Operation Iraqi Freedom
Here’s another thing I translated into English. Yesterday, Sunday January 28th, Spanish newspaper El País published a great report written by Ángeles Espinosa. It portrays a bleak and in my view in the US’ so-called mainstream media underreported image of millions of displaced Iraqis. That reality of massive numbers of refugees, on top of the excess deaths caused by the invasion and occupation of Iraq, should give any reasonable person pause, whenever one thinks of the name with which that invasion was christened: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Below, therefore, my quick & dirty translation into English.
For the record: the rights for the original text in Spanish belong, of course, to El País; this English translation is mine - warts and all. Use and spread it for enlightenment, not for monetary profit. A link back would be appreciated. Here goes:
EL PAÍS - Report: The Conflict in Iraq
Millions of Iraqis Flee the War
The violence is causing the largest population displacement in the Middle East since the creation of Israel in 1948
By Ángeles Espinosa (special envoy) Amman – 1/29/2007
Reda D., his wife and their three children arrived in Amman last August, fleeing the sectarian violence in Iraq. They rented an apartment and readied themselves for a new life, far from the bombs, but they soon found out that wasn’t easy. They’re running out of their savings, and without a residence permit they can’t send their children to school, nor apply for public health care services. The fear they left behind in Baghdad has returned, increasing its hold on them as the date of February 6 approaches, when the extension of their visa expires. One million Iraqis are in a similar situation. Jordan doesn’t recognize them as refugees, and the international community ignores their fate. The chaos in Iraq is causing what the UN considers as the largest population displacement in the Middle East since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948: 1.7 million internally displaced persons, and another 2 million abroad.
While they site in their living room of an apartment in a middle class neighborhood of Amman, Reda and his family defy the stereotypical image of a refugee. But their fundamental anguish is the same. “We don’t have the money to pay for the second school semester for the oldest, and without a residence permit they won’t admit him in a public school either,” his wife declares; she already ruled out sending their second daughter, of four and a half years, to school. All in all, her biggest concern is her daughter Rahma, their youngest child, who suffers from cerebral paralysis and has difficulty walking. “We can’t pay for her treatment,” she adds with tears in her eyes.
“They’re invisible,” a source involved in humanitarian aid admits. Although the Iraqi accent can be heard throughout all neighborhoods in Amman, they don’t live in camps, and they aren’t grouped together in a confined area either. “The majority of them don’t consider themselves refugees,” Nasser Yudeh, a government spokesman, points out; he lowers their number to “somewhere between 700,000 and 800,000.” Jordan, which after the fall of Saddam Hussein benefited from the arrival of wealthy Iraqis who bought up properties and invested in businesses, now begins to fear what the Arabic press has already called a “demographic bomb.”
In fact, as the situation in Iraq worsens, the number of those who want to leave the country grows. According to the UN, a thousand Iraqis enter Jordan every day, which is why some ONGs double the official number of refugees. Even in the best of cases, their number represents a major burden, for a country with 5.6 million inhabitants – somewhat like Spain increasing its census with eight million people [in the case of the US that’d be roughly fifty-five million] – and which doesn’t have the necessary infrastructure or resources for its own population.
Last year, it was the middle class and professionals that left Iraq. They sell their properties in Baghdad, come with their savings and rent apartments. But that isn’t sufficient. “The alarm bells are ringing now, because they are running out of resources and need help,” Robert Breen points out, representative in Amman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which has registered barely 21,000 Iraqis. That agency, like the rest of the international community, initially betted on it being a temporary problem and it is only now beginning to face reality: as time goes on more people arrive, with less means.
“The international definition of refugee has nothing to do with the economic situation. According to the 1951 Convention, a refugee is someone who has to leave his country for security reasons,” as Cedric Turlan clarifies, spokesman for the NCCI – a committee that coordinates the work of about a hundred ONGs in Iraq.
Omar Yassim knows firsthand what that means. On October 25 of 2005, several men wearing ski masks fired shots at his car, and one of the bullets left him without movement in one knee. Omar, who didn’t belong to any militia or political group, attributes the attack to his work as an accountant for a company that supplied the Americans, because other employees, including his brother, have also been a victim before. He started preparing to leave the country practically as soon as he was released.
