Searching Amara, A Folk Hero Falls\ Ewa Jasiewicz
Occupied Amara 11/1/2004
It's a bright-cold Tuesday morning in Amara and a man who's
too afraid to be named is talking to us frankly at a local kebab
street caf. He's a former Daawa party activist and current
member of the Union of Political Prisoners, a nationwide group
formed to pick up the pieces, collectively, of the lives and
pasts of some of Iraq's most obvious walking wounded.
Regime-labelled as the enemies of Iraq; they were disfigured,
thrown in acid, sliced open, stabbed with electric rods into
involuntary limb flipping unconsciousness, stretched, torn,
hammered and placed in rooms: dark rooms, dank rooms, rooms with
floors turned black with freely and frequently spilt blood,
rooms with hooks where a man would hang, broken shouldered in
agony, rooms infested with cockroaches, rooms hidden underground
unopened for decades, rooms locked behind urban underpasses,
internees beaten daily in thick dank darkness to the sound of
traffic streaming, the steady hum and sigh of cars passing by,
life passing by to the daily corrosion and gnaw of being ignored,
being so close to ordinary life but unable to see or touch it;
and the insanity rooms, rooms painted red, bright red, with
bright lights on every day, all day, for years.
Our friend had his house destroyed by the Baath, and had
spent seven years of his life being dragged around different
prisons. The Dictatorships most notorious intelligence torturers,
the Fifth Brigade, smashed his head open in Rgadwania (he moves
his hair back to show us the scar); the Mokhabarat (Secret
Police) shattered his hand in Nassiriyah (he exposes a crippled,
awkward right hand to us), and military intelligence beat his
back out of shape in a Baghdad security cell.
Flimsy shirted teenage boys and keefaya wrapped
white-stubbled old men are gathering closer to get a load of the
talk. The subject is the course of events three days ago that
left six men dead and 10 bleeding into the streets outside the
governors office. The youths and older men start to draw near,
others shift their chairs up, and a few low-key customers chew
slowly, stare ahead and open their ears to listen.
'Unemployed youth came outside the city hall on Thursday.
They'd been getting promises from the political parties for
jobs. They'd lost all their patience. Most of them had been
under pressure by the ex-regime, many had escaped from military
service. The parties had told them that there'd be work for them
from the governor. The governor told them he'd have jobs for
them in two days.
On Saturday, more people joined up. They were faced by the
Iraqi police who fired on them directly. Kareem Mahoud, the
Governor, gave an order to the police and his militia to fire
onto the crowd. After a short time, old Baathists started to
join up. How do we know who they are? We know all of them. They
used the situation to loot the city hall, looted the hospital
beside it, the medical stores. The governor himself was shooting
people - now he's in hiding. People are demanding he be removed
and that his militia's be arrested.
We used to love him, he was a national hero, but when we
realised he is working for the benefit of the British, we turned
against him. One of his biggest mistakes is employing his family
to take over Amara - using the same methods as Saddam Hussein.
His cousin was killed in October by Amara people. He'd been made
Chief of Police.
For the Governor, the judge, the local council of Amara, they
were elected - how? We don't know. Noone elected them. The whole
thing was a forgery.
Before 6 months, the population of Amara was low, people had
escaped to Iran and further, but now theyve all returned.
This raises the pressure on people becuase of the fact that
theres not enough jobs. We have 75% unemployment. Many kids
don't go to school. Its not that the schools were destroyed or
there aren't enough teachers, its because theyre not
convinced of it, they think theres no point. One of my kids quit
after six years of school and noone can make him go back.
We were expecting the British to bring us work, a decent
budget from Baghdad - for regeneration, for reconstruction.
Everything needs rebuilding here - look around you - the streets,
the drains, the hospitals. There's no pure water, no clean water.
The British forces, we used to respect them, they were different
from the Americans. But as a result for our respect, they went
far in violating our traditions here. Take a look at Baghdad -
there is a lot of killing, but not here. There will be soon, we
are prepared to.
Bremer visited Nassiriyah, and set a budget - why not Amara?
Amara has mercury and oil. We were ignored in the old time and
we are being ignored again. They've made a big mistake ignoring
Amara. And why didn't Blair visit us? People were mad that he
didn't visit. We want to talk to Bremer, to ask him to begin
reconstruction. And aid? So far, new organisations here have
been stealing all of it. I used my machine gun just to get a
blanket. Now my children have a blanket.'
