WP: In a Gypsy Village's Fate, an Image of Iraq's Future

[DeepModem Mom]

In a Gypsy Village's Fate, An Image of Iraq's Future
Raid by Cleric's Militia Went Unchallenged, Witnesses Say
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, April 3, 2004; Page A18


QAWLIYA, Iraq -- No one lives here anymore.

A month ago, Qawliya's collection of perhaps 150 homes in southern Iraq contained a small red-light district, an isolated warren known for prostitution and gunrunning and as a haven from the law. Today, it is destroyed, the few sounds of life made by barking dogs and scavengers piling bricks from razed homes.

Its residents -- hundreds of men, women and children, mostly members of Iraq's tiny Gypsy minority -- were driven out by a militia controlled by a militant Shiite Muslim cleric, residents and police say. Neighbors systematically looted it. Some accounts say the village was burned, though the militia denies it.

No one has been punished, police say. The U.S.-led occupation, which learned of the raid soon after it happened on March 12, has yet to make it public. Qawliya's residents, most of whom fled to other cities, largely remain in hiding, fearful to talk.

Qawliya's fate is a grim tale about the forces that are shaping southern Iraq as the civil occupation nears an end -- the ascent of religious militias, the frailty of outgunned police and the perceived reluctance of foreign peacekeepers to play an assertive role. Making those factors more combustible, residents say, is the question of whose law rules Iraq's people....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46446-2004Apr2.html

[xchrom]

1. ah -- the joyous rebuilding of iraq

way to go, george!

[DeepModem Mom]

2. Kicking because of the worsening news from Iraq today --

This, and worse, appears to be Iraq's future, thanks to George W. Bush and his neo-con administration, and the greed-driven war profiteers who support them. Will Bush have traded Saddam, a secular dictator, and human-rights abuser, for a repressive Islamic state that exports terrorists around the world?

[anarchy1999]

3. This in dis information.

This is affirmation of why we have to stay. This is why we are not leaving in June. The Iraqis are not ready for democracy, don't you know.