Protesters have been gathering in Ahrar Square, in the Iraqi city of Mosul, since December 2012. Credit: Beriwan Welat/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
MOSUL, Iraq, Apr 4 2013 (IPS)

Armoured vehicles and thousands of soldiers masked in black balaclavas guard the entrance to the city of Mosul, 350 kilometres northwest of Baghdad. Arriving here gives one the unmistakable feeling of entering a territory that is still under occupation – only this time, the Iraqi Federal soldiers, not the U.S. military, play the role of the occupying army, locals tell IPS.

Once a key trading post on the fabled Silk Road, Iraq’s second largest city was known for centuries for its high quality marble, and for having revolutionised 18^th century Parisian fashion through the supply of its most emblematic product: muslin.

But the beginning of the 21^st century brought dramatic changes to this city on the banks of the Tigris River. Trapped in the deadly crossfire between foreign Islamists, local insurgents and Western occupiers for a decade, the capital of the Nineveh region is now the scene of some of the largest anti-government demonstrations Iraq has seen since 2003.

Since last December, speeches and prayers have been strung between large communal meals and public tea rituals in Ahrar Square, in downtown Mosul. The same picture is also recurrent in Anbar and Salahadin, regions of Iraq where Sunni Arabs are in the majority, and where protests reach their peak every Friday.

“The federal police seal the bridges over the Tigris and thoroughly check those individuals that make it in to the square,” Ghanem Alabed, coordinator of the protests in Mosul, told IPS.

“They confiscate tents, blankets, mats … We have to pray on the (hard) ground because even our small prayer rugs are taken away. They try their best to (uproot) the camp but we still manage to sleep in the square every night.”

Being one of the most visible faces of the protests, Alabed has received both threats and bribes from Baghdad. He says he’s not the only one.

“Can you see those men on the roof of that house?” he asks, pointing towards a nearby building. “Those are cops and they spend the day taking pictures of the protesters to identify them afterwards.”

But preventing the outpouring of popular discontent through intimidation is practically impossible, as protesters — children and old men, the unemployed and the salaried, senior politicians and tribal leaders — gather in the tens of thousands every Friday.

The protestors say their grievances are many, but most revolve around the ethnic marginalisation of the majority Sunni population by predominantly Shia political leaders.

“Iran is ruling Iraq today,” Sheikh Safed Maula, a clan leader clad in a black cloak and red turban, told IPS. “Baghdad is in the hands of the Safavids (a name that designates the Persian Shia Muslims), whereas Sunnis walk to prison in line,” he said, referring to the mass detention of Sunnis on what rights groups say are flimsy charges.

Atheel al Nujaifi, governor of the Nineveh province and leading member of Iraqiya, the major opposition bloc in the Iraqi Parliament, is a regular face among the crowds in Ahrar Square.

“Other than the most basic demands like water, electricity and jobs, all these people are here to denounce the abuses they are constantly suffering at the hands of Baghdad,” the political leader tells IPS.

Though Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has attempted to remove him on several occasions, al Nujaifi continues to espouse his views.

“The government in Baghdad must fall,” he claims. “There’s no other chance for the whole country.”

Peaceful protests – for now

“We want electricity”, “Put Maliki in prison”, “Iran out of Iraq” – such are the shouted slogans that ring out over the columns of protestors sporting Iraqi flags.

Similar demands can be read on huge banners hanging from a building still under construction next to the square.

In this heavily militarised zone, the press are also under attack.

Reporters at the daily newspaper ‘Iraqion’ said they faced constant harassment while doing their job in Ahrar Square.

“The police often seize our cameras and pester us,” a journalist who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons told IPS, stressing that this is “one of the most dangerous cities for journalists in the world”.

According to local sources 43 journalists have been killed in Mosul since the invasion in 2003.

The scale of the protests in Mosul, as well as in Fallujah and Ramadi – 60 and 110 kilometres west of Baghdad respectively – is such that al-Maliki has denounced them as the work of “foreign agents”.

Anti-government protests gained momentum in mid-December, when several bodyguards of Finance Minister Rafie al-Issawi, the highest-ranking Sunni Arab in the cabinet, were arrested.

From that point on, tensions have been on the rise. On Jan. 25, Iraqi soldiers opened fire on demonstrators in Fallujah, killing nine people. On Mar. 8, the federal police shot one demonstrator in Mosul and wounded several others.

Ghanim al Sabawi, a local doctor, was one of the many witnesses to the incident.

“We had to treat the wounded in the square because the police prevented ambulances from evacuating the injured,” recalls this activist-cum-medical professional, who has spent almost every single night in the square since the protests began in late 2012.

Protest spokesman Salem al Jubury brands such incidents a “clear (attempt) by the security forces to criminalise the protests and arrest our people”.

On Mar. 20, the government in Baghdad decided to postpone the provincial elections scheduled for April in Anbar and Nineveh. Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary-General for Iraq, Martin Kobler, denounced the move, adding, “There is no democracy without elections.”

“The government has lost popularity and intimidation remains its only answer to our plight. Our protests started last December with very humble demands but those are becoming (increasingly) political over time,” al Jubury told IPS.

Experts point out that the demonstrations have been gaining momentum alongside the war in neighbouring Syria, an explosive combination that many fear could put the country on the brink of a civil conflict, a scenario that the Mosul protests’ spokesman does not dismiss.

“We will keep our peaceful struggle in the square until the collapse of the regime in Baghdad,” al Jubury said. “If there are no changes, all options will remain open in the short term.”

(END)

Residents queue at checkpoint in downtown Baghdad. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
KIRKUK, Iraq, Mar 19 2013 (IPS)

Driving into the city of Kirkuk, one is greeted by the view of a huge sea of grey concrete houses from which laundry has been hung out to dry in the wind and be blackened by smoke rising from the surrounding oil wells.

