Iraqi marshlander: No to disarming, occupation

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Marsh Arabs threaten to resist 'army of occupation'
By Patrick Cockburn in Majar al-Kabir
27 June 2003


On the edge of the Iraqi marshlands, guerrillas who fought Saddam
Hussein's regime for years say they fear that Britain and the United
States want to take away their weapons so that they can occupy Iraq
for many years.

Al Sayyid Kadum al-Hashimi is a leader in the town of Majar al-Kabir,
south of Amara, where six British soldiers were killed on Tuesday. He
said yesterday: "It is the belief of people here, and it is believed
by all other Iraqis, that the British want to disarm us so they can
stay for a long time."

Guerrillas who resisted the Iraqi army for almost two decades, hiding
out in the great reed beds of the Iraqi marshes, which Saddam tried to
dry up by cutting drainage canals, say they are also prepared to fight
against a permanent occupation by the US and Britain.

Abu Hatem Qarim Mahoud, famed in Iraq as a guerrilla leader and known
as the "lord of the marshes", told The Independent yesterday that he
hoped an agreement could be reached with the Allies about weapons.
Intrusive searches by British troops had led to Tuesday's deadly
four-hour gun battle, he said.

But Abu Hatem warned that Iraqis must not be excluded from power and
"any programme for reconstruction without an interim Iraqi government
will fail".

If there is further fighting around Amara, which is controlled by Abu
Hatem, it will be embarrassing for the Allies because the Iraqi
guerrillas, given their resistance record, cannot be portrayed as
remnants of Saddam's regime. "Ours is the only city which liberated
itself through its own efforts," said Ali al-Atiyah, one of Abu
Hatem's aides.

Some of the guerrillas are more forthright than their leader about how
they see the future. "We will put an end to this occupation with our
weapons," said Maythem al-Mohammed Dawi, a lean-faced man with a
submachine-gun who had been fighting in the marshes since 1998. "If we
give up our arms how can we fight them?"

He said that Abu Hatem's men had always been pursued by the Iraqi
army. They hid in reed shelters, always short of drinkable water and
ammunition. As Saddam drained the marshes, destroying a culture that
had existed for thousands of years, the guerrillas dug bunkers in the
sides of dried up water courses.

Abu Hatem, a tall, impassive-looking 45-year-old dressed in a brown
camel-hair cloak and a white headdress, is modest about his own power.
Asked if he had an army of 8,000 men, he pointed to the table in front
of him and said: "I just have this book and this pen."

After serving in the Iraqi army as a non-commissioned officer he was
jailed in 1980 for seven years and on his release started his
guerrilla organisation called Hizbollah (which is unrelated to the
Lebanese "Party of God").

He captured Amara on 7 April ­ two days before the fall of Baghdad ­
but then received a call on his satellite phone from a CIA agent in
Kuwait whom he called Dawud. He said: "When we were speaking, he gave
me the order to leave the city within one hour."

Abu Hatem then called Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi writer, living in
Washington who has many contacts within the US administration, asking
him to use his influence to try to get the order reversed. By the time
this happened, Amara had been thoroughly looted.

Firmly under Abu Hatem's control, life in the city is much more normal
than elsewhere in Iraq, with no curfew ­ people and cars are allowed
on the streets at night.

When the British soldiers were killed in Majar al-Kabir on Tuesday,
Abu Hatem was in Baghdad seeing Paul Bremer, the head of the US
administration in Iraq. He believed that the friction over searches
between British troops and local people had been resolved by an
agreement the day before the killings.

According to other sources, Abu Hatem rushed back to Majar al-Kabir
where local leaders told him they feared the confiscation of weapons
meant that the US and Britain would occupy Iraq for a long time. He
told them that they should wait to see if the Americans and British
made good on their promise of democracy. But he added that if there
was a prolonged occupation, he would fight it and he asked them if
they would support him. They said they would.

The atmosphere in Majar al-Kabir was tense yesterday. A crowd had
gathered outside the police station where the four British soldiers
died. A guard, provided by Abu Hatem's organisation, said: "It looks
dangerous. Let's get out of here. We can't control the situation
because our people are angry."

At the local council office, Mr Hashimi, speaking for the other
leaders, said they were returning a burnt-out British vehicle and had
been asked to hand over the suspected killers. But he added: "We don't
know who they are because so many people were shooting."
   28 June 2003 01:24

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