Posted on 02/11/2005 7:31:55 PM PST by underlying
INKAWA, Northern Iraq (IPS) -- Zaid Suleyman, a 34-year-old taxi driver, sits in the administration office of St. Joseph's, an Assyrian Christian church in the Kurdish-controlled north of Iraq. He and his wife fled the capital, Baghdad, for the comparative peace of this region in September, and have been renting a room from an elderly church member ever since.
But despite the move, Suleyman has not been able to put the violence of Baghdad behind him.
"I have a sister living in Baghdad still, and two months ago her husband was kidnapped," he says.
Regular trips back to the capital to search for his brother-in-law have proved fruitless: "We have no idea what happened to him, even if he is alive or dead. We searched for him in all the hospitals and morgues, but we weren't able to find him."
Suleyman says that at the time of the abduction, his relative was working as a driver for the al-Kubaisy company, a large Iraqi firm that has received several contracts from the occupation authority. The man was kidnapped along with a dozen other employees of the company, all of whom were released after a hefty ransom was paid.
The reason his brother-in-law was not released with the other staffers, claims Suleyman, is because the man is Christian.
Other members of the brother-in-law's family have also been the target of kidnap attempts, he adds. "There is a crowd circling around the house all the time. Sometimes they come up to my sister's children and ask them to get in the car, but thanks to God they always refuse."
This story is not unique.
Across the street from St. Joseph's, a Christian woman from Baghdad told IPS that her husband, son, and best friend had been kidnapped together in the capital before she fled to northern Iraq. Her son was released after 10 days, she says; but when he returned to his family, it was with the news that both husband and friend had been beheaded.
The woman, who asked that her name be withheld for security reasons, still makes regular trips back to Baghdad to search for her husband's body.
On Nov. 8, 2004, four churches in Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul were bombed -- leaving 11 dead and dozens more injured. Since the beginning of the occupation by U.S-led forces, thousands of Christians have fled Arab areas of Iraq for northern regions, Syria, and Jordan.
Huddled beside a small oil heater at St. Joseph's, small business owner Nihad Abul-Wahad told IPS that he had left Baghdad with his wife in October.
As with many Assyrian Christians, Abul-Wahad's extended family lives in the north. However, he had spent his whole life in the el-Habibiah neighborhood, near Sadr City in eastern Baghdad -- a district named after the father of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr has proved one of the fiercest opponents of the Iraqi occupation. Abul-Wahad says that when the U.S. military began attacking al-Sadr's followers in April last year, conditions for Christians in his neighborhood worsened: "We couldn't sleep for three months because we were so scared."
His family would have left Baghdad earlier, but he wanted to sell his house before moving. The problem was that few were in the market for property at a time of such insecurity in the capital.
As trying as Abul-Wahad found the conditions in el-Habibiah, they were worse for his wife.
"It's not so bad for the men, because we can blend in with the Muslims. But the women, they don't wear Islamic headscarves," he notes.
"So when the American attack on al-Sadr began, people began to come up to my wife and say 'Why aren't you wearing a headscarf?' They said, 'The Americans are Christian and you are Christian; you are on the same side as the Americans.'"
Both Suleyman and Abul-Wahad plan to stay in northern Iraq indefinitely, along with many others. About 1,300 Christian families have registered with a special bureau of the Kurdish regional government, which helps them secure new jobs and housing.
St. Joseph's church is trying to find Suleyman a job in the regional administration. Nihad hopes to open a liquor store.
By Aaron Glantz
Ted Kennedy to announce the quagmire is over and Iraq is a stunning success, and he will visit on a goodwill tour.
The Iraqi Christians were well protected by Saddam. Now, under US occupation, and Sistani's Sharia laws their days are numbered. What a sham!</p>
I am telling you. Islam is NOT a religion of peace. If you will not convert, they have permission from their "holy" book to murder you. that is what they are after. Convert or die. I am more and more repulsed and sickened by Islam by the hour.
"Maybe", based on what? Just making it up where you sit comfortably? On what do you base this "maybe"?
"If so ,you will see the shiites with 49.9% in the end and a massive revolt in the streets resulting in our firing into crowds."
Where do you get this stuff? I think you've been watching too many "brown-skinned devils vs. pure white soldiers" flicks.
Hey do you guys want to give this a wiff?
Have you ever met any Iraqis? I have. They claim we have no idea of the cultural attitudes there. There will always be evil sob's but most Iraqis do not see things in the black-and-white way you do. Most Iraqis view ALL Iraqis of whatever religious faction as being Iraqis.
I guess it's just a fantasy of you--uh, THOSE liberals that there be major slaughter of Iraqis so it will reflect badly on President Bush. You--uh, sorry, THOSE liberals would rather thousands of Iraqis be killed for political gain by the dems than for their to be peace.
If you folks would actually learn something about individual Iraqis--AS individual humans instead of Ethnic/Religious Types--you wouldn't have these almost comic misconceptions.
Looks like the Christians are indeed up Shiite creek...
Somehow I doubt you would call the election a sham or suggest that it was rigged like the newbies are doing.
You are the one who need to learn. In the Middle East, religion is EVERYTHING! For example, all ID cards carried by citizens will have in line one your name, and line two your religion! That is used for systematic discrimination against minorities.
In Jersey City, NJ they don't even have to be kidnapped.
Just kill them in their own homes and the "authorities" look the other way.
It is a matter of Islam or a matter of Christian. Individuals have no significance in some places.
I guess we got a big ol' civil war going on here! Discrimination by state of residence!!!!
I'll go call my Iraqi associates and tell them that you know more about Iraq than they do. LOL!
Christopher Hitchens - who's spent some time in Iraq - says pretty much the same thing.
Of course, his seeming to be standing with the right more often these days has nothing at all to do with my enjoying his writings...;)
'k, I'm on the phone to my friends telling them they're not real Middle Eastern People. Because you said so. (How you know this, I'm not sure...)
"How can you even take yourself seriously saying that our states discriminate against each others,"
Uh, I was being sarcastic. You need to work on that comprehension thing.
and dismiss the FACT that Muslims discriminate against Christians in the Middle East.
I never dismissed any such thing.
Your battin' a big ol' goose egg here. And no, I don't mean you are actually striking goose eggs. Oh, forget it..
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