| March 25, 2007 | Sunday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1428 |
US battles shadow forces in Baghdad
VARIOUS organizations of citizens who had earlier dumped garbage in the office of district nazim Fiaz Ahmed Chattha in protest against insanitation have announced that they would deposit refuse in the offices of senior officers of the administration, including the district coordination officer, and stage a sit-in outside their offices during the first week of April.
BAGHDAD: The US infantrymen advanced slowly through the rubble-strewn underground memorial, the flashlights under their rifles probing the darkness until they came upon the body they were looking for.
It was stated that these bodies had been demanding of the district government for the last several years at every forum to improve the cleanliness system of the city and repair rutted roads as the citizen were facing a great deal of inconvenience due to these problems. But the city district government failed to revamp the system, which infuriated these organizations and they dumped garbage in the district nazim office.
The city district government got a case registered against over 100 people, including former MPA S.A Hamid, former bar president Pervaiz Oathi, district bar president Ilyas Rehan and People’s Lawyers Forum president Syed Aftab Zaidi, besides other senior lawyers, under the Terrorism Act and the police arrested some people.
Speaking at a meeting held here the other day, they said that the population of the city was more than 1.7 million while the number of animals, including buffaloes and cows, was about 20,000 which was causing a sharp deterioration in cleanliness due to the poor sanitation system. They said that citizens were paying taxes of Rs25 billion per annum to the government but no better facilities were being provided to them in return. They pointed out that at least 1,000 tons of waste was being produced in the city daily while there were only 34 trolleys and four trucks to lift the garbage with the help of 1,200 sanitary workers. They said that solid waste management officials were quoted as saying that 600 tons of waste could be removed in a day with the help of limited manpower and available machinery. They said that the remaining 400 tons kept lying in the streets and bazaars, which made the life of citizens miserable.
When contacted, solid waste management district officer Chaudhry Muhammad Saeed said that at least 60 more trucks and 1,000 sanitary workers were required to revamp the cleanliness system. He pointed out that an advertisement for the recruitment of 1,000 sanitary workers was published in several newspapers time and again but nobody was ready to submit application for the job. He confirmed that waste was being dumped at an open place outside the city, causing environmental pollution. He said that refuse was being dumped on the sides of the GT Road in the city some years ago. But later both sides of GT Road were filled and the district administration converted them into recreation parks and greenbelts. He said the district government had a proposal to set up a compost plant in the city to eliminate the waste. Leaders of citizens’ organizations pledged that they would continue their protest till the removal of waste from the streets and bazaars and construction of almost all broken roads, besides revamping of the sanitation system.
Income tax commissioner Javed Ather and sales tax collector Muhammad Arshed visited an exhibition of made-in-Gujranwala products at Gulshan Iqbal Park on GT Road recently and praised the quality of the products. They said that these products could compete in the international market if industrialists and manufacturers exported them. They were of the view that Pakistan could stand in the line of developed countries by exporting quality products. They said that the nation could be strengthened by making its economy strong. They suggested that industrial exhibitions should also be set up in various under-developed countries to promote trade and export.
Earlier, Gujranwala Chamber of Commerce and Industry President Rana Shehzad Hafiz and other office-bearers welcomed the guests and apprised them of the quality of products of Gujranwala. It was stated that industrialists had set up around 130 stalls of different goods in the exhibition.
The hunched corpse lay face down and bound in a pool of light at the base of a stairway leading up to the outside world, amid the wreckage of what had once been a tribute to the victims of a previous conflict.
Then, a deafening blast rent the heavy air, the shockwave smashing lumps of cement from the ceiling as the American patrol and two journalists ducked for cover, their ears ringing painfully.
Outside, machine gun fire erupted, a harsh sound like ripping metal.
“Move, move! Back to the trucks, back to the trucks!” The men ran back the way they had come, past a concertina of razor wire and over piles of broken brick until their squad, part of the 2-12 Infantry’s Gator Company, burst back into sunlight and sprinted to their Humvees.The situation became clear after a few moments of frantic radio exchanges: insurgents had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at troops protecting the search team as it descended under the Bilat al-Shuhada Children’s Memorial.
Soldiers found spent cartridges and an unused belt of machine gun ammunition at the site of the ambush, but the attackers had melted back into the dangerous streets of Dura, a Sunni suburb of south Baghdad.
There was no sign of injury on either side in what was another inconclusive encounter in the battle of wills and wiles between Iraq’s shadowy insurgency and the US units rolling into Baghdad.
The site of the clash was already steeped in tragedy before Gator Company was called out to investigate the body. On October 13, 1987 an Iranian rocket had slammed into a school and killed 38 Iraqi children.
Never one to miss a chance to turn his people’s pain into propaganda, Saddam Hussein ordered the construction of a grandiose memorial to the “martyrs,” with a bunker-style museum under a plaza of harsh, modernist sculptures.
Today, the memorial is partially ruined and the basement exhibition dark and full of debris. Saddam has fallen and the war with Iran is long over, but fighting continues daily on the streets of Dura.
The district was once a wealthy suburb housing Saddam’s closest supporters, and many of its streets are still pleasant-seeming avenues of family homes with leafy gardens and cheerful kids playing endless games of football.
Parts of it, however, have become lawless slums and the areas resentful, mainly-Sunni population has ambiguous relations -- sometimes welcoming, sometimes hostile -- with US units battling to maintain order.
Insurgent groups, including cells linked to Al Qaeda, are strong here, but locals also fear the Iraqi government’s Shia-led National Police, which they accuse of random brutality and sectarian violence.
By contrast, the Americans and their allies in the Iraqi Army, still have a chance to win over the district, if they can demonstrate an ability to provide security and protect the repair of local services.
Last week Gator Company and an Iraqi Army unit took an important step in this direction, opening an outpost in an abandoned shopping arcade in Dura’s once vibrant market area, which used to be a notorious insurgent stronghold.
The move has been welcomed by the area’s remaining traders. Since US patrols began in September more than 100 abandoned stores have reopened, and US soldiers can now walk the area on foot and even do some shopping.
This week, Gator Company’s Sergeant Major Doug Maddi, took a journalists and a small detachment of his men on a tour of the area, pausing to take tea with traders and to buy shower curtains for his unit’s new base.
The local welcome was cautious but positive, but it soon became clear that gratitude to the Americans for helping get businesses back on their feet did not translate into support for the US-backed government and its police.
As Sergeant Maddi chatted with traders, almost every one of them complained about the Shia-led national police force, which locals allege is infiltrated by Iranian agents and sectarian militants.
Later, a patrol led by Lieutenant Joe Higgins visited half a dozen homes in a nearby neighbourhood. In each he tried to persuade local families to call the Americans or Iraqi Army if they spot insurgent gunmen and bombers.
In each he heard the same response -- the insurgents come from outside the area, the real danger is the police.
“I know about your worries about the police,” he replied wearily. “We’re working with them to make them better.
As Higgins’ patrol took tea with a Dura family, one agitated householder retorted: “When they stop shooting at us, then we will trust you.” The US soldiers sympathise with this comment, but are frustrated with the lack of cooperation. Several admitted privately that the national police in Dura are trigger-happy and nakedly sectarian in their outlook.
“We’re not going to be here much longer, and pretty soon it’s just going to be the Iraqi people left with their own country,” Higgins warned one family.
“My job is to make Dura as safe as I can before I leave, but I can’t do that unless good men like you stand up and take some responsibility,” he said, giving the number of a tip-off line to a father cradling his infant daughter.
As the US convoy pulled away from the street, some people waved cheerfully while others frowned and stared.
Then a call came onto the radio about the dead body at the memorial, and the battle started again.—AFP