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Displaced Iraqis
Two million Iraqis have fled the bloodshed unleashed by the United States invasion and occupation. Those who can most easily afford to emigrate are middle-class workers and professionals (About 40% of the middle class has fled). Without its most educated citizens, Iraq’s prospects for recovery look grim. The teachers and doctors of Iraq are specifically targeted by the insurgency because they have the resources to evacuate, and because their presence is critical to establishing a functional society. Militias distribute pamphlets, some inside sealed envelopes with AK-47 bullets, to anyone associated with hospitals, institutes, colleges and universities telling them to leave until the illegal government has been overthrown. Medical care and education are already suffering. A major problem in the collapsing health system is a lack of physicians. Although, one might believe that it is the natural responsibility of citizens to stick with their country in a time of war, what are rational people with a means to leave a country that has been continually and violently deteriorating for four years supposed to do? According to the LA Times, “the scale of the violence is such that public places -- squares, gas station lines, open-air markets and schools -- have become killing zones.”1 Most of those leaving are Sunnis and Christians, creating an even larger Shiite majority within the country. This development is especially ironic because Iraq’s neighbor, Iran is ruled by religious Shiites who chose to maintain an extremely hostile relationship with the United States. The greater the majority of Shiites in Iraq, the more likely alliances with Iran become. One of the United States' reasons for entering Iraq was containing Iranian influence. The exodus out of Iraq is the largest in the Middle East since the Palestinians were forced to flee in 1948. Other historical exoduses (those in Afghanistan, West Africa, Somalia and the Sudan) show that refugee flows on the scale now seen in Iraq often contribute to serious regional instability. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees recently estimated that as many as 3,000 Iraqis emigrate to Jordan and Syria everyday. Both countries are overwhelmed by surges of illegal immigrants. Iraqis living in refuge who are qualified in advanced areas work menial jobs. For the same work, Iraqis are normally payed less than the citizens of their country of refuge. In Syria most are not allowed work permits. When work is available, Iraqis are forced to become part of the underground economy. In Jordan Iraqi children are not able to attend public schools. Children without resident permits are not allowed to attend private schools. Although Iraqi children in Syria have the right to public education, schools are at their full capacity. Additionally, families are expected to provide uniforms, books and proper documentation. Because Syria only issues sixth month visas students must be from well-off families in order to have the funds to frequently travel in and out of the country and pay for school necessities. It is just as hard for children in Iraq to attend school. No credible current national school attendance statistics exist in Iraq, but examples abound of schools being closed or left mostly empty as parents flee the country or keep their children home.2 Iraq will have an interesting time nurturing a democratic government, while an entire generation of its citizens have missed at least five years of education. The U.N. estimates that 1,700,000 Iraqis have been displaced inside their country. About 50,000 people internally migrate each month. 500,000 of the 1.7 million have been displaced since last February's bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra. These figures are as of January 2007. A 56-year-old man from Baghdad, Abu Mustafa said,“We were forced to leave our house six months ago and since then we have moved more than eight times. Sectarian violence has now even reached the displacement camps but we are tired of running away. Sometimes I have asked myself if it is not better to die than live like a Bedouin all my life.” 3 Naturally, many Iraqis who have not fled the country are very attached to their homes and determined to return. Prime Minster Maliki has started a new plan in which he is expels squatters and pays residents to reclaim their property. The idea is to restore Iraq’s integrated neighborhoods, which have become divided by sect during the war. Unfortunately it does not seem like people are reclaiming their homes in the spirit of hope and rejuvenation. Most families interviewed by The New York Times, refused to answer questions in person. They secretly traveled outside their neighborhoods to make phone calls because they did not want death squads to know of their return. The typical sentiment expressed was that home was all these families have left since they have chosen to stay in Iraq. Mr. Said, a minibus driver in Baghdad said,“When we returned home my wife was crying and saying, 'We better die here than leave this home.'” When asked what he would do if the insurgents came again with their weapons and threats, he replied, “I will fight.”4 In her lecture What kind of liberation? Iraqi Women Between Dictatorship, Sanctions, War and Occupation professor, Nadje Al-Ali, explained that every middle-class family in Iraq has had at least one family member kidnapped. Women who are kidnapped and raped are often killed by their families because of the dishonor that sex before marriage brings. Some women are kept in jail after being kidnapped because there is no where else for them to seek protection from their families. In the Kurdish North, which is supposed to be relatively peaceful, there has been a huge increase in the finding of burnt women's bodies. Many of these are the bodies of women who killed themselves because they could not feed their families, or deal with the poverty they are forced to live in. Other bodies are burned by families who killed their women as part of honor killings. Since 2003 there has also been an increase in polygamy and in the enforcement of religious doctrines that limit women's dress.5 According to the article by Inter-Press Services on November 10, 2006, Bechtel Departure Removes More Allusions:
Iraqis should have been given control of their own reconstruction. Iraqi electricians and architects would have clearly known more about how to rebuild things stably and economically than an American firm. The failure of the United States government to repair water and electric facilities has been a major cause of people's frustration with the government, and the success of the insurgency. Near the end of April, 2007 inspectors for a federal oversight agency sampled eight projects that the United States had declared successes. Seven were no longer operating as designed although they had been declared successful as short a time as six months before. The sample was also biased because it did not evaluate facilities in very dangerous areas. Most of the problems seemed unrelated to sabotage, but were the products of poor initial construction, petty looting and neglect. Rick Barton, co-director of the post-conflict reconstruction project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, criticized the U.S. reconstruction effort for its reluctance to engage Iraqis saying “What ultimately makes any project sustainable is local ownership from the beginning in designing the project, establishing the priorities. If you don’t have those elements it’s an extension of colonialism and generally it’s resented.” 7
1Moore, Solomon. “A battlefield called school; Iraq violence threatens teachers and students. Campuses are closing.” Los Angeles Times. December 16, 2006. 2Moore, Solomon. “A battlefield called school; Iraq violence threatens teachers and students. Campuses are closing.” Los Angeles Times. December 16, 2006. 3Cockburn, Patrick. “Iraqis abandon their homes in Middle East's new refugee exodus.” The Independent. February 1, 2007 4Semple, Kirk. “Reclaiming Homes, Iraqis Find Peril.” The New York Times. March 23, 2006. 5Al-Ali, Nadje. What kind of liberation? Iraqi Women Between Dictatorship, Sanctions, War and Occupation. April 5, 2007. 6 Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily. “Bechtel Departure Removes More Allusions.” Inter-Press Services. November 10, 2006 7 Glanz, James. “Inspectors Find Rebuilt Projects Crumbling in Iraq.” The New York Times. April 29, 2007.
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