'Khosh hachi' - 'Good Talk' is the all-round response. The
neglect of poor southern governates, their debasement under the
regime, pervasive persistent unemployment plus the filling of
the power vacuum left gaping in May by anyone with enough
machine guns has left a trail of frustration and desperation for
most people in the south. Baath repression, particularly severe
in the Daawa-roots south, the Iran and Kuawiti/US 1991 war and
13 years of sanctions have left the southern provinces worn out.
The relief most people felt round these parts where the
resistance to the regime was the strongest and best organised is
giving way now, rapidly, to vehemence and street-battle
expressed antagonism.
Kareem Mahood Mohammedawhi was a folk legend in the south for
his canny resistance efforts against the Baath. Independent from
any party, he managed to fake Saddam Hussein's own signature in
1991 on a release form and liberated 23 prisoners. He bombed the
headquarters of the intelligence services of Basra three times,
led attacks on military training camps, lived in the desert as a
fugitive, and moved clandestinely between Iraq and Iran,
transporting, weapons, ammo, information and ideas.
A friend recounts a famous story of how he managed to escape
from a Mokhabarat Prison in Basra. Saddam Hussein had commanded
that he be brought to Baghdad to be executed before him. Three
dark tinted windowed intelligence cars, complete with national
coverage antennaes, pulled up to Intelligence Service HQ. Agents
entered the building, transfer papers in hand, took their
prisoner and drove away smoothly. 30 minutes later three dark
tinted windowed cars pulled up outside the Intelligence Service
HQ. Agents exited, entered the building, transfer papers at the
ready, only to find that they had already been and that Kareem
Mahood had vanished. Upon hearing the news, Saddam Hussein
passed an instant death sentence on the Head of Intelligence. He
was executed immediately.
This story lends an insight into how much of a well organised
and professional threat the resistance was. The Islamic Daawa
Party, founded 1958, was the also one of the most organised and
its armed wing the most militant carrying out a number of
suicide operations and bomb attacks on ministries (famously the
Ministry of Interior) and assassination attempts against the
dictator himself and his sons. By 1980, the Daawa had become
such a threat that The 'Revolutionary Command Council' of the
Iraqi regime passed Decree 461 meaning death for all those
active within or were affiliated, sympathised or supported the
IDP. The hunt for and murder of Daawa party members and also any
Daawa-labeled dissidents or those who fell out of favour with
their local neighbourhood watch cell police, was carried out by
Special Security, General Security, General Intelligence,
Military Intelligence and Military Security operatives. Its
worth remembering that a third of the population of Iraq was
employed by the regime in some kind of security/surveillance
capacity. Thousands of Daawa party members were killed and
tortured under the regime, with opponent leaders such as
Muhammad Baqir al Sadr. Sadr was viewed as a visionary
philosopher after he wrote the highly influential works
Falsafatuna (Our Philosophy, 1958) and Iqtisaduna (Our Economics)
representing the first Islamic theory of modern political
economy. He also issued a Fatwa prohibiting Iraqi Shiites from
joining the Baath party in 1979, earning him house arrest by the
regime and then execution the following year.
We have to leave. People around us are saying its not safe to
be out. Yesterday two female journalist - one of them Croatian -
were allegedly beaten 'hard' during the demonstration and had to
be taken into British Army protection. Our friend comes with us
and guides our fear-gripped driver to Al Sadr Hospital. Here our
friend implores us not to mention him or anything he said as 'These
are Kareem Mahood's people'. He then leaves us, a bundle of
nerves.
We visit the coronor. Rahim Hanoon Adiel, 35, and Mahour
Abdel Wahad, 18, - both shot in the head, and Mohammad Jasim
Greyed, 18, shot in the stomach, were brought in yesterday
(Saturday January 10). Hit with live ammo, the police or the
governor himself, were shooting to kill, not disable or disarm,
but kill directly. The type of bullet, we are told, is unknown
as all the bullets which hit the victims exited.
We are informed by Dr Ali Abdel Aziz Shaawi, the Hospital's
General Surgeon, that British military investigators had been to
visit just minutes before us and had taken the names and
addresses of those killed. It is their responsibility under the
European Convention on Human Rights 1950 to conduct a swift
investigation into any civilian killing involving the army. The
ECHR 1950 is best placed law to sue the British Army for
negligence as British law and the International Criminal Court
require the signature of the Attorney General before proceedings
can be taken. Given that over 1000 people, mostly Black people,
have been murdered in Police custody since 1969 in the UK and No
officer has ever been convicted of murder, with just a handful
ever even being prosecuted, the likelihood of the Attorney
General accepting cases against the British Military is low.
