avenir d'une offensive

Dossier Irak 1

 

11-02-25 - Irak

11-02-05 - Reuters -- Iraqi premier says will give up half his salary Reuters

Iraqi premier says will give up half his salary

By Khalid al-Ansary, Waleed Ibrahim

3 Min Read

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - As unrest sweeps the Middle East, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said he would give up half his salary in a possible bid to head off simmering discontent, and called for a two-term limit to be placed on his office.

Iraqis have held sporadic protests against food, power and water shortages and their plight acquired particular attention this month as a wave of anti-government protests rocked the region.

Unlike other countries in the region, however, Iraq’s former autocratic regime has already been swept away, in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Maliki’s media advisor, Ali al-Moussawi, said the premier would forego 50 percent of his $30,000 monthly paycheck to bring his salary closer to other government employees.

“He feels there is a huge difference and says this leads to a kind of caste system in society,” Moussawi said. Maliki made the announcement in a statement late on Friday.

On Saturday, Maliki reiterated that he supported efforts to seek a constitutional reform that would place a two-term limit on the office of prime minister, Moussawi said.

As things stand, Iraq’s prime minister can run for re-election an unlimited number of times, while the president can only serve two terms.

PROTEST

Hundreds of people gathered in Baghdad on Saturday to demand better basic services. On Thursday, police fired on protesters making similar demands near the southern city of Diwaniya.

Political analyst Mazin al-Shammari said Maliki’s pay cut could be an attempt to soothe public anger.

“The prime minister, by doing this, is trying to put a windshield in front of these protests,” Shammari said.

“Politicians in the Middle East are watching where the jasmine cloud moves,” he said, referring to Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” that overthrew President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali.

Maliki was confirmed for a second term in December after nine months of political squabbling over a new government following an inconclusive parliamentary election in March.

His government is trying to rebuild Iraq but the economy remains shattered economy and infrastructure devastated eight years after the invasion ousted Saddam Hussein.

Iraqis complain bitterly about basic services. The national grid supplies only a few hours of electricity a day in a nation where temperatures rise above 50 degrees Celsius in the summer.

Members of parliament make $27,000 a month, according to Safia al-Suhail, a lawmaker from Maliki’s State of Law political bloc, but have to pay from their salaries the cost of up to 30 personal security guards who make $635 each per month. Teachers earn about $350 a month.

“I admit that there is no social fairness between the government employees,” Suhail said.

Government salaries can be a sensitive issue. “Why do you ask me?” said one MP when asked on Saturday how much he made. “Do you want to judge me?”

Additional reporting by Muhanad Mohammed; writing by Jim Loney; Editing by Maria Golovnina

11-02-07 - Boston Globe -- Protesters in Iraq demand job security, improved services

Protesters in Iraq demand job security, improved services

February 07, 2011 Associated Press

BAGHDAD — Protesters scuffled with riot police and marched along sewage-filled streets in demonstrations across Iraq yesterday to demand better utilities and job security from their government.

Authorities estimated several thousand protesters turned out in Baghdad, Basra, Ramadi, Mosul, and a small town in Iraq’s Diyala Province. Galvanized by popular uprisings across the Middle East, they repeated longstanding complaints about Iraq’s limited electricity, shoddy water and sewage services, and potential layoffs in government jobs.

“Our children have many diseases because of sewage problems and accumulated trash in the area,’’ said Ali Hassan, a resident of Boub al-Sham, where more than 1,000 protested amid stagnant pools of water and a stench of waste in the air. The Diyala town is located about 15 miles northeast of Baghdad.

In the southern port city of Basra, around 1,500 demonstrators got into a shoving match with riot police who lined up to protect the provincial government headquarters. A small delegation of the protesters met with provincial officials to present a list of demands, including better electricity, more jobs, and a crackdown on crime. Makki Jassim al-Timimi, who led the protest, said government officials promised to answer their demands within two weeks.

Although protests in Iraq have come nowhere close to the scale or intensity of those in Egypt or Tunisia, they have unnerved government officials.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki last week announced that he would not run for a third term and that he would return half his salary to the treasury in an effort to close gaps between Iraq’s politically privileged and its poor.

