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Fallujah, Sadr City await Iraqi elections
On a street corner in Sadr City, one of the poorest slums in all of Iraq, men gather to argue politics. The smell of raw sewage is overpowering. Trash is strewn over muddy roads.Abdul Salam Radhi Hussein, 50, walks out from the flour mill he's closed three times because of the fetid conditions. "We need strong government to help us in facing our problems," he tells a neatly dressed man, who's something new in Iraq, a political candidate. Fatah al-Sheikh, who's running for the National Assembly, promises to help clean up Sadr City. Street-level politics like this is what the United States envisioned when it invaded Iraq. But it's not happening everywhere. Forty miles west of Baghdad, in Fallujah, there are no such arguments, no political candidates, scarcely any people. Nearly every building and public service was destroyed or damaged when U.S. forces rolled through the city in November to drive out insurgents. The offensive in Fallujah, touted as a prerequisite to a safe election, is now a potent symbol for those Iraqis calling for a nationwide boycott of the election scheduled for Jan. 30. The mostly Sunni Muslim population of Fallujah, scattered in refugee camps and relatives' homes, is sullen and skeptical. Sadr City and Fallujah illustrate both the hopes and risks of Iraq's march toward democracy. One place embraces the politicking; the other ignores it. One sees how a new government could benefit it; the other fears elections will lead to oppression or worse. As the vote approaches, one sees itself as a potential winner. The other's already lost. Ironically, through much of the U.S. occupation of the past 21 months, Fallujah and Sadr City have followed parallel paths. Although Fallujah is a Sunni Muslim enclave, a stronghold of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, and Sadr City is dominated by the rival Shiite sect, both exploded into rebellion against the occupation. Last April, there was open warfare in both places. Skirmishes raged into the early fall in both. U.S. military convoys regularly were ambushed and troops were killed in both. But then Sadr City's and Fallujah's paths diverged. The Shiites have begun embracing elections; many Sunnis fear them. Fallujah has always been a tough, independent town, run by sheiks, imams and tribal law. Saddam kept control by buying off the sheiks and placing Fallujans in high-level positions in his military and intelligence services. But Usama Rhadhi, 27, says he still was shocked when the American force attacked in November. For two days, his family hunkered down as resistance fighters battled back in his neighborhood. Then they fled to an aunt's house in Baghdad. Now, like 90% of the city's 250,000 residents, he can't move back. When he visited for the first time last week, he was shocked by the wreckage of the family home. Elections? "I need somebody to give me what I need, then I can elect him," he says. "Give me my house. Give me the gas, electricity. The water. Whom shall I elect?" These are elections "in which there is no possible victorious party," he adds. Without significant Sunni participation, "all are losers." Fallujah is mostly empty now. The U.S. military is trying to lure people back with promises of up to $10,000 per house for rebuilding. But many moderate Sunnis are both frightened about returning and humiliated as a result of the Fallujah offensive, says Rand al-Azzawi, a Baghdad University researcher. "If I go participate (in the election) now, conservatives will tell me, 'You are joining a process by the occupier,' " she says. The U.S. military counts Fallujah as a success. "The insurgents who had a psychological grip on that city are no longer there," says Lt. Col. Dan Wilson, operations officer for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force. But it came at a political cost. Sunnis across Iraq cite Fallujah as one of the reasons to boycott the elections. The influential Association of Muslim Scholars, a powerful Sunni organization, has demanded a timetable for U.S. withdrawal before it will participate. U.S. Embassy spokesman Bob Callahan says the demand cannot be met. The Iraqi election commission has set up special procedures, allowing residents in Anbar province to register and vote on the same day. In the case of Fallujah, they can vote in the refugee camps still operating two months after the end of major combat there. Sadr City is part of Baghdad province but is much like a city unto itself. Separated from most of Iraq's capital by a canal, the area was known as Saddam City during the previous regime. It was an odd name: Its 2 million people, mostly poor Shiite Muslims, received little in the way of public improvements while other areas of the capital benefited from Saddam's rule. As its streets deteriorated, it became a hotbed of anti-Saddam activism and a dangerous area to visit. Residents weren't happy to see Americans either. When they tried to pursue civic projects, U.S. troops were attacked. Last April, men in Sadr City took up arms en masse as part of an uprising against the occupation. The rebel militia was loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, son of the revered Shiite Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, for whom Sadr City is named. Now a U.S. officer, Brig. Gen. Jeffery Hammond of the 1st Cavalry Division, says Sadr City is the safest place in or around Baghdad. About 18,000 people have reconstruction jobs, he says, earning about $6 a day. "Sadr City is what the future of Iraq can look like," he says. Those who were once taking up arms are now talking democracy. "Before, the men were buying black cloth for their (martyrs') banners. Now for the election, we are buying white cloths" for posters, says candidate Fatah al-Sheikh. Al-Sheikh, 37, rounds up a camera crew and a couple of reporters and heads out for a bit of campaigning. He presses the flesh — both cheeks and hands — and points to the failings of the current, American-backed administration, including high fuel prices and frequent power outages. "This is what will bring the people to vote for us," he says, pointing to trash and sewage along al-Falah Street, a main drag. "This kind of collapse of the services will make the people vote for us and not for the government." People who were afraid to speak up during Saddam's era voice their opinions now. Al-Sheikh touts his slate as one made up of people who stayed under Saddam, unlike many senior Shiites who fled to Iran. "I believe he is honest, clean and completely patriotic," says Dhiyah Hussein, 37, who runs a food market and supports al-Sheikh because he is on the al-Sadr ticket. Others say they'll back a more conservative Shiite ticket backed by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the senior Shiite cleric in Iraq who has issued a fatwa, a religious decree, making it the religious duty of every Shiite to vote. Abdul Nabi Faraj, a baker, says he'll support Sistani's ticket because he likes mature leadership. Regardless of whether the winner "is Sunni or Shiite, we want someone who will help us," he says. One obvious difference between Fallujah and Sadr City today is that one was invaded and largely destroyed, while the other was not. The other is that new-to-Iraq element, electoral politics. Shiites, such as those in Sadr City, represent about 60% of Iraq's population. They know they're in the driver's seat as Iraq picks a new government. The Sunnis who controlled Iraq for so long would capture 20% of the electorate, if votes follow religious and ethnic lines. Professor Abdul Ahab al-Qassab, a political scientist at Baghdad University, says that, before Fallujah, Sunnis thought of themselves as Iraqis and were ready to share power. Now, they see the move to democracy as a game of winners and losers that they will surely lose. "The Sunni community understands that the same future is waiting for them whether they're in Samarra, Mosul, Ramadi or Fallujah," Qassab says, listing other restive cities with large Sunni concentrations. The calls for boycott are their last-ditch response, he says. Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, commander of the U.S.-led multinational corps in Iraq, says a boycott is something he can't stop. "If people choose to boycott the election, that's a choice," he says. But he and other leaders hope that Iraqis of all stripes will find the chance to vote too good to pass up. Clearly savoring her first bite of democracy, Nihayah Adnan, 24, a Sadr City housewife, says she has one simple hope for all Iraq. "We want our problems to end," she says. So whom will she vote for? She gives an answer familiar to Americans: "I haven't decided yet." Posted by: Dan Darling 2005-01-12 |
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