Fear and hope on the bloody road to Iraq's vote

Artykuły


Artykuł pochodzi z pisma "Guardian"


Poll on constitution marked by increasing dread over violence and sectarianism

A flash of light, then the explosion tore through the Hay al-Amil market in central Baghdad, killing and wounding merchants and shoppers and turning stalls into burning pyres.
Survivors stumbled away but as the flames spread others braved the conflagration to salvage mounds of fabrics and carpets. Fire crews arrived, followed by ambulances and the police, who fired in the air to warn off approaching vehicles and to disperse crowds.
It was a suicide bomber, said some, fearing further attacks. No, a mortar, others said. Police suspected it was an accident, a faulty generator. Amid the smoke and chaos, nobody could be sure.
That was the scene this week in one corner of the capital but as the country goes to the polls today to vote on a constitutional referendum, the same could be said for the rest of Iraq. Violence rages, and with it confusion.
Few have read or received copies of the text but most are expected to vote, walking to polling stations in the silence and stillness of a day with no civilian cars, part of a national lockdown.
Is the referendum the milestone towards stability promised by the government and the United States? Or the step towards disintegration and full-scale civil war warned of by many analysts?
The answers in Baghdad this week depended on where you asked the question. In some districts there was unbridled fear, in others hope. Outside the capital a similar split: Kurds in the north optimistic, Shias in the south uncertain, Sunnis in the west worried.
Yarmook hospital's morgue, a dusty courtyard with three walk-in fridges, anticipated continued bloodshed. Workmen hammered and welded three new fridges together which will be ready this month, to be followed by another three by the end of the year.
September was a record month with 900 bodies, said the manager, Naji Chechan, a soft-spoken chain smoker, as he inscribed another name in his black leather-bound ledger: Huda Jabr. The 27-year-old had been shot that morning as she was driven to her job at a private bank. Wearing a striped T-shirt and black skirt, she lay on a metal slab, two bullets in the face, four in the chest, two in the ribs. Four men killed in different attacks shared her fridge. Her mother Um Jabr, 55, sat slumped in the courtyard, wiping tears with a torn bib. In the Doura neighbourhood insurgents considered bank clerks collaborators so they executed her daughter 18 days into her new job. "She wanted to pay for an operation on my leg. I blame myself," said Mrs Jabr. The referendum was an irrelevance.
In Saydia, a volatile western district, the Kahdim family was too busy packing to ponder the constitution. Five months ago the Shia family moved here seeking work but this week an uncle became the latest victim of Sunni gunmen who target bankers. "We are returning to Najaf. We can't live here any more," said Haider Kahdim, 18, a labourer. "Our Shia neighbours are also getting out."
The fear is shared. When the Shia-dominated security forces sweep a neighbourhood many of the Sunnis detained are subsequently found blindfolded, bound and dead. The interior ministry denies operating death squads.
Increasingly each sect is moving to districts where they form a majority, an echo of Beirut and Sarajevo some find more ominous than the suicide bombs blamed largely on foreign radicals.
Life has gone underground, sometimes literally. Fear of blasts, and trigger-happy US and Iraqi troops, has all but killed al-Mih'haibis, a folklore community game and festive highlight of Ramadan which used to fill streets till dawn. This week it was played only in a basement television studio. Before recording the producer instructed teams not to sing sectarian songs.
Iraq needs an additional 1,500 ambulances to cope, said the Baghdad ambulance service director, Hisham Abbas Ode. The referendum and elections in December will produce a spike in violence, he said, and poor quality fuel had wrecked the engines of a quarter of his 1,041-strong fleet. Such stories foretell a bleak future. Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi exile whom President George Bush invited to the Oval office to watch Saddam Hussein's statue fall in 2003, said sectarianism and violence was destroying not only the dream of democracy but "the very idea or the very possibility of Iraq".
But there are signs that al-Qaida and other foreign-tinged groups are losing support to lethal but more politically moderate rivals in Anbar province. "We are fed up with the foreigners, they kill too many civilians and want to stop us voting. We want them out," a middle-ranking insurgent in Ramadi told the Guardian. If extremists become isolated, Shias and Kurds will be under pressure to keep a promise to review the constitution after the referendum to make it more palatable to the once dominant Sunni minority.
Much hinges on whether Iraqis value a unified state built on compromise over certain gains for their communities. Anecdotal evidence suggests many still do. Shias have obeyed clerical calls for restraint after insurgent provocations. Mixed marriages are still common. A Sunni teenager who drowned rescuing Shia pilgrims from the Tigris has become a symbol of reconciliation.
Whether the referendum will help stabilise Iraq or mark another stage on the road to catastrophe, few Iraqis claim to know. It is an increasingly fine line between hope and dread.
The way ahead
Contentious issues
Arab Sunnis and some Shias fear the constitution will break up Iraq by ceding too much autonomy to Kurds in the north and Shias in the south.
Sunnis fear Kurds and Shias will control oil fields in their regions and hog the revenues, starving the central government in Baghdad.
Sunnis say Iraq's Arab identity has been diluted to accommodate Kurdish nationalists and Iranian-linked Shias.
Sunnis, who dominated Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath party, fear the charter will facilitate the purging of former party members from jobs.
Women's rights advocates say Islam's prominence as a source of law will allow more discrimination against women.
What happens next?
Votes will be counted from tomorrow and election results are expected within five days. Some have already voted.
If a majority of voters nationally vote no, or if two thirds of voters in any three provinces vote no, the constitution falls. Elections for another interim parliament will be held in December. That assembly must produce a new draft constitution to be put to another referendum by October next year.
If the constitution passes it will be ratified. Elections in December will be for a four-year parliament.

bleak- posępny, ponury
chain smoker- nałogowy palacz, osoba, która dużo pali
conflagration- pożoga, wielki pożar
detain- zatrzymywać, zwlekać, opóźniać
dilute- osłabiać, rozcieńczać
disperse- rozpraszać
hog- zagarniać
insurgent- powstaniec
interim- tymczasowy
ledger- rejestr
lockdown- umieszczenie (więźniów) w celi
morgue- kostnica
mortar- moździerz
mound- nasyp, kopiec; kupa, góra
ominous- złowrogi, złowieszczy
palatable- znośny, przyjemny
ponder- rozważać, rozmyślać
purge (of)- oczyszczać, przeprowadzać czystkę
pyre- stos
reconciliation- zgoda, pojednanie
revenues- dochód, dochód państwa
rib- żebro
salvage- ratować, ocalać
soft-spoken- o łagodnym głosie
spike- ostrze, szpikulec
tear (tore, torn) through- rozrywać, przedzierać się przez
tinged- zabarwiony; o wydźwięku
unbridled- nieokiełznany
weld- spawać

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