Yesterday, Maliki said he would increase monthly food rations for all Iraqis by about $12 and rejected the use of violence against demonstrators.

11-02-10 - Guardian -- Lawyers lead anti-government protest in Baghdad

Lawyers lead anti-government protest in Baghdad

• AP foreign, Thursday February 10 2011

BAGHDAD (AP) — Lawyers have added their voices to anti-government protests in Iraq that have been inspired by the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.

About 3,000 demonstrated on Thursday to demand better services, jobs and the end of human rights abuses in prisons.

The protest was organized by Iraq's lawyers union. It was held in a Sunni Muslim neighborhood in western Baghdad, where there is simmering resentment against the Shiite-led government.

Lawyers in the cities of Basra and Mosul held similar but smaller demonstrations. All the protests were peaceful.

On Sunday, protesters scuffled with riot police and marched along sewage-filled streets in demonstrations across Iraq to demand better utilities and job security from their government.

11-02-16 - NYT -- Police Fire on Protesters in Iraq

February 16, 2011

Police Fire on Protesters in Iraq

By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and DURAID ADNAN

BAGHDAD — Security forces in the eastern Iraqi city of Kut on Wednesday fired on a group of protesters calling for the provincial governor to step down, killing at least three people, according to a local government official.

After the security forces opened fire, the protesters stormed the governor’s headquarters and his home, burning both buildings, according to the official. At least 27 people were injured in the violence, including one security officer, the official said.

“They burned all the rooms in the buildings and all the generators. They also burned the cars of the employees,” said the official, who was in Kut at the time the violence erupted. “We were able to take the deputy and the employees out the back door. Some of the employees were women, and they were choked by the fires.”

The protest was the most violent in Iraq since unrest began in the Middle East last month. Until now there have been several small scattered demonstrations in Iraq calling for better government services.

Wednesday’s protests were organized by a group called the Youth of Kut, which wants the governor of the province to step down because it says he has failed to create jobs and increase the supply of electricity. The protesters also say that the governor, Latif Hamad al-Tarfa, has stolen money from the government.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he did not want to jeopardize his access to sensitive information, said Mr. Tarfa was in Baghdad on Wednesday.

The protest began around 10 a.m. with people gathering in the center of the city.

“We had a delegation that went up and asked for the governor to step down ,” said Ali al-Wasity, one of the protesters. “They refused to come out and talk to us.”

The protesters then began throwing rocks, bricks and concrete blocks at the governor’s offices.

Mr. Wasity said security officers responded with gunfire. “When they opened fire on us, I was feeling that we are not a free country,” he said. “We are under a dictatorship system. I tell them one thing: we will not stop going out on protest unless the governor steps down and leaves us.”

The official said the government forces had used tear gas to try to disperse the crowd.

“The situation now is going to be bad here,” the official said. “The forces have imposed a curfew on the city.”

Television images showed a large cloud of smoke billowing from the governor’s headquarters and images of protesters flinging rocks at the building and waving the Iraqi flag.

“We have received many calls from all around the province, and they told us that they will be joining us,” Mr. Wasity said. “Now there is a curfew, but we will not stop. We will do it again and again.”

Kut, a mostly Shiite city of about 850,000, is close to Iraq’s border with Iran and has a large Iraqi military base that was heavily bombed during Iraq’s eight-year war with Iran and during the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Khalid D. Ali contributed reporting.

11-02-16 - NYT -- Unrest Spreads, Some Violently, in Middle East

February 16, 2011

Unrest Spreads, Some Violently, in Middle East

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

From northern Africa to the Persian Gulf, governments appeared to flounder over just how to outrun mostly peaceful movements, spreading erratically like lava erupting from a volcano, with no predictable end.

The protests convulsed half a dozen countries across the Middle East on Wednesday, with tens of thousands of people turning out in Bahrain to challenge the monarchy, a sixth day of running street battles in Yemen, continued strikes over long-suppressed grievances in Egypt and a demonstrator’s funeral in Iran turning into a brief tug of war between the government and its opponents.

Even in heavily policed Libya, pockets of dissent emerged in the main square of Benghazi, with people calling for an end to the 41-year rule of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Iraq, accustomed to sectarian conflict, got a dose of something new: a fiery protest in the eastern city of Kut over unemployment, sporadic electricity and government corruption. And the protesters in Bahrain were confronted Thursday morning by riot police officers who rushed into the main square in Manama firing tear gas and concussion grenades.

