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In Basra
Sheik's Appointment by British Triggers Protests and Accusations


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By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, April 11, 2003; Page A29

BASRA, Iraq, April 10 -- For several days, he was known here as "the secret sheik," revealed only as a high-ranking tribal leader tapped by the British military to begin restoring some semblance of a government to this large southern city.

Today, Sheik Muzahim Mustafa Kanan Tameemi went public, meeting with a council of about 30 local leaders designated to start running Basra. Tameemi, a former brigadier general in the army of Saddam Hussein and a onetime member of Hussein's now-fallen Baath Party, was considered sufficiently anti-Hussein by British officials for the post.

But the announcement of his appointment was greeted by political tumult. A rival tribe nearly rioted, throwing stones at Tameemi's home in the suburb of Zubair. In one slum neighborhood of the city, there was a protest march of Shiite Muslims sympathetic to Iran. It all suggested how difficult it will be to find prominent Iraqis to incorporate into a new administration to replace the Baathists.

As looters continued to run free in Basra today, rampaging through a bank in the city center in full view of British troops, the postwar challenge of governing Iraq was underscored again. A doctor surveying the political protest outside Tameemi's house said, "We are seeing the future of Iraq right here, and it is not good."

The controversy that erupted over Tameemi's appointment reflected the historical enmity between the majority Shiites and the Sunni Muslim minority that dominated Hussein's government, and rivalry among tribes whose power has grown in recent years under Hussein.

Tameemi today took the first steps toward setting up a new order in Basra, a city of 1.3 million, when the council met at the home of a local timber merchant. The council named new heads of the police, traffic police and civil defense departments and said it had ordered the police to report back to work on Friday -- for now, without guns, which the British military here has refused to allow them to carry.

An imposing man with a neatly trimmed beard, Tameemi, 50, would not discuss his past in detail, other than to confirm he had been a general in the Iraqi army and had at one time belonged to the Baath Party. He is a Shiite but also the leader of a large, mostly Sunni tribe with members in neighboring Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

As Tameemi and the council met, his house in nearby Zubair became the site of a raucous display of the challenges facing his endeavor.

Late this morning, Tameemi's cousin, Sheik Mansour Abdul Razaq Kanan, was at the house in Zubair, describing the democratic future he desired for Iraq. A new Iraqi government must be run by local leaders, he said, not the opposition figures now rushing back to the country after decades in exile.

On the wall of a reception room crowded with well-wishers was a photograph of Tameemi's brother. He was killed in 1994, according to relatives, after secret police took him away. His body turned up with a bullet wound in the head, and even men from rival tribes said today they considered him a martyr who died because of Hussein.

Pointing to the picture, Kanan said it was proof that Tameemi was an opponent of the Hussein government. "Everybody knows he was opposed to the regime in Iraq," he said.

At just that moment, shouts erupted outside. At first, it appeared that a crowd had gathered to express support for Tameemi. "Yes! Yes! Yes for freedom!" came the chant. Inside the house, Kanan said happily, "This is the first time people have been able to express their views about Saddam Hussein." It was proof, he said, that "people aren't afraid of the Baath Party anymore."

But it quickly became apparent that this was not a friendly crowd. Stones were thrown at the side of the house, breaking a window, and a new chant was heard. "No, no, Baath Party! Yes, yes, freedom!" The demonstrators were accusing Tameemi and his tribe of collaboration with Hussein's government. Indoors, Tameemi's supporters identified the protesters as members of the rival Sadoon tribe -- and accused them of being Baathists themselves. Several men retreated to a nearby room and grabbed weapons, which they hid under their clothes.

The protesters appeared to be well-organized, with a loudspeaker and banners. "The Iraqi people need the good man in the suitable location," one banner said in English. Another, in Arabic, admonished, "No to any opportunities that will lead to a repetition of the Baath Party."

Eventually, a local religious leader arrived to quiet the crowd. "This is a house of a martyr," Sayed Naim Musawi shouted. "This house is against the Baath Party."

It didn't work, and the several hundred men who had gathered continued to chant slogans against Tameemi by name.

Musawi said the protesters had suffered so much under Hussein that they were "ready to sacrifice even ourselves in order not to have this happen again." Musawi, who said he had been jailed for 11 years under Hussein, said the crowd outside could not accept a tribal leader, who had a past in Hussein's government, imposed on them. "We don't want them to tell us what to do," he said of the British. "It's insulting to educated people that anyone from coalition forces would declare one of the sheiks of a tribe to be controlling our people."

Sitting on a chair in Tameemi's besieged house, Musawi said the British military had been fooled into believing Tameemi was a Hussein opponent.

"The British thought that this person is a tribal leader, and he isn't," he said. "People want someone who was not a member of the Baath Party, who was no relation to the previous government. They want someone who has loyalty to the people of Iraq and not to the Baath Party."

He asserted that Iraqis were clamoring for an end to the tribal system, saying it had been manipulated and distorted by the Baathists as a way to win over the tribes. "The tribal law is all created by the Baath Party, and we don't want it," he said.

Then another cry went up. "The British are coming," said one of Tameemi's supporters. A group of British soldiers quickly moved into position, wielding rifles and trying to determine what was happening. Maj. Tom Valling asked Musawi again to quiet the crowd. "Tell them this demonstration cannot make any difference," he urged. Their views, he said, would be aired at a meeting of civic leaders on Saturday.

Outside, Musawi proclaimed victory -- even if the British had not exactly rescinded Tameemi's appointment. "They'll choose someone who has got no relation to the previous regime," he promised the crowd. Tameemi, he said, "is a tribal leader, and I told them you don't want him. There will be no more tribal law in Iraq!"

At that, the energy drained out of the protest and the men dispersed.

© 2003 The Washington Post Company



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