[Marxism] NY Times: Huge Protest in Iraq Demands US Withdraw

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

www.nytimes.com


April 10, 2007
Huge Protest in Iraq Demands U.S. Withdraw 
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, April 9 - Tens of thousands of protesters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr,
the Shiite cleric, took to the streets of the holy city of Najaf on Monday
in an extraordinarily disciplined rally to demand an end to the American
military presence in Iraq, burning American flags and chanting "Death to
America!"

Residents said that the angry, boisterous demonstration was the largest in
Najaf, the heart of Shiite religious power, since the American-led invasion
in 2003. It took place on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, and
it was an obvious effort by Mr. Sadr to show the extent of his influence
here in Iraq, even though he did not appear at the rally. Mr. Sadr went
underground after the American military began a new security push in Baghdad
on Feb. 14, and his whereabouts are unknown.

Mr. Sadr used the protest to try to reassert his image as a nationalist
rebel who appeals to both anti-American Shiites and Sunni Arabs. He
established that reputation in 2004, when he publicly supported Sunni
insurgents in Falluja who were battling United States marines, and quickly
gained popularity among Sunnis across Iraq and the region. But his
nationalist credentials have been tarnished in the last year, as Sunni Arabs
have accused Mr. Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, of torturing and killing
Sunnis.

Iraqi policemen and soldiers lined the path taken by the protesters, and
there were no reports of violence during the day. The American military
handed security oversight of the city and province of Najaf to the Iraqi
government in December, and the calm atmosphere showed that the Iraqi
security forces could maintain control, keeping suicide bombers away from an
obvious target. In March, when millions of Shiite pilgrims flocked to the
holy cities of the south, Iraqi security forces in provinces adjoining Najaf
failed to stop bombers from killing scores of them.

Vehicles were not allowed near Monday's march, and Baghdad had a daylong ban
on traffic to prevent outbreaks of violence.

During the protest in Najaf, Sadr followers draped themselves in Iraqi flags
and waved them to symbolize national unity, and a small number of
conservative Sunni Arabs took part in the march.

"We have 30 people who came," said Ayad Abdul Wahab, an agriculture
professor in Basra and an official in the Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading
fundamentalist Sunni Arab group. "We support Moktada in this demonstration,
and we stress our rejection of foreign occupation." 

He and his friends together carried a 30-foot-long Iraqi flag.

In the four years of war, the only other person who has been able to call
for protests of this scale has been Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's
most powerful Shiite cleric, who, like Mr. Sadr, has a home in Najaf. 

The protest was in some ways another challenge to the Shiite clerical
hierarchy, showing that in the new Iraq, a violent young upstart like Mr.
Sadr can command the masses right in the backyard of venerable clerics like
Ayatollah Sistani. Mr. Sadr has increasingly tapped into a powerful desire
among Shiites to stand up forcefully to both the American presence and
militant Sunnis, and to ignore calls for moderation from older clerics.

[snip]

The protest unfolded as heavy fighting continued in parts of Diwaniya, a
southern city where American and Iraqi forces have been battling cells of
the Mahdi Army since Friday. Mr. Sadr issued a statement on Sunday calling
for the Mahdi militiamen and the Iraqi forces there to stop fighting each
other, but those words went unheeded. Gun battles broke out on Monday, and
an American officer said at a news conference that at least one American
soldier had been killed and one wounded in four days of clashes.

That fighting and the protest in Najaf, as well as Mr. Sadr's mysterious
absence, raise questions about how much control he actually maintains over
his militia. Mr. Sadr is obviously still able to order huge numbers of
people into the streets, but there has been talk that branches of his
militia have split off and now operate independently. In Baghdad, some Mahdi
Army cells have refrained in the last two months from attacking Americans
and carrying out killings of Sunni Arabs, supposedly on orders from Mr.
Sadr, but bodies of Sunnis have begun reappearing in some neighborhoods in
recent weeks.

The protest in Najaf was made up mostly of young men, many of whom drove
down from the sprawling Sadr City section of Baghdad, some 100 miles north,
the previous night. They gathered Monday morning in the town of Kufa, where
Mr. Sadr has his main mosque, and walked a few miles to Sadrain Square in
Najaf. Protesters stomped on American flags and burned them. "No, no
America; leave, leave occupier," they chanted. At Sadrain Square, the
protesters listened to a statement read over loudspeakers that was
attributed to Mr. Sadr.

"Oh Iraqi people, you are aware, as 48 months have passed, that we live in a
state of oppression, unjust repression and occupation," the statement read.
"Forty-eight hard months - that make four years - in which we have gotten
nothing but more killing, destruction and degradation. Tens of people are
being killed every day. Tens are disabled every day."

Mr. Sadr added: "America made efforts to stoke sectarian strife, and here I
would like to tell you, the sons of the two rivers, that you have proved
your ability to surpass difficulties and sacrifice yourselves, despite the
conspiracies of the evil powers against you."

An Interior Ministry employee in a flowing tan robe, Haider Abdul Rahim
Mustafa, 23, said that he had come from Basra "to demand the withdrawal of
the occupier."

"The occupier supported Saddam and helped him to become stronger, then
removed him because his cards were burned," he said, using an Arabic
expression to note that Saddam Hussein was no longer useful to the United
States. "The fall of Saddam means nothing to us as long as the alternative
is the American occupation."

Estimates of the crowd's size varied wildly. A police commander in Najaf,
Brig. Gen. Abdul Karim al-Mayahi, said there were at least half a million
people. Colonel Garver said that military reports had estimates of 5,000 to
7,000. Residents and other Iraqi officials said there were tens of
thousands, and television images of the rally seemed to support their
estimates.
[snip]



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