The unrest has been inspired partly by grievances unique to each country, but many shared a new confidence, bred in Egypt and Tunisia, that a new generation could challenge unresponsive authoritarian rule in ways their parents thought impossible.

Leaders fell back on habitual, ineffective formulas. A ban on strikes announced by the week-old military government in Egypt was ignored. The Yemeni president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, called his Bahraini counterpart, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, to commiserate about the region’s falling victim to “foreign agendas,” according to the state-run Saba news agency.

“There are schemes aimed at plunging the region into chaos and violence targeting the nation’s security and the stability of its countries,” the news agency quoted Mr. Saleh as telling the king.

On one hand, each protest was inspired by a distinctive set of national circumstances and issues — dire poverty and a lack of jobs, ethnic and religious differences, minority rule, corruption, or questions of economic status.

But there was also a pervasive sense that a shared system of poor governance by one party, one family or one clique of military officers backed by brutal secret police was collapsing. A new generation has served notice that the social contract in play in the decades since independence around World War II was no longer valid.

Much of the generation in their 40s and 50s tried to effect change, but first accepted the empty promises of the rulers that change was coming. When it did not, many grew politically apathetic.

The protests are a fire alarm that the promises are not going to work anymore, said Sawsan al-Shaer, a Bahraini columnist. But governments that have stuck around for 20 to 40 years are slow to realize that, she said.

“Now the sons are coming, the new generation, and they are saying, ‘I don’t care that my father agreed with you — I am asking for more, and I am asking for something else,’ ” Ms. Shaer said.

Most rulers have surrounded themselves with a tight coterie of advisers and security officers for so long that they believe the advice that just a few young people are knocking around outside and will tire in good time, she said, even after the fall of the presidents in Tunisia and Egypt.

“The rulers don’t realize there is a new generation who want a better job, who want to ask what is happening, where did you spend the money?” Ms. Shaer said. “My father did not ask. I want to ask.”

The growing population throughout the 3,175-mile zone from Tehran to Tangier, Morocco, has changed too much, analysts believe, for the old systems to work.

“There is a contradiction between educating a lot of your population and creating a white-collar middle class and then ruling with an iron hand,” said Juan R. Cole, a professor of Middle East studies at the University of Michigan.

The continued eruptions present a particular challenge to the United States. It is caught between broadly supporting democracy in the region and tolerating the stability guaranteed by despots, analysts said. In addition, its ability to influence events is particularly limited with foes like Iran.

President Obama’s administration was accused of waffling on Egypt, trying to please the protesters while not really pushing President Hosni Mubarak, a longtime ally of the United States, to leave. It faces a similar dilemma in Bahrain, a crucial base for the United States Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

“For decades, the U.S. sort of prioritized stability over democracy because of oil and Israel,” said Marwan Muasher, a former foreign minister of Jordan who is the head of the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The current policy is not sustainable,” he said, but changing it toward so many countries at once will be neither easy nor quick.

A main problem is the lack of a discernible end to the spreading protests. They could die down if governments engage in serious political changes, analysts said, and if the public is willing to accept gradual change. But old approaches like raising salaries or promising reforms as soon as the marchers disperse will only fuel the protest epidemic.

“Governments can no longer keep claiming they can take their time,” Mr. Muasher said, “can no longer invoke the need for a homegrown process as an excuse to do nothing.”

In Bahrain, tens of thousands of people, virtually all Shiites, poured into Pearl Square on Wednesday. They demanded changes in a system that they say has discriminated against them for decades on issues like housing, jobs and basic civil rights.

The scene had seemed more like a picnic earlier in the day, complete with deliveries of Kentucky Fried Chicken, but the crowd swelled at night, tying up roads as far as the eye could see and creating a peaceful celebration of empowerment unparalleled for the country’s Shiites, who make up about 70 percent of Bahrain’s 600,000 citizens.

But early Thursday morning, hundreds of riot police officers surrounded the square, firing tear gas containers and concussion grenades at the demonstrators. At least two people died as the officers aggressively emptied the square, according to witnesses at a nearby hospital and news agency reports.

