Anti-War Protest in Iraq: Sunni & Shiite Together Protest the 2yr Occupation

by redjade Sun Apr 10, 2005 16:31

the crowds in downtown Baghdad protesting the US troop presence in the country may have been as large as 300,000. If it were even half that, these would be the largest popular demonstrations in Iraq since 1958! To any extent that they show popular sentiment shifting in Shiite areas to Muqtada al-Sadr's position on the American presence, they would indicate that he is winning politically even though the US defeated his militia militarily.

Big demonstrations were also held in Ramadi and in Najaf.

[....]

...Muqtada urged his followers not to bear arms and were not to reply with gunfire if they were shot at by the Americans, saying that God would be responsible for defeating the Occupiers." The demonstrators demanded a swift trial of Saddam Hussein, a timetable for US withdrawal, the release of Iraqis detained by the US, and an end to the marginalization of the opposition. The demonstrators carried effigies of Saddam Hussein, President Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, each labeled "International Terrorist." Ash-Sharq al-Awsat says that the crowds also demanded an end to torture in Iraqi prisons.

Off to the side a small crowd of Iraqi Christians joined in the demonstration, with placards saying, "We support the call of Sayyid Muqtada for national unity."

by redjade Sun Apr 10, 2005 16:24

April, The Cruel Month...
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_04_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#111307454974312560

Thousands were demonstrating today all over the country. Many areas in Baghdad were cut off today for security reasons and to accomodate the demonstrators, I suppose. There were some Sunni demonstrations but the large majority of demonstrators were actually Shia and followers of Al Sadr. They came from all over Baghdad and met up in Firdaws Square- the supposed square of liberation. They were in the thousands. None of the news channels were actually covering it. Jazeera showed fragments of the protests in the afternoon but everyone else seemed to busy with some other news story.

[....]

Ever since Jalal Talbani was named president, there have been many angry Shia. It's useless explaining that the presidential chair is only symbolic- it doesn't mean anything. "La izayid we la inaqis." As we say in Iraq. "It doesn't increase anything, nor does it decrease anything." People have the sense that all the positions are 'symbolic'- hence, why shouldn't the Shia get the head symbol? The disturbing thing is how the Kurds could agree to have someone with so much blood on his hands. Talbani is known for his dealings with Turkey, Britain, America and other and his feuds with Barazani have led to the deaths of thousands of Kurds.

by mise Sat Apr 09, 2005 19:27

In stark contrast to the faked crowd at the topppling of saddam in the same square.

reuters:
" the protests fell short of the one million mark".

by redjade Sat Apr 09, 2005 15:42

Iraq may still break apart
By Peter W. Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/04/07/opinion/edgalbraith.html

Jalal Talabani's elevation is the product of a deal between the two winners of Iraq's National Assembly elections in late January. The winners - a Shiite religious list that was supported by two thirds of Iraq's Shiites and a Kurdish nationalist slate that won nearly all the votes in the Kurdish north - were able to agree that a Kurd would hold the largely symbolic presidency while a Shiite would be the more powerful prime minister. They agreed on a division of cabinet portfolios, but on almost nothing else.

The negotiations, ostensibly about the powers of a Kurdish region that has been de facto independent since 1991, masks the simple reality that the people of Kurdistan do not want to be Iraqi at all. Simultaneous with the official balloting in January, Kurdistan held an informal referendum on the region's status, with 97 percent choosing independence.

Contrary to Bush administration hopes for building a united and democratic Iraq, democracy has not endeared Iraq to the Kurds but has intensified their belief that independence is achievable. Even if Kurds and Shiites can find common ground on a loose federal system, it is hard to see how it will last. The Kurdish people will always want their own state and will use the democratic process to ratchet up their demands.

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12/25/2004
Iraqi Kurds hand petition to the UN for independence
http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=6480

A delegation of Iraqi Kurds has handed the UN a petition calling for an independent Kurdistan. The petition was signed by more than 1.7 million Kurds, almost half the Kurdish population in northern Iraq

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And in the Shia South too....

