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description=3 posts published by Reidar Visser during December 2007;

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in, of, non, the, sectarian, iraq, and, federalism, far, south, southern, suffering, coexistence, on, gulf, analysis, archive, for, december, 2007, sectarianism, iraqi, federalist, tradition, ownership, local, energy, resources, regionalism, ideal, conclusion, under, pressure, archives, categories, meta, my, latest, book, amazon, com, twitter, updates, subscribe, recent, posts, oil, ideals, federal, trends, nonsense, congress, anti, police, commander, is, assassinated, babel,

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including the shiites of central iraq and while this is often portrayed as a general historical trend most southerners point specifically to the recent experience of living in the battleground of two bloody wars the iran iraq war from 1980 to 1988 and the gulf war in 1991 as the formative experience that entitles them to special political demands examples of this sense of suffering are widespread in southern political rhetoric typical are the words of baqir yasin al tamimi a secular proponent of the region of the south in spring 2005 he wrote in a letter to the president of the iraqi national assembly the governorates of basra maysan and dhi qar have experienced worse neglect injustice marginalization and suppression from the days of the monarchy and until this day 16 he then went on to exemplify by referring to how the south had been transformed into the stage for the destructive bloody wars of the baath regime claiming more than 300 000 victims some months earlier the tone taken by khalaf al manshidi the editor of manara basra s largest newspaper had been quite similar those who do not believe us should visit basra maysan and dhi qar and should make a car trip along the shatt al arab river from basra to abu al khasib or travel down to fao to see for themselves what disaster the former regime brought to this lush area during the war with iran 17 and in a newspaper letter in march 2006 abd al karim al amiri echoed many of the same grievances lamenting how southerners have had to live through years of deprivation oppression violence killing and marginalization 18 one important aspect of this sense of injustice is the widespread feeling that discrimination persisted also after 2003 when supposedly more democratic regimes were installed in baghdad these increasingly acidic comments by southerners on the shiite led governments that emerged from 2004 and onwards highlight the non sectarian nature of the regionalist movement in the far south in july 2005 southerners spoke of marginalization tahmish inside the constitutional committee which in purely sectarian terms was shiite dominated 19 what has sciri leader abd al aziz al hakim done for maysan demanded an angry fadila leader in amara in may 2006 after more than one year with a shiite islamist coalition in power in baghdad 20 and when steps were taken by the nuri al maliki government to try to unseat basra s governor from the fadila party in the summer of 2007 talk of neo baathism as well as accusations of a cave in to iranian interests by the shiite led central government and their sciri allies surfaced in an angry shiite on shiite altercation 21 the southern idea of suffering also has a concrete physical focus that is unique to the region the scars of the wars of the 1980s and 1990s are still evident in the area above all in the vicinity of basra which saw some particularly ferocious military action during the war with iran historically basra was the pre eminent date growing region of iraq with a thick belt of date palms extending along the shatt al arab from fao all the way to qurna today it is only a pale shadow of its former glory but perhaps the most important symbol of southern suffering is the marsh areas shared by the three governorates in the south and largely destroyed by the former regime during operations targeting opposition groups in the 1990s regionalist southerners often refer to the marshes as an example of the tragedies unique to the southern parts of shiite iraq complaining that the southern marshlands were dried out on the pretext of security operations killing millions of birds fish and domesticated animals 22 this is another area where criticism has persisted beyond 2003 even though there is growing awareness that the local authorities themselves have not fully exploited the opportunity to improve conditions in the marshes for instance whereas basra politicians were busy highlighting the plight of the marsh inhabitants during an international conference in amman in jordan in the summer of 2006 basra newspapers back home had already sounded a critical note about the lack of local initiatives for doing something about the problem 23 example of southern regionalism propaganda dating from the summer of 2007 the accompanying map is slightly atypical in that it also incorporates one locality north of the old basra vilayet diwaniyya ownership of local energy resources a watershed in iraqi political discourse after 2003 has been the burgeoning idea of local ownership of energy