Only the turquoise flags fluttering from lampposts and balconies break the monochromatic view, reminding visitors that Turkmen form the majority here.

Indeed, this entire city, which lies 230 kilometres northwest of Baghdad on top of one of the world’s largest oil reserves, is disputed by Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen. Its legal status is yet to be defined by a referendum that has been postponed since 2007 due to the lack of a population census.

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Kirkuk has been languishing in a sort of legal “limbo” amid constant suicide attacks and targeted killings.

Today, according to the Kurdish MP Khalid Shawni, Kirkuk “is on the threshold of a new war.”

Receiving IPS at his residence in the neighbourhood of Tarik Baghdad, Shawni tells IPS, “Kirkuk is a black well in which Iraq finds its reflection. There is no political agreement, no dialogue and no confidence between the different communities.”

Paradoxically, the prospect of a civil conflict is one of the few points almost every Iraqi agrees on today, as the country marks ten years since the start of a war that has claimed the lives of over 100,000 Iraqis according to the Iraq Body Count database.

“After the invasion in 2003 we all expected an improvement in our living conditions but the sad truth is that today we are all knocked out by the system,” Arshad al Salihi, head of the Turkmen Front – the main coalition of this Iraqi minority – and the only Turkmen MP in Baghdad’s parliament, tells IPS.

“We believe that civil war is imminent and we’re all scared. If war finally breaks out we’ll be trapped in ‘no man’s land’ – it has always been like this for us,” explains the senior politician.

Protestors call for government removal

Just one day after U.S. troops officially left Iraqi soil in December 2011, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki – who also heads the ministries of interior and justice – triggered a political crisis when he ordered the arrest of Iraq’s Sunni Vice President Tariq Hashemi over allegations of promoting terrorism.

The Shia prime minister has constantly denied that such moves are politically motivated. But Sunnis say they are being increasingly marginalised from political power-sharing.

“Today Sunnis only form a majority in the prisons,” Mohammad Qasim Abid, governor of the Western Anbar region, told IPS in an interview conducted in March 2012.

Anti-government protests gained momentum in mid-December, when several bodyguards of Finance Minister Rafie al-Issawi, the highest-profile Sunni Arab in the cabinet, were arrested.

For the last three months, thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of Nineveh, Anbar and Salahadin, in the west and northwest of Baghdad. It comes as no surprise to anyone that the biggest demonstrations since the outbreak of the “Iraqi Spring” – in February 2011 – are taking place in the predominantly Sunni regions of the country.

Ganem Alabed, coordinator of the demonstrations in Mosul, some 350 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, told IPS that tens of thousands of people have been gathering in Ahrar square in downtown Mosul every Friday since last December.

“We could be many more were it not for the security cordon around the area,” the activist claimed.

“People are asking for basic infrastructure to provide water and electricity, but are also crying out against abuses such as arbitrary arrests, including of children, or rapes inside the prisons,” Alabed told IPS in Mosul.

“Basically we are asking for a complete removal of the government in Baghdad.”

The local activist also blamed the police for the Mar. 8 killing of a protestor named Mahmoud Saleh, as well as for the gunshot injuries of 10 others.

On Mar. 9, Human Rights Watch interviewed witnesses to the Mosul shootings who claimed soldiers also searched and harassed demonstrators as they approached the protest site and tried to prevent ambulances from carrying away the wounded.

On Jan. 25, Iraqi soldiers reportedly opened fire on demonstrators in Fallujah, located 60 kilometres west of Baghdad, killing nine people.

In claiming that “foreign agents are behind the demonstrations”, Maliki echoes Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s attempts to discredit the legitimacy and grievances of those opposed to the ruling regime.

His remedy — to “isolate the virus” – involves repeatedly closing the borders with Syria and Jordan, which lie along Iraqi Sunni regions, and blocking protests as well as the press. In fact, this correspondent was the first foreign reporter to enter Mosul since the protests erupted three months ago, according to local activists.

Accordingly, images of the demonstrations pop up the same way as those in neighbouring Syria: footage is recorded using mobile phones and uploaded via Youtube.

The sense of déjà vu is even stronger when masked members of the self-proclaimed “Free Iraqi Army” – in clear imitation of the Free Syrian Army – start to give interviews to local and international media.

“We are not Baathists”

The demonstrations in Kirkuk may be much smaller given the city’s mixed population, but that did not prevent the local coordinator of the protest committee, Bunyan al Ubaidi, from being gunned down outside his home on Mar. 9.

“He is our first martyr in this new stage,” laments Ahmed al Ubaidi, a member of the same tribe as the deceased coordinator of the Arab Joint Coalition, comprised of 24 Arab organisations including political parties and NGO’s, which is set to participate in the 2013 provincial council elections.

“First we suffered the invasion of the (U.S.) and then that of Iran. We are not Baathists but we do not want to live under a regime governed by politicians loyal to Tehran,” stresses this former senior official in Saddam Hussein’s army.

Ubaidi firmly denies that the ongoing revolts are being spurred by the war in neighbouring Syria, insisting that the protestors simply seek “rights and democracy for all Iraqis”.

However, the veteran activist does not hesitate when it comes to denouncing the recent deployment in the region of the new Tigris Command Centre, a strong military unit exclusively composed of Shi’ite Arabs.

“Maliki has set up that unit under the pretext of ensuring security in Kirkuk but his only purpose is to protect the regime in case the crisis deepens,” explains Ubaidi, who used an old Iraqi expression to sum up the political climate in the country: “The protesters have planted a palm tree and now they are hoping to collect the dates.”