Just like Reda, Omar thought of Jordan, because it was one of the few neighboring countries that kept its doors open, but in spite of obtaining a letter of admission from a public hospital, when he arrived at the border he ran into difficulties, because of his age. “They let me in, but not him,” his wife Satha says, while showing a passport with the rejection stamp crossed out. Since the suicide attacks against several hotels in Amman in November of 2005, authorities are restricting the entry of Iraqi men aged between 18 and 35 years, throwing red tape at them and being less generous to renew visas.
The Jordanian government, which hasn’t signed the 1951 Convention and treats Iraqis like any other foreigner, denies that it changed its policies. Nonetheless, their spokesman Nasser Yudeh admits that restrictive measures have been increased because of those attacks.
Umma Mohammed is distrustful. This 65-year old woman, all covered by black clothing, escaped with her three daughters from Sadr City after a US Army operation, and is now living in fear for several weeks that the police will ask to see her papers and deport her. “Life is hard here. They won’t give us a residence permit, and we’re fined 1.5 dinar (1.65 euro [about $2.13]) for each day that our visa has expired. How am I going to pay them if I can hardly make 75 for the rent?” she asks, in front of the cigarettes and paper that she sells, sitting on the floor.
“There has been a change in attitude,” opines Breen. “On the one hand, the violence makes Iraqi feel less optimistic about the possibility of returning to their country anytime soon. On the other hand, the Jordanian authorities resent the impact of their presence, especially after the attacks.” Yudeh denies any political concern. However, Jordan fears –more than the risk of being infected with sectarian tensions – the economic and social integration of the recently arrived, based on their previous experiences in 1948 and 1967, when it was the only country that offered citizenship to the Palestinians.
The observers appear understanding. Since the overthrow of Saddam, even the countries that have been traditional shelters have stricken Iraq from the list. The UNHCR was only able to relocate 125 Iraqi refugees in 2006. The Jordanian government would like to see an international conference to deal with the problem.
An exodus across eight countries
Just over 75,000 Iraqis have registered as refugees with the UNHCR, but this UN agency estimates that the violence has thrown one out of every eight Iraqis from their home. According to their latest estimates, 1.7 million are displaced within Iraq and 2 million have sought safety in neighboring countries. The exodus can create problems for them if the violence continues. Aside from Jordan, the most important receiving countries and the risks that they face are the following:
- Syria. It’s the country where most Iraqis have registered with the UNHCR: 40,000. But the government estimates there are between 500,000 and 700,000. Given that for geographic reasons and family ties most of the refugees are Sunni, as is the majority of Syrians, their presence could grow into a threat for the regime in Damascus, based on the Alawi - Shia community, forming 12% of the population.
- Iran. It’s the country with the largest number if Iraqis, but the majority of them resides there since 1991, when Saddam Hussein crushed the Shia and Kurdish revolts that followed his expulsion from Kuwait. They reached two million, but many returned from 2003 onward. Although some observers consider that the Shia refugees give Teheran an opportunity to extend its influence in Iraq, the prospect of a new exodus wave could also increase internal tensions.
- Saudi Arabia. The majority of the 100,000 Iraqis included in the UN census are refugees from 1991, who didn’t return after Saddam was toppled. Although their borders remain closed since then, the extensive shared geographic boundary gives rise to fears that if the civil war intensifies, an exodus couldn’t be stopped. In that case, the conflict could spread to the Shia minorities in both countries (10% in Saudi Arabia, and one third of the Kuwaiti population) as well as to the Sunni extremists challenging their governments.
- United Arab Emirates. Here and, to a lesser extent, in the other Arab countries on the coast of the Persian Gulf, there could be up to 200,000 Iraqis.
- Egypt. It has received about 100,000 Iraqis, but the local press has mentioned one million.
- Lebanon. It has received about 40,000 Iraqis and, given the fragile balance of its community, their religion could end up serving as a lit fuse.
(Note - nv1962: I’ve included one or two clarifying comments, in [square brackets] and italics, to set it apart from the original article.)
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