In Egypt, the military government issued its initial estimate of the death toll during the 18 days leading up to Mr. Mubarak’s resignation. At least 365 civilians died, not including police officers and prisoners, said the health minister, Ahmed Sameh Farid.

Despite two warnings in three days from the government to halt protests and strikes, hundreds of airport employees protested inside the terminals at Cairo International Airport for higher wages and health benefits, The Associated Press reported. Flights were not disrupted.

Textile workers also walked out, and a group of 60 women and community groups condemned a panel that was appointed to rewrite the constitution for failing to include a single woman.

In Iran, students were thwarted in their attempt to hold a separate memorial service for Saane Zhaleh, an art student who was killed Monday during the protests, the largest in more than a year. The authorities staged an official funeral for Mr. Zhaleh, saying he was a vigilante, which the opposition called a lie.

But students said they were blocked from attending the official funeral, with Basiji vigilantes overwhelming the campus of the Tehran University of Art. The vigilantes also prevented the fewer than 100 students who had shown up early from staging their own memorial.

“He was one of us, a member of the Green movement, and they stole him from us,” a student who tried to attend the funeral said via an Internet link. She spoke anonymously out of fear for her own safety.

In Yemen, police officers were deployed in large numbers around Sana, the capital, and in Aden and the town of Taiz in an attempt to end street battles.

Students again organized protests at the capital’s central university, calling for Mr. Saleh’s ouster. But there were also clashes between antigovernment and pro-government demonstrators.

In Kut, Iraq, security forces opened fire, killing at least three people, according to a local government official. Protesters then stormed the governor’s headquarters and his house, burning both buildings. At least 27 people were injured, the official said. The protest was the most violent in Iraq since unrest began in the region last month. Until now, there had been several small, scattered demonstrations calling for better government services.

Wednesday’s protests were organized by a group called the Youth of Kut, which wants the governor of the province to step down because it says he has failed to create jobs and increase the supply of electricity. The protesters also say the governor, Latif Hamad al-Tarfa, has stolen money from the government.

Reporting was contributed by Alan Cowell from Paris; J. David Goodman from New York; Laura Kasinov from Sana, Yemen; Michael S. Schmidt from Baghdad; and Michael Slackman from Manama, Bahrain.

11-02-17 - Daily Democrat -- Kurdish security fires on protesters in north Iraq

Kurdish security fires on protesters in north Iraq

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) -- Kurdish security forces opened fire on a crowd of protesters surrounding the headquarters of the party affiliated with the Kurdish president.

Hundreds of demonstrators gathered in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles (260 kilometers) northeast of Baghdad Thursday, demanding political reforms.

They then moved to the headquarters of Kurdish President Massoud Barzani's political party, where some protesters threw stones at the building.

Kurdish security guards on the roof then opened fire on the demonstrators.

An Associated Press reporter on the scene saw at least five people who were injured in the incident.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BASRA, Iraq (AP) - Hundreds of Iraqi demonstrators massed in this southern city Thursday to demand the local governor's ouster while protesters elsewhere stormed a local government building, the latest examples of the anger sweeping the country over poor government services and high unemployment.

About 600 people gathered in front of the Basra provincial headquarters, facing off against police who were protecting the building. With the exception of some pushing and shoving, witnesses said the protest was largely peaceful.

"We are demanding that the Basra governor be fired because he has not done anything good for Basra," said Mohammed Ali Jasim, a 50-year-old father of nine who came out to the protest in Iraq's second-largest city, 340 miles (550 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad.

In Nasir, (168 miles) 270 kilometers south of Baghdad, dozens of angry protesters stormed into the municipal building, setting fire to it, a police official in the provincial capital of Nasiriyah said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Five policemen were wounded after protesters hurled stones at the building and five protesters were arrested before a curfew was imposed on the town, the officer said.

Such small-scale demonstrations have happened almost daily across the impoverished southern Iraqi provinces, staged by frustrated Iraqis who enjoy political freedom but little economic success.

A day earlier in the city of Kut, about 2,000 stone-throwing demonstrators attacked local government offices, setting fire to some buildings, including the governor's house. Kut is 100 miles (160 kilometers) southeast of Baghdad.