resources according to the standard iraqi nationalist canon no such thing has ever existed iraqi oil belongs to the entire iraqi people full stop as late as in january 2004 even a member of the kurdistan democratic party would maintain that he saw the central government as the natural administrator of all iraqi oil regardless of whether it was located in basra or in kirkuk 24 accounting for perhaps 70 of iraq s oil wealth and more than 97 of the energy resources located in the shiite areas basra with its two neighboring governorates spearheaded the changing attitudes on this issue soon after having assumed power as basra governor in august 2004 sciri s hasan al rashid revealed ideas that broke dramatically with the orthodox approach to resource management and ownership taxation is among the prerogatives of the local government and as a local government we have the right to put tax on exports whether on oil or on other goods basra should not be the milk cow all the oil fields of iraq are in basra the united arab emirates is a country whose oil resources has made it into the most important state in the region abu dhabi takes 50 of its oil income and hands over the other half to the central government we also have the right to take a share from the oil 25 subsequently different approaches to the oil question emerged among southern regionalists some were content to juxtapose the legacy of neglect with the presence of oil resources and present this as a big paradox as seen for instance in a statement by a basra delegate to the big national convention in baghdad in august 2003 who had left the proceedings in protest basra is the city of the deprived and the oppressed but also the city of the oil wells 26 similarly the sadrist politician abd al jabbar wahid in april 2005 made the following complaint the maysan governorate is rich in natural resources but it has suffered neglect and marginalization the sum set aside for it of 110 million dinars is not appropriate for this governorate which suffered so much under the former regime 27 others went further echoing hasan al rashid s demand for a disproportionate share of the oil revenue this was evident in march 2006 when fadila supporters in nasiriyya called for a general strike to to guard our rights to administer our natural wealth as southern governorates that were hurt by the former regime 28 and again in may 2006 when muhammad sa dun al abbadi of the harakat al daawa vented his anger basra single handedly finances all of iraq and had it not been for this city iraq would have come to a standstill and yet in terms of finances basra is treated as if it were another ordinary governorate 29 and in some cases the idea of local ownership was explicit in may 2006 a fadila member in maysan openly accused the central government of theft of the region s oil resources for the benefit of the central government and the kurdistan government 30 whereas in july 2007 advocates of setting up a southern regional government in the three southernmost governorates referred to our rich south janubna al ghaniyy to back up their political demands 31 these ideological developments have been accompanied by cruder actions on the ground since its emergence in early 2003 the fadila party has worked systematically to assert its influence within the local oil industry in basra more than any other party it has succeeded in exercising some kind of control through personal links with leaders in the southern oil company and through its dominance in the special security forces charged with guarding the oil installations on more than one occasion political strikes in the oil industry have been construed as acts of regional protest by fadila leaders as for instance in march 2005 when basra s governor muhammad al waili met with oil workers on strike who were demanding that sons of the south be recruited to the ministries of oil and transport 32 and again in july that year when he claimed that the strike among the oil workers has political aims notably to reduce the power of the central government and to achieve far reaching prerogatives for the local administration as well as a fair share of the oil revenue 33 the same theme was invoked in december 2005 when the three southern governorates refused to implement a hike in oil prices a measure which had been decided centrally and was immediately heeded in other parts of iraq 34 the novelty of this new southern approach to energy ownership is perhaps best appreciated when contrasted with attitudes in areas further north after the three petro governorates of the far south wasit is the shiite area with the greatest concentration of energy resources but here local politicians were much less assertive than their southern counterparts during an interview in july 2006 a delegation from the governorate was received by the prime minister in the presence of the oil minister concerning the possibilities to exploit the al ahdab oil field and the prime minister signaled his good intentions in this matter and the oil minister assured us that he had been in contact with the chinese concerning contracts they had signed with the old regime 35 similarly in karbala which has no oil of its own in december 2005 the local governor patiently explained the central government s change of the price of petrol by asserting that the central government is the custodian and the manager al ra iy wa al mudabbir which is not susceptible to the short sighted whims of popular opinion adding that the step was part of a larger package to reduce iraq s external debt 36 this pliant attitude is what has now changed in the far south whereas iraqis throughout the ages have demanded their rights huquqna often a somewhat intangible and elusive concept southern iraqis are now asking to be taken seriously in claiming specific rights relating to their energy wealth importantly from this perspective what was celebrated by the bush administration in september 2007 as iraqi sharing of oil revenue in the absence of oil legislation simply represented the cordial apportioning by shiites from central iraq and by the kurds of booty taken from the oil wells of the far south however by no means is this conversion to new attitudes towards energy resources universal in the far south for one thing there are politicians who advocate a federal status for basra but nevertheless maintain that the central government should have a leading role in managing oil resources that is a more leading role than that foreshadowed in the 2005 constitution where baghdad s role in many aspects is circumscribed to the management of existing i e already developed or explored oil fields one proponent of this kind of approach is wail abd al latif the federalist pioneer who in a constitutional amendment proposal suggested the following arrangement oil gas and all minerals and metals are the property of the iraqi people in all the regions and governorates the federal government will administer this property existing and unexploited and undiscovered fields alike and is responsible for its distribution to the iraqi people in the regions and the governorates in accordance with population figures with particular attention to those governorates that were hurt by the policies of the former regime and need special development aid to reach the level of the rest of the country 37 yet other basrawis concerned about oil do not even foresee any federal status for their area at all preferring instead to work to improve the status of the producing governorates in the proposed oil legislation for iraq 38 southern regionalism and the ideal of coexistence perhaps the most complicated aspect of southern regionalism concerns identity issues clearly the region of the south is an attempt to define a kind of identity that is non sectarian and instead rooted in shared historical experience but the relationship to existing ideologies like iraqi and arab nationalism still remains somewhat ambiguous anti sectarianism does play a certain role southerners deplore the system under which they are supposed to obtain their share of government spoils through shiite quotas which they see as continued dominance by shiites from baghdad and from the holy cities of najaf and karbala 39 they demand to be taken seriously when they argue against sectarian formulas for distributing government positions and the elaborate ideological justification offered to back up this position suggests that the standard allegation of ulterior motives the fadila party is merely protesting because they were not accorded a ministry is inadequate 40 and to a certain extent these lofty declarations have been followed up on the ground in basra for instance fadila has taken the lead in attempts to improve relations between the local government and the sunni minority territorially concentrated in zubayr and abu al khasib 41 there are however clear limits to this inter sectarian generally inclusive aspect of the regionalist enterprise in the south instead of becoming the coalition partners of the fadila sunni parties christian minorities as well as secularists of all confessional backgrounds have increasingly distanced themselves from the local federalists the secular manara newspaper for example now tends to feature articles critical to any kind of federalism whereas the paper was pro federal back in 2005 42 and in october 2007 it was left to the embattled basra police chief unpopular with many of the shiite religious parties to defend basra s cosmopolitan heritage deploring the deteriorating situation of the women of the gulf city they are increasingly being subjected to harassment and even murder in the name of religious piety abd al jalil khalaf al shuwayli reminded journalists that basra is the home of numerous religious sects whose leaders do not impose any particular dress code or social practices 43 one factor that may have prevented the crystallization of a purely regional identity with a wide appeal is the survival of a considerable degree of iraqi nationalism within regionalist circles the fadila party for instance clearly maintains substantial ambitions on the national iraqi scene and its religious leadership in najaf frequently speaks the language of the unitary state 44 several times the fadila governor has made a point of posing as an iraqi nationalist openly accusing sciri of being an iranian stooge and pointing to his own popularity among rulers in the gulf as e...