Posted on 05/03/2003 10:20:38 AM PDT by MeekOneGOP
Iraqis snap up property
Families, factions move into regime's buildings or boot out Palestinians
05/03/2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq – Available now, rent-free: four-bedroom, four-bathroom apartment, Tigris riverfront with view of presidential palace, some minor door lock repairs necessary. Inquire within.
Perhaps not since Americans settled public lands using the Homestead Act of 1862 has the world witnessed the transfer of so much real estate to so many people in such a short amount of time as in the three weeks since the fall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government.
Across Baghdad and the rest of Iraq, some of the nation's hottest real estate is going for a song to whatever families or political parties can move the fastest to grab it. No one appears to be stopping them. Just as during a recent looting spree, U.S. troops are standing aside while the seizures occur.
The biggest single winners are political parties – including some that didn't seem to exist until last month – that are grabbing any building that has been vacated by the government or rendered vacant by looters.
Poor families are swarming across Baghdad, seizing apartments and homes once occupied by elite aides to Mr. Hussein.
In other cases, Iraqis are taking up weapons and evicting Palestinians who have been living rent-free in Baghdad as guests of Mr. Hussein. One camp for internally displaced Palestinians is now overflowing with families kicked out by Iraqis angered by Palestinian support for Mr. Hussein.
Few Iraqis are willing to defend those whom they used to call their Palestinian brothers.
"The Palestinians used to live in rich neighborhoods, in better houses than the Iraqis had. Saddam gave them all the supplies they needed to keep them happy," said Talib al-Mashhadani, a university professor. "Don't get me wrong. Iraqis support the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people, but they shouldn't have received all of these privileges over us."
Some of the evictions have been brutal. Standing near his new tent home in the Haifa Red Crescent Society camp for displaced Palestinian families, Ahmad Saeed Qaddura, 60, described an argument with an Iraqi neighbor that ended with the neighbor's son kicking down his door and stabbing him three times in the chest and abdomen.
"My neighbor came and said, 'There's nobody here to protect you anymore,' " he recalled. "We never had any problem in the past. But now people are taking a stand against the Palestinians."
Camp director Qusay al-Maadi tried to play down rifts between Palestinians and Iraqis. He said most of the camp's residents had simply been evicted because their apartments' original owners wanted to move back into them.
"In general, the Palestinians used to support and love Saddam. So most of the people who rented houses to Palestinians are taking advantage of the chaos to take revenge," he explained.
Refugees from Israel
Most of the displaced are families from Haifa who were displaced during the 1948 war following the founding of the state of Israel. They have lived in Iraq for most of their lives and say they have nowhere else to go.
"The end of Saddam's financial support is going to make us think more carefully about our situation. But we can't hide our disappointment that he is gone," Mr. al-Maadi said.
Elsewhere in Baghdad and other major cities, buildings and compounds once occupied by intelligence agencies or Mr. Hussein's Baath Arab Socialist Party are being seized by any group with the equipment needed to smash open locked doors.
Across Baghdad, residents are surprised to see dozens of prime buildings being seized by the Iraqi Communist Party, a long-banned group whose members used to be hunted by Mr. Hussein's regime. Now, the party's buildings are festooned with posters and spray-painted red with the party's trademark hammer and sickle.
"It is not the same as looting," said Haidar Sheikh Ali, a member of the party's Politburo. "We didn't take these buildings for any personal interest. This is a place for our people to gather and plan for the building of a new Iraq. These buildings are for the Iraqi people."
Scores of buildings are being occupied by groups recognized by the United States as partners in the formation of a new Iraqi government. One of those groups, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, has seized so much property, it cannot occupy it all. One three-story building emblazoned with the group's emblem is empty except for a desk and four chairs.
At the former Iraqi Beekeepers Association building, a complex that allegedly was a front for an intelligence unit, Beirun Amar Fatah, senior member of the Kurdish Socialist Democratic Party, sat down for a chat on a blanket in an empty, fly-infested room. His staff consisted of a political aide and two men with AK-47 assault rifles.
"When we first came here, it was a burned-out mess," he explained. "Just like all the other parties, we needed a place, so we took this one." If the beekeepers come back for it, he added, "We will go somewhere else."
General's quarters
In Baghdad's Karrada neighborhood, Ali al-Muhammadawi's family snagged a four-bedroom, four-bathroom riverside apartment formerly occupied by Iraqi Gen. Nouri Ali al-Jumaili, a former Republican Guard commander. Gen. al-Jumaili left the apartment so quickly, he didn't bother to pack all kinds of personal records, including his son's homework and schoolbooks.
Although Muslim leaders have instructed looters to return stolen property, Mr. Muhammadawi said the edict did not apply to people like him.
"I was sure it was all right to take this house. Our house was destroyed in the war, and my nephew was shot and killed," he said. "The man who lived here helped protect Saddam. He knows he cannot come back."
In fact, Gen. al-Jumaili did come back, but only to retrieve some furniture he had left behind. Mr. Muhammadawi said he handed it over cordially, and the general, like his former commander in chief, disappeared and has not been seen since.
E-mail trobberson@hotmail.com
Hah, another version of "we love the Palistinians, as long as they are 'over there', killing Jews, but we sure as heck don't want them here.". That doesn't really differ from the policy of Arab and other Muslim governments since at least the establishment of Israel, and somewhat before.
"We never had any problem in the past."
LOL!
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