We drive up to the Town Hall, Kareem Mahoods office. Our
driver is really agitated now because someone stole a couple of
his headlight covers. He wants get out of Amara. Its getting
late (12pm) and the road is notoriously unsafe out after midday.
Approaching the scene of yesterday's riot, we see a group of
about 15 teenagers trying to smash up a window and drainpipe on
the side of the building. A police pickup guards the front door.
An irate but small and knackered looking crowd of about 15 are
round the front, milling around outside huge locked gates. The
atmosphere is gripped. A small wiry geezer swaggers up to us and
tells us to 'be careful, two journalists got beaten up here
yesterday'. Turns out he's a friend of our translator, they know
eachother from the Bettoween gangster hood in central Baghdad,
so he gets in our car, we drive to a nearby park and he tells us
what he saw yesterday in a ratteled-out, racing details.
'Kareem Mahood's brother Riyad wanted to leave (the Town
Hall). The crow were throwing molotovs and stones on the Town
Hall. Ryad was guarded by a militia. Kareem Mahood turned up
with his gang and five pickups - seven men in each. He was in a
large white car. He got out of the car and began to use his
Machine gun on the crowd He's a criminal. He shot three people.
He took his brother and headed for the British base. A
helicopter turned up, 2 APCs, 15 jeeps, and the British with
plastic shields. They shot rubber bullets. Iraqi police
disappeared behind troop lines. The fight resumed. Because it
took all day, the British were taking turns in shifts. A lot
happened but its not been written about or shown on TV.
Kareem Mahood is using the same methods as Saddam. All of his
tribe are employed in the police force or government positions.
The same thing happened here in the summer. I can't specify what
month but 2-3 people were killed. He's taken money, stolen fuel,
he's controlling all the fuel. He's even been involved in
dealing hashish by college students. Nobody knows where he is
now but if he's seen in Amara he'll be killed. Some people say
he's in Baghdad, other that he's at his house and other that
he's being protected by the British in a military base. We just
don't know.'
When we bid him farewell he tells us, 'You can't leave now,
don't be leaving Amara now, its not safe, the road's not safe'.
It's 1pm and beautiful day. We brave it anyway.
Back in Basra, when asked about the incident involving Mahood,
Dominic D'angelo, Director of Press and Public Affairs, CPA
South is clueless. 'No one knows anything about this at all down
here, and it seems unlikely to say the least'. He added that
Amara police had not said anything about the incident either,
but that he would be checking locally about the incident to
obtain further information. The police are controlled by the
Governor. Mahood's brother was former chief of police, its all
'in the family' or rather the tribe, and its unlikely any
officer will open up a chasm of worms by speaking out against
his employer or the dominant tribe. Its unsurprising that CPA
South isn't hearing the word on the street, with staff holed up
24-hours a day in what is effectively a large open topped
concrete bunker. However, tribal leaders are all talking about
it at the Democratic Gathering of Iraqi Tribes in Basra, his own
tribe, the Mohammedawhi, is supporting him and conducting tribal
meetings with the relatives of the deceased. Other tribal
leaders think he should and must be killed. And its a well-known
scandal in hotels, shops, tea-stalls, on the streets, the word
is out: The Governor of Amara, one a folk hero, has lost the
plot. He shot into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators, is
considered to be a 'Jaysous' (collaborator), 'Haraami' (Thief)
and has become a wanted man, a fugitive once again, this time
from the people, from bottom up rather than the top dictatorship
down.
A portion of responsibility for Mahoud's appointment, his
alleged shooting spree and the accountability for the Iraqi
police force - subservient at the end of the day to British
commands - lies with the British Occupation. The steps they are
taking to cultivate a culture of accountability remain to be
seen but if the Governor can open fire on demonstrators, and the
official word from CPA is 'We don't know anything about it, we
don't think it actually happened' then the system is in bad
shape. Over 30,000 people took to the streets in Basra a few
days ago demanding swift and fair elections. People want to be
able to elect their own representatives and remove them when
they get flagrantly screwed over. And if people like Kareem
Mahood start to reproduce the authoritarian, mafia-like and
murderous modes of clinging on to their own power, like the
Baath, then people will tear them down unceremoniously.