BY ROHAN PEARCE
For those who expected the US-led invasion forces in Iraq to be welcomed with open arms, events on April 15 proved to be a shock. On that day in Nasiriya, some 20,000 Shiite Muslim Iraqis protested against the US occupation of Iraq, chanting: "Yes to freedom, yes to Islam! No to America, no to Saddam". The protesters were opposed to plans by Washington to impose a pro-US puppet regime on their country.
The Shia, who comprise 60-65% of Iraq's population, were oppressed under Saddam Hussein's regime. The overwhelming majority of them no doubt welcomed the end of the Hussein era. However many possess a strong distrust of the US — an opinion formed by Washington's support for the former Iraqi regime's war against predominantly Shiite Iran, plus Washington's enforcement for 13 years of brutal economic sanctions against the Iraqi nation.
It has been the poorer Shiite Iraqis who have suffered most, both from the UN economic sanctions and from the US invasion, as opposed to Sunni Muslims who provided the social base for Hussein's regime.
However, even the Nasiriya protest was dwarfed by a demonstration in Baghdad on April 18. An estimated 200,000 Iraqis poured onto the streets of the capital to protest against the US-led occupation of their country. According to a Reuters report filed that day, the demonstartion's organisers called themselves the Iraqi National United Movement and said they represented Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Scenes of Iraqis celebrating their "liberation" have been scarce, with the exceptions of areas now under Kurdish-control in the north of the country and media opportunities staged by the US Army — for example, the now-infamous staged destruction of a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad.
"Many people just cheer for those who are victorious", Mahmoud Shalal, a resident of Baghdad told Associated Press' Hamza Hendawi. "It was a case of 'kiss the hand if you cannot twist the arm'", he commented, referring the scenes of celebration that greeted the entry of US forces into central Baghdad.
Instead of joyfully celebrating the end of Hussein's brutal regime, many Iraqis are now fearful of what the future will hold for them, wary of US promises and worried about their survival and livelihood in a country shattered by the US-led invasion.
While the Baghdad protest was the largest to date, it is only one of series held in urban areas throughout the country.
Chanting "Down, down USA — don't stay, go away" several hundred Iraqis protested in Baghdad, also on April 15. The protest was held outside the Palestine Hotel, where the bulk of the international media in the city are staying.
The prospect of footage of Iraqis demonstrating against the occupation, despite the end of Hussein's rule, being beamed across the world apparently disturbed the US military brass so much that they moved journalists away from the protest. Journalists who witnessed the protest described US Army officials at the scene as "visibly angered".
An April 15 press statement by human rights group Amnesty International noted that "the first taste of the coalition's approach to law and order will not have inspired confidence in the Iraqi people". According to AI: "The response to demonstrations and public disorder on the part of coalition troops has been shockingly inadequate and there are concerns that the US forces may have used excessive force."
The protests have come after severe looting in many cities, including of hospitals and schools, while US troops have looked on, largely indifferent to the destruction of vital Iraqi infrastructure. The exception, reported Robert Fisk on April 14, were the oil and interior ministries, which Us troops immediately began guarding as soon as they entered Baghdad.
Many Iraqis still lack access to essential services such as clean water, electricity and functioning hospitals. All this has helped reinforce the impression that Washington isn't interested in liberating Iraqis so much as their oil reserves.
Ali Zuhair, a resident of Baghdad, told Reuters: "They have operated some of the oil facilities, but they are not operating the power and water systems because they are just after the oil."
"Where is the electricity? Where is the water? Why is there all this mess? It would have been better if Saddam had stayed in power", another Iraqi told the wire service.
Iraqis' anti-occupation mobilisations have focused on their right to national self-determination — choosing the form and composition of a new government, as well as control of the use of Iraq's natural resources and the reconstruction of cities devastated by the US invasion. The April 15 demonstration in Nasiriya was a protest against a US-organised conference of Iraqi leaders-in-waiting, run by retired US general Jay Garner, head of the US occupation regime.
While the conference attracted many of Washington's clients among the Iraqi opposition — including representatives from the Iraqi National Congress, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party — the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest Shiite opposition group, boycotted the gathering. A spokesperson for the group told Reuters: "We cannot be part of a process which is under an American general."
Abdul Aziz Hakim, a leader of the group, told journalists that "Iraq needs an Iraqi interim government. Anything other than this tramples [on] the rights of the Iraqi people and will be a return to the era of colonisation."
Although the meeting was designed to legitimise a new US regime by providing an "Iraqi face" to the occupation, it was tightly controlled by US officials, with only delegations that were approved by the White House allowed to attend.
In an April 9 interview with the Los Angeles Times, US Secretary of State Colin Powell made it clear that Washington is still intent on controlling post-Hussein Iraq. "We believe that the coalition having invested this political capital and life and treasure into this enterprise, we are going to have a leading role for some time as we shape this process", Powell said.
Incredibly, given the mounting hostility of Iraqis to the invasion forces, Powell added: "The people of Iraq will have confidence in us because of who we are and what we've done."
British-based writer on Middle Eastern affairs Mustapha Karkouti told the April 16 Toronto Globe and Mail that protests, such as that against the Nasiriya meeting, are going to "snowball".
"The US doesn't have many friends in the region, despite its efforts to portray itself as liberators", said Karkouti. "It seems to be listening to a very small number of people. Of course the US is mighty enough to install whoever it wants, but it could be short-lived and it could bring violence and unrest."
The regime that the US seems intent on constructing in the country bears more than a passing resemblance to Saddam Hussein's, even employing Hussein's former police. British military analyst Dan Plesch told CNN on April 11 that this development is akin to "sort of starting de-Nazification by rehiring the Gestapo".
The "re-Husseinising" of Iraq isn't limited to the police force however. The US is also utilising Â鶹´«Ã½ of Hussein's Baath party for its new regime. A US military spokesperson in Kuwait told Reuters on April 13 that occupation forces had begun interviewing former civil servants and that, "On the whole it does seem that most of the people who have worked for the government were members of the Baath party".
The April 13 British Observer revealed that DynCorp, a "US military contractor accused of human rights violations", has begun to recruit a police force for Iraq on behalf of the US State Department. The company, which has donated "more than £100,000 to the Republican party" according to the Observer, provided police to the UN in Bosnia.
The Observer reported that DynCorp employees in Bosnia "were implicated in buying and selling prostitutes, including a girl as young as 12. Several DynCorp employees were also accused of videotaping the rape of one of the women." The US headquarters of the company told a reporter posing as a potential recruit for the Iraq mission that he had to be a US citizen who had served as a police officer but did not have to speak Arabic.
The reemergence of a culture of public political protest may yet thwart Washington's ambition to impose a pro-US regime on Iraq. Hence the disinterest of the US occupation forces in protecting Iraqi government property from either Iraqi looters or plundering by their own soldiers.
An April 8 Associated Press report revealed that on April 7 "troops from the [US] Army's 3rd Infantry Division stormed one of Iraq's presidential palaces. They used Saddam's toilets, but also rifled through documents and helped themselves to ashtrays, pillows, gold-painted Arab glassware and other souvenirs."
The destruction unleashed by the US bombing campaign on many of the poorer, working-class districts in cities such as Baghdad will lead to a population much more easily dominated by an occupying army — more easily dominated because the population will be dependent on the occupation authorities for water, food and medical treatment.
Amnesty International's April 15 press release noted: "There seems to have been more preparation to protect the oil wells than to protect hospitals, water systems or civilians."
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 23, 2003.
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