Middle East Features
A new Tower of Babel? Iraqis flee sectarian violence
Mar 19, 2008, 18:34 GMT
Brussels - Professor Taher Alwan, 46, used to teach at Baghdad University's institute of fine arts.
In 1996, he left Iraq in protest at Saddam Hussein's brutal regime, but gladly returned after the US-led invasion of 2003 with high hopes for his country.
He founded a film festival to support Iraq's new generation of film-makers and a non-governmental organization (NGO) that produces documentaries about human rights.
But success brought public recognition, and unwanted attention from the country's militias. Forced to change his home three times by a series of death threats, he finally decided to leave his family and worldly possessions behind and flee to Belgium, where he has been living since 2006.
'Still today, I do not understand why they'd want to threaten a film-maker. Perhaps it was because I invited girls and boys to attend meetings together, or maybe it is because I criticized the abuse of women's rights in my movies,' Alwan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur in an interview in Brussels.
'But what I do know is that while I am no politician, the threats were certainly politically motivated,' he added.
Alwan is one of more than 2 million Iraqis who have fled their country amid the sectarian violence that has erupted since the US-led invasion. Most of them now live in neighbouring Syria and Jordan, while only a fraction of them have made it to Europe.
NGO workers active in Iraq complain that the US and Iraqi governments are tackling the problem of sectarian violence in the wrong way. Instead of fostering mutual understanding, they are driving an ever deeper wedge between Shia and Sunni, Christians and Kurds.
And this strategy, they warn, risks encouraging more people like Alwan to seek asylum abroad.
In Baghdad, for instance, entire neighbourhoods have become inaccessible to other religious groups by high walls and armed guards.
'Baghdad has become like lots of mini-Berlins,' said one relief worker who asked not to be named.
Majeed Mutar heads the Iraqi Youth League, a local NGO which wants Iraqi youths to help spread democracy and rebuild their country.
When he delivers food or medicines to a Sunni neighbourhood, he has to dispatch a Sunni employee. When he wants to do the same in a Shia neighbourhood, he has to send a Shia.
'Baghdad is divided along the Tigris River. And neighbourhoods are separated by 3-metre-tall walls. So our movement is severely limited,' Mutar told dpa.
Mutar agrees that the walls, which he says were built by the Iraqi government and by the multinational forces, have helped improve the security situation.
'But that's only because Baghdad is being separated into Shia or Sunni cities,' he said.
According to Mutar, the guards at a neighbourhood's gates are immediately able to recognize a stranger simply by the language that he uses to address them.
Valerie Ceccherini of MercyCorps, another NGO active in Iraq, believes the militias not only want to stop democracy, they also want to destroy their country's national identity.
She argues that Europe, with its successful history of overcoming divisions, should play a more active political role in Iraq, based on dialogue and mutual recognition.
Instead, it appears that near the site of the ancient city of Babylon, a new Tower of Babel is being constructed.
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Older Talkback
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...this has nothing to do with the US forces.
Iraqi's are killing Iraqi's and we're not to blame.
We're not to blame for their inability to form a peaceful society.
They can do that anytime they want to. They'd rather kill each other.
They can quit killing each other when they wish to.
The Americans are trying to help, something I think is a mistake, but a noble goal, nonetheless.
That being the case, who cares?
45,000 people a month are dying in the Congo. Where is the outrage over that? How often do you read anything on that?
Iraqi refugees 'returning home'
About 1,600 Iraqis who fled the violence in their country are returning home every day, according to Abdul Samad Sultan, the country's displacement and migration minister.
The Iraqi government has suggested some of the estimated four million people displaced are heading back because of an improvement in the security situation in recent months.
However, international aid agencies said the number of people being displaced in Iraq still exceeds the number of returnees.
And harsher visa requirements imposed by Syria have also made it more difficult for the more than one million Iraqis who fled there to stay.
Brigadier-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, interior minister spokesman, said most refugees were returning from Syria.
Syria has the highest number of Iraqi refugees in the region and says their influx has strained its education, health and housing systems, pushing the government to tighten visa requirements and to call for international assistance.
english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DFA5D3A6-A94D-4760-9584-CD9EC028316C.ht m
Iraqi officials say thousands of refugees return home
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Some 46,000 Iraqi refugees returned to their war-torn country last month, a sign of hope that the massive population flight since the 2003 U.S. invasion could be reversed, an Iraqi commander said Wednesday.
Brig. Gen. Qassim Atta said he attributed the return to an improved security situation in Baghdad, where a crackdown has been in place since February.
'We are simply living in a better and obvious security situation,' he said, citing the return of families to several Baghdad neighborhoods.
About 10,000 internally displaced families have gone back to their homes in the Iraqi capital, said Sattar Nawruz, spokesman for Iraq's Ministry of Displacement and Migration, also pointing to better security.
The Iraqi officials' assessments contrast with gloomy findings from the U.N. refugee agency and Iraqi Red Crescent Organization documenting an increase in displaced populations in recent months. The latter counted nearly 2.3 million internally displaced people in Iraq during September, a figure that has grown steadily this year.
In addition to the thousands of internally displaced people, more than 2.2 million Iraqis have fled to neighboring countries, mostly to Syria and Jordan, the U.N. refugee agency said. Those countries' social service agencies have been stretched by the presence of the refugees, and they have adopted tougher rules on the refugee flow.
Nawruz, who cited statistics that don't include the Kurdish region, said the number of Iraqi families internally displaced since February 2006 stands at 140,000, which amounts to at least 700,000 people since Iraqi families often average five to six people.
He said 'accurate data' indicates that forcible displacement in Baghdad has stopped in the past three months and ministry data indicates that 10,000 families have returned to their homes in the city since the start of the security plan in February.
www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/07/iraq.main
Home Office tells refugees Iraq safe for return
Thursday, 13 Mar 2008 11:34
Failed asylum seekers told to return to Iraq
Iraq is safe enough for refugees to return, the Home Office has said.
The government is requesting 1,400 failed Iraqi asylum seekers return to the country within the next three weeks or face the loss of state support or forced removal.
In a leaked letter seen by the Guardian, the Borders and Immigration Agency's case resolution directorate wrote: 'The government is committed to ensuring that unsuccessful asylum seekers do not remain in the United Kingdom indefinitely.
'We consider that voluntary returns are by far the more dignified way of making a return, but if individuals fail to leave, their removal may be enforced,' the memo said.
The 1,400 rejected asylum seekers, who all came to the UK before 2005, were allowed to remain in the country because until now the government did not consider travel to southern and central Iraq to be safe.
They were granted 'hard case' support, including basic accommodation, three meals a day and vouchers for essential items. Their utility bills were also paid.
Signed by Claire Bennett, the deputy directorate of case resolution, and dated March 6th, the letter says travel to Iraq is now 'both possible and reasonable'.
'Therefore these Iraqi nationals no longer qualify for support under this criterion'.
tonny, your English is actually getting worse.
It looks like 'Men of God' are getting the upper hand in Iraq. The trouble with that is that when God begins to run a country he usually does not make a very good job of it.
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tonny from belgiumMar 19th, 2008 - 19:05:04
I guess that is what the Pentagon calls collateral damage in their war against Al Quaida .i'm sure the Iraqi people are very proud of being caught between hammer and anvil.I guess the neocons ruling Washington are so certain about that,nobody of them even bothered to ask them their opinion.
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