Witnesses said Iraqi police and soldiers shot at demonstrators who pelted the offices with stones and commandeered military vehicles. The spokeswoman for Wasit province, Sondos al-Dahabi, said Thursday that three demonstrators were shot and killed. Al-Dahabi put the number of the wounded at 30, including 15 police officers.

The top health official for the province, Diaa al-Aboudi, said he was only aware of one fatality, an Iraqi soldier. Fifty-five people were injured, he said. Some were shot while others were hit by stones thrown by demonstrators or burned in the melee.

Conflicting casualty tolls are common in the immediate aftermath of violent events in Iraq.

Provincial authorities held an emergency meeting to discuss protesters' demands, al-Dahabi said. The authorities also lifted a curfew imposed Wednesday. Dozens of protesters returned to the provincial council building Thursday and gave authorities a list of their demands, al-Dahabi said.

Iraq is one of the few countries with a democratically elected government in the Middle East but leaders here have not been immune from the anger engulfing the region. Iraqis have a long list of grievances against their leaders, including electricity that sometimes works only a few hours a day, unemployment that runs as high as 30 percent and rampant corruption.

As security has improved, attention has turned to quality of life and economic issues instead.

Meanwhile, gunmen in a speeding car shot and killed a spokesman for the provincial government in the northern city of Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, police said.

11-02-17 - LA Times -- Three reported dead in Iraqi protests

Three reported dead in Iraqi protests

Government offices are attacked in protests in the city of Kut, as demonstrations inspired by the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia continue.

By Raheem Salman, Los Angeles Times

February 17, 2011

Reporting from Baghdad

Three people were reported killed and dozens wounded during a demonstration in the southeastern city of Kut after protesters set fire to several government buildings as the country was roiled by demonstrations for the second time in three days.

The protest in Kut, capital of Wasit province, was the latest demonstration in Iraq inspired by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt that ousted longtime Arab heads of state.

Iraqis, fed up of a lack of basic services and angry with their politicians, attacked the governor's office, his residence and the provincial council building, said Kadhim Saiyadi, a Kut lawmaker with Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr's movement.

Saiyadi said the protesters had divided into three groups and attacked the three sites.

But he blamed the arson on infiltrators from the government, which wants to prevent social unrest from erupting into a popular uprising in Iraq, even as people are deeply frustrated with their government's failure to improve their lives. "I think the infiltrators wanted to destroy the demonstrations inside Iraq to have a pretext not to permit any demonstrations in future," he said.

The U.S.-funded Alhurra satellite news channel confirmed that the buildings had been set ablaze and reported that some guards opened fire on the protesters.

The demonstrations that have rippled across the nation in the last two weeks show the growing impatience people have for their political leaders.

Salman is a Times staff writer.

11-02-17 - IPS -- IRAQ Protests Spread to Kurdistan

• by Mohammed A. Salih (sulaimaniya)

• Thursday, February 17, 2011

• Inter Press Service

At least one person died and dozens were injured Thursday in Iraqi Kurdistan's second largest city as angry protestors attacked the local headquarters of one of the two ruling Kurdish parties, while an opposition building was set ablaze in the other major Kurdish city.

The violence broke out in Sulaimaniya following a rally organised by a number of civil society groups to express solidarity with protestors in Egypt and Tunisia and protest the poor state of public services and corruption in the autonomous Kurdish region.

Hours after the attack on the Kurdistan Democratic Party's (KDP) building in Sulaimaniya, the local headquarters of Gorran (Change) opposition movement in Erbil, Kurdistan's capital city, was set on fire.

A Gorran leader told IPS his group holds the KDP responsible for the attack on its Erbil branch.

Security forces in Erbil are mostly loyal to the KDP.

Mohammed Tofiq, Gorran's spokesman, said his party 'has had nothing to do with the protests' in Sulaimaniya and the attack on KDP's building.

'We are fundamentally against what happened today… If we wanted to organize protests we would have publicly done it,' Tofiq said. He criticised the guards at the KDP's building for shooting at demonstrators.

The KDP is led by Massoud Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan region of Iraq. KDP's old rival and current ally, the patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), is the other major ruling party in the Kurdish government. Jalal Talabani, the PUK's head, is the president of Iraq.

Thursday's incidents in northern