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BAGHDAD, 9 Dec 2004 (IRIN) - Sorya Isho Warda,
Minister of Displacement and Migration, was once
displaced herself.
She told IRIN she narrowly escaped being killed by
former president Saddam Hussein by fleeing the
country and living in exile.
Warda faces a nearly impossible task: How to create
an equitable distribution of housing for people who
were moved from southern Iraq to northern Iraq and
vice-versa under Saddam's Arabisation programme.
These days, many families have taken matters into
their own hands, showing up at former houses and
demanding them back. Other displaced people were
forced out by landlords who put up rents.
QUESTION: What is your main goal?
ANSWER: Our job
is to help every returnee from another country and
all displaced people in Iraq. Every country that
took in people fleeing from Saddam wants to send
them back. We said, please wait for us until the
security is better. We have some projects started,
but this will take a long time.
Q: We know former US administrator Paul
Bremer started some housing projects for displaced
people. What is happening with them?
A: Many things
were promised. But it went very slowly. We will
begin them soon. Nothing has started. We want to
rebuild our country, but security is the main
problem stopping us.
In addition, many Iraqis want compensation for the
crimes of the previous regime and they come to us to
help them. Saddam's regime was helping his friends
in so many other countries, but he didn't help
people in his own country. These people destroyed
our psychological feelings as a country. You see all
of the factories with the old machines, just
everything is so run down.
Q: What is happening to people living in
former military barracks around the country? Will
the Iraqi army take over those barracks and camps?
A: We have many
displaced persons living in these barracks. This is
a huge problem. We are preparing projects but we
don't want to build collective centres, we want to
make sure people get apartments to live in.
North to south and south to north, we want to
rebuild housing projects all over the country. But
how can we deal with all of these people who were
moved? We may do something to compensate people and
try to find land to build new villages for them. For
example, the reconstruction minister wants to build
a new city in Diyala province (northeast of Baghdad)
that was destroyed. Many hopeful people are still
waiting. This shows how the bad security situation
is holding things up, but these people did not lose
hope yet.
Q: So what will you do exactly in terms of
projects?
A: We have to
find land to build on. Saddam had a policy of
changing the demographics of our country and
Arabisation. So instead of moving just one family,
you might have to move three families for everyone
to end up where they used to live before. We will
take some land, say it belongs to the state and
distribute it to the people who were displaced.
Some people have lands to give. We have a duty to
assign priority to those who have no land; those
from families who are martyrs and others. We are
working on lists of people who registered to create
a policy of reconstruction. We also have to work
with the Ministry of Finance since they will pay for
this project. We must help these people.
Q: Where will you build?
A: We have to
start projects all over. In the north, some people
live in tents in villages that were destroyed. In
Dahuk, also in the north, people are fighting with
each other about who owns some land. Some Islamic
organisations are trying to build right now on land
that doesn't belong to them because there is no law.
This is a problem for us.
People who live there would like to come back to
work. They have nothing. There needs to be a big
movement in reconstruction. We think we can start in
the north first since security is better there.
(Northern Iraq was virtually separated from the rest
of the country by a no-fly zone after the 1991 Gulf
war.)
At Faish Habour on the Syrian/Iraqi border all of
the areas are Chaldean Christian but Arabs were
moved there by force. People want to move. There is
no solution for these people. Kurds asked them to
move out.
Kurds said they would give the Arabs US $10,000 per
house but this should be our job. We are discussing
it with the Kurdish authorities. We want to do this
the legal way, not through clashes.
Q: What is your budget?
A: This is also
a problem, but next year we will be able to say the
exact amount we receive. The economy is progressing
and donor countries want to help us. We will pay for
the housing, but where will the money come from?
Along with the planning department, we have asked
for donors to finance thousands of projects. We are
working [constantly] to figure this out.
Q: How are you working with the United
Nations now as they usually play a big role in these
issues?
A: The
non-presence of the United Nations is a very big
problem for us (international UN workers are outside
of Iraq for security reasons.) They are not able to
do everything from Amman, Jordan, that they would be
able to do here. Sometimes we do missions that are
not our missions, they would usually be UN missions.
We need to do them because no one else can.
We are opening offices all over the country to help
as the UN isn't here. I opened offices just the
other day in Karbala and in Nasriyah (in southern
Iraq). We will organise people in these offices and
build databases to see exactly where all the people
are living who need to move. In Nasriyah we have
many responsibilities for the people who just left
Latifiyah [central Iraq].
Q: What is happening to the displaced people
staying at the Kirkuk stadium in northern Iraq?
A: People are
still there; we went to see them this week with the
directors of water, electricity and education from
that governorate. They are trying to make sure
everybody knows that they are still stuck living
outside in tents. Also, the problem is not worse but
there is a politicisation of the ethnic groups in
Kirkuk. US (troops) responsible say there are
clashes between different ethnic groups. But they
are not big clashes. It is not like civil war.
Q: We have heard that because of the fighting
in Latifiyah some families fled to Nasriyah. What is
happening there?
A: That
situation is a very special one because it happened
after Fallujah. Most of the insurgents fighting in
Latifiyah don't have any background or foundation,
so it is hard to know what they are fighting for or
when these people in Nasriyah will be able to go
back. Formerly, insurgents were Saddam Fedeyeen [an
elite special unit under the former regime] and
Republican Guards [Saddam's special guards]. The
interior ministry and the defense ministry are
coordinating with multinational forces to figure out
how to get these people home.
Iraqis have always lived together, so we shouldn't
even think of civil war. We have five to seven
different Islamic traditions here; nine to 12
different Christian churches. We had problems with
massacres, where Saddam would kill a group of
people, but there was not ethnic hate. It was a
regime that practiced violence against certain
groups of people.
Q: So what do you think will happen in
various places where insurgents are currently
fighting?
A: I think this
will be the last act of violent experience. Now that
Fallujah has fallen, that is enough. Baathists were
in power all of this time - 35 years. I was in Baiji
[recently], where the petrol and electricity plants
are located. You have to see the situation. It made
me cry that Iraqi people sabotaged these plants, the
refinery.
This is a rich country, not just in oil but also
agriculturally. It is in criminal hands. Saddamists
now are trying to connect to extremists from
outside. But it is impossible for them. This is the
new Iraq.
IRIN 2005
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