Iraq's Serene South Asks, Who Needs Baghdad?

And if no inconsiderable number of people here have their way, the provinces of the south, home to rich oil reserves but kept poor by Saddam Hussein, will soon become a separate country, or at least a semi-autonomous region in a loosely federal Iraq. The clear southern preference for profit over politics could make it a place where foreign companies willing to invest hard cash are able to do business.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/weekinreview/27glanz.html?ex=1267246800&en=ff083e68e3514238&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

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Kurds want to go, Shias might like to go

that leaves the Sunnis in a future fragmented Iraq - but the Sunnis have no 'elected' representation in the present government.

How do Bush Boys square that circle? hmmm?

by redjade Sat Apr 09, 2005 15:14

Corruption in Iraq under US-led CPA may dwarf UN oil-for-food scandal.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0407/dailyUpdate.html

A former senior advisor to the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which ran Iraq until the election of an interim Iraq government last January, says that the US government's refusal to prosecute US firms accused of corruption in Iraq is turning the country into a "free fraud zone."

Newsweek reported earlier this week that Frank Willis compared Iraq to the "wild west," and that with only $4.1 billion of the $18.7 billion that the US government set aside for the reconstruction of Iraq having been spent, the lack of action on the part of the government means "the corruption will only get worse."

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More than US money is at stake. The administration has harshly criticized the United Nations over hundreds of millions stolen from the Oil-for-Food Program under Saddam [Hussein]. But the successor to Oil-for-Food created under the occupation, called the Development Fund for Iraq, could involve billions of potentially misused dollars.
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by redjade Sat Apr 09, 2005 15:10

The new Iraqi vice-president, `Adil `Abdul-Mahdi, started his political career as a hard core Ba`thist. He then joined the Iraqi Communist Party, but then left and joined a Maoist offshoot. In France, where he studied, he was involved with French leftist groups. After that, he joined the Students' Batallion of the Fatah Movement of Yasir `Arafat. He now is of course a loyal devotee of Ayatollah Sistani. It is not clear yet what ideology `Abdul-Mahdi will espouse next week.

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2005/04/new-iraqi-vice-president-adil-abdul.html

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Amy Goodman interviews Antonia Juhasz
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/04/07/1343230

Mahdi discussed several changes, one of which would be privatization, full privatization of the oil sector, but the other is, you know, a slow process of opening up of the sector, either at a contract by contract basis, or things like simply allowing foreign companies to come in and build oil infrastructure, pump oil out of the ground, do joint excavation policies with the Iraqi government. There's a whole slew of ways that the US government -- the US corporations can enter the Iraqi oil sector without full privatization needing to go forward. But he said full privatization. And again, he said, you know, basically this would be very good for US companies, and the reason why he said that was because it is French and Russian companies that had contracts that were pending with Iraq, waiting for the sanctions to end and basically most members of the Iraqi -- current Iraqi government have said we are not going to honor those contracts. So Mahdi was saying, the French and Russian contracts are out. The door is open to US companies. You know, I'm going to open it as far as it can go. Let's move forward these elections and get me into office, is how I read that process. And it has already been going forward. ChevronTexaco, Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell, they're all already offering free services in Iraq, training Iraqi oil workers, helping rewrite laws to open their access, bidding on oilfields in Kirkuk and elsewhere across Iraq, and they're poised and ready to go.

by redjade Sat Apr 09, 2005 14:48

Shiite religious nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr and some Sunni clerics have called for a demonstration at Firdaws Square in downtown Baghdad for Saturday against the continued presence of US troops in Iraq 2 years after the fall of Saddam Hussein on April 9, 2003.

As Sadrist clerics traveled Friday from the Shiite shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala up to Baghdad, they came under sniper attack just south of Baghdad, and three were killed. Sunni guerrillas have targeted many Shiites in the region south of Baghdad

http://www.juancole.com/2005/04/protests-called-for-saturday-against.html