenues, per capita income is only $1,000 per year, making it one of the world’s poorest countries.
The situation for women in Iraq is dire. Women are subject to rape, attack and violence. Maliki’s genocidal attacks in al-Anbar on the spurious pretext of war against terror had left 250,000 people homeless, mostly women and children, because they are the only
ones who are allowed to leave the cities. Five or six provinces in Iraq were subjected to this kind of abuse. It even became impossible to travel from Baghdad to al-Anbar to deliver aid. The suffering of the displaced women and children went far beyond the sheer loss of their homes. They lost everything, including access to health care, education, everything.
Forcing people to move in this way was creating a new situation where a new identity was being artificially manufactured for vast swathes of the Iraqi population, splitting them up into sectarian divisions. This was something that had never been experienced even under Saddam. Iraqi women grew up next to Shiia, Sunni, Christians and Turkmen, and nobody cared what religion anyone was. But now Iraq was fracturing. Extreme levels of trauma, fear, anxiety and post-traumatic stress were being experienced by tens of thousands of Iraqis. Women were fighting for basic survival. Iraq has five million widows and five million orphans, but only 120,000 receive state aid. A widow’s average benefit is in any case only £55 ($85) per month and average rent is £130 ($200) per month.
Only 2% of women are in the Iraqi civil service. Despite billions of dollars of oil income annually, Iraq is suffering from endemic corruption. The death penalty is not just for men. Iraq has become a slaughterhouse. It is barbaric. Children of men and women who have been executed on charges of terrorism, will grow up to become terrorists themselves, to take their revenge.
Education has suffered too. 92% of children have impediments to their schooling. Schools suffer from poor and dilapidated buildings; many schools even for 500 children have no toilets and often appallingly difficult transport links. Meanwhile the killing of teachers, scientists and academics, many of them women, goes on apace. Middle-class people are leaving the country by the tens of thousands.
Following my successful meetings in Erbil in November 2013, I had invited key speakers from Iraq to address a major human rights conference in the European Parliament, Brussels, on 19 February 2014. The speakers included some of the most prominent political and religious leaders in Iraq, including Sheik Dr Rafie Alrafaee, Grand Mufti of Iraq, Salim Abdullah al-Jabouri, Chair of the Human Rights Committee in the Council of Representatives, Haidar
Mulla, Member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir, KRG Head of Department of Foreign Relations and Yonadam Kanna, Chair of the Labour and Social Affairs Committee in the Iraqi Council of Representatives. I chaired the conference and drew attention to a highly critical report on Iraq by the European Parliament’s Directorate-General for External Policies, entitled ‘Iraq’s deadly spiral towards a civil war’. I told the conference that a resolution condemning the ongoing violence and abuse of human rights in Iraq was also under preparation in the European Parliament and would be debated the following week in Strasbourg.
In my opening remarks I said:
Last November, I was in Iraq. I met with many leading politicians, religious leaders and with courageous men and women who had led popular uprisings and protests in al-Anbar and six provinces of Iraq and in many Iraqi cities. The message from all of them was identical. They told me that lawlessness, terrorism, corruption and the systematic abuse of human rights are each a daily feature of life in Iraq. They told me that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is rapidly becoming another Saddam Hussein, and that modern Iraq is a dust-bowl of violence and bloodshed.
In his address to the conference, Dr Rafie Alrafaee, the Grand Mufti of Iraq, said:
Maliki is following a heinous policy of indiscriminate bombings of innocent people. The people of al-Anbar did not start the war. We did everything to reach a peaceful settlement. Maliki’s forces attacked these peaceful rallies. They have bombarded the houses of innocent people. My own brother was killed last week in the bombardment and was not from al Qaeda or from Daesh [ISIS]. When Maliki launched his so-called war against terrorists in the desert in Anbar province, not a single combatant of al-Qaeda was killed. The only people killed were innocent shepherds. What is happening in Fallujah is genocide. 1,000 civilians have been injured. Events
in Iraq have taken a very dangerous turn. It could lead to a civil war in which all Iraqi people will lose. The European Parliament should deal with this matter. We’ve been handed on a golden platter to the Iranian government.
Salim Abdullah al-Jabouri, Chair of the Human Rights Committee in the Council of Representatives and now President of the Iraqi Parliament said:
We called on the international community to come to our rescue, but we were faced with just talk and no action. Now the tears of Iraqi women have dried up. We’re sick of unfulfilled promises. But all of this has not put an end to bloodshed in Iraq. All of the violations are serious, all are important. They are issues of international governance and international law. We Iraqis are the ones who suffer. Investigators use torture to obtain confessions. We need to adopt legislation that will put a stop to violations of prisoners. A person can be detained for years on false accusations. But human rights violations will not lead to the eradication of terrorism. Our committee has managed to get many women released from prison. Iraq is rich in diversity, but the killing still goes on. There are around ten car bombs every day. The Iraqi media should be given more freedom to report the truth. Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced in al-Anbar Province. A generation has lost all of its rights.
Haidar Mulla, Member of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, said:
Mr Stevenson has increased the influence of the EU in Iraq and, in particular, he has increased the importance of human rights. We had hoped that Iraq would become a democracy after the fall of the previous regime. But our human rights record is not something we should be proud of. Our task is difficult and complex. We have to pave the way for a culture that respects human rights. The Government of Iraq has not
implemented Article 19 on human rights. This is not a gift to the people. It is their right. Currently there is a ratio of one military personnel to 27 civilians and even so we cannot live peacefully. We have a political crisis and we have to deal with it politically.
Minister Falah Mustafa Bakir, KRG Head of Department of Foreign Relations, said:
Human rights is not a privilege. It is a basic right. We care about human rights because as Kurds we have a long experience of suffering.
The conference was judged to be a great success, but again the subsequent media reports caused a furious backlash from Baghdad, with Maliki once again condemning me for only backing the Sunnis, which was quite untrue, and for giving a one-sided picture of what was happening in Iraq!
Many of Iraq’s wounds are self-inflicted, resulting from failed political leadership. Nouri al-Maliki focused all of his efforts on remaining in power, steadily becoming more authoritarian and repressive and implementing sectarian policies that led directly to ethnic polarisation. By tightly controlling the military and security forces from his own office, he guaranteed that the very forces that could have ensured stability and an end to conflict contributed to the exact opposite. He used those forces, with direct assistance from the fascist Iranian regime, repeatedly to attack, kidnap and murder the innocent and defenceless refugees in Camps Ashraf and Liberty, committing crimes against humanity for which he must be held accountable in the international courts.
Maliki also marginalised or openly discriminated against all non-Shiia minorities, despite the fact they were supposed to be protected and have equal rights under the Iraqi constitution. The Christian population of Iraq has shrunk to fewer than 300,000 and many have been forced to flee from the Islamic State (IS), faced with an ultimatum to convert to Islam, pay a special non-Islamic tax, or die. Soon, some people think that one of the oldest Christian communities in
the world may become extinct. But they are not the only minority facing ethnic cleansing.
The Yezidis, whose Zoroastrian religion pre-dates Christianity by a thousand years, are regarded as devil-worshippers by the jihadists of IS, who have massacred them in their hundreds and driven them from their homes. It was the plight of thousands of Yezidis facing starvation, dehydration and death on Mount Sinjar that drew Obama and Cameron back into the Iraqi conflict, both promising military and humanitarian aid.
It was the US and the UK – George W. Bush and Tony Blair – who invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam, declaring: ‘Mission accomplished’. This created the ethnic melting pot that the Iranians exploited and that Nouri al-Maliki debased. The predictable result was violent reaction by the oppressed minorities, notably the Sunnis, and the alienation and growing disillusion of the Kurds. Maliki’s genocidal campaign against the Sunni population of al-Anbar province raged on for many months, inevitably sucking in elements of ISIS from the Syrian civil war, which capitalised on the fear and loathing of Maliki among the Sunni population. The escalating violence finally exploded into a civil conflict equal to, or worse than, the sectarian civil war that broke out during the US occupation. ISIS made rapid territorial gains in both the south and north of Iraq, capturing entire cities like Mosul and driving tens of thousands of Christians, Yezidis and other ethnic minorities to flee for their lives.