generalspeaking

Iraqis, Unforgivingly Divided

"It's very sad to see wide areas empty, towns empty, villages empty, farms empty. Now, we are moving in the right direction."
"The problem [tribal disputes] increases every time we liberate an area. The terrorists are destroying and destroying, and we have to mend our communities."
"[Those with] blood on their hands [or who cooperated with ISIL will never be permitted to return]."
Hisham al-Suhail, head, Iraqi parliament reconciliation committee

"We've told families not to all go into their homes at the same time, just one at a time [in case there are explosives]."
Ahmed al-Karim, head, governing council, Salahuddin province, Iraq

"It's a big concern to us with the return of the families. We are concerned about acts of revenge, especially in Tikrit, because of the Speicher massacre."
Raed al-Jabbouri, governor Salahuddin province

"It's not just Sunni, Shia, Kurd, as people like to think. It's Sunni on Sunni, tribe on tribe -- such a kaleidoscope."
U.S. official, unnamed

Three million Iraqis have been displaced by the fighting that has consumed their country. From Tikrit, around 150,000 people were forced out by the conflict that raged there. People are now beginning to return to their homes where territory is recovered from ISIL. But those returns represent yet another challenge for the government of Iraq; one based on tribal, religious and ethnic sensitivities. Put another way, the challenge of tribal, ethnic, religious enmities.

Those Sunni residents who are beginning to return are suspected by Shiite militia groups who fought Islamic State, driving them out of the area, to have supported the terrorists. As a result the Sunni returnees themselves are now in danger, with the spectre of sectarian bloodshed in revenge killings becoming a reality, and not for the first time.

When former residents of Tikrit returned last week, it was to a city without services whose main hospital was destroyed and where water and electrical have yet to be restored in the ravaged city which was later looted by those same Shiite militiamen who had wrested it from Islamic State. Hard to tell the terrorists from the terrorists. Other than for the fact that one group is Shiite, the other Sunni.

The risk of unexploded ordnance remains. Ambulances parked on standby on the streets as the first buses full of returnees arrived. Concerning to the government is the very plausible scenario that emanates from Shiite militias who suspect those Sunni residents of having supported ISIL, which after all, celebrates itself as the champion of the Sunnis.

The mass execution of an estimated 1,700 Iraqi Shiite regime soldiers in Tikrit by Islamic State jihadis is burned into the vengeance-seeking streak of tribal Shiites. The separation and oppression of the Sunnis by the Shiite-led government, after all, is what initiated the conflict to begin with, and one might say that these are chickens coming home to roost, imperilling the country and all its citizens equally.

The liberation of Tikrit was celebrated by its liberators who took the pleasurable (to them) time to loot and destroy. Shops which had been intact the day after the city was restored to the government have now been destroyed. Tribal feuding has complicated the Salahuddin province countryside with the return of civilians. Sunni and Shiite tribes which fought with the regime have both objected to the return of other tribes who sided with ISIL while the extremists were ensconced.

Villages on the outskirts of Tikrit are deserted. Bombed-out buildings litter the landscape. The dominant tribe in an agricultural area of vineyards in Yathrab is comprised of both Shiites and Sunnis with the Shiites demanding "blood money" from the Sunnis before they will allow families to return. Still displaced from the town are 60,000 Sunni families. "It's tribal law, tradition. If members of a tribe kill someone from another, they should pay money or there will be retribution", said Yousif Mohammed al-Tamimi, negotiating for the Shiite tribal faction.

Many people in the region are not amenable to the prospect of letting things go. Even if reparations are paid, say some villagers, a buffer zone between the Shiite branch of the tribe and the Sunni side accused of siding with ISIL is demanded. If the Sunni tribal members return, "I'll behead them myself", said Zaina Fares Aswad, who lost eight members of her family in a September attack in the hamlet of Fadous.

Labels: Conflict, Iraq, Islamic State, Refugees, Shiite, Sunnis

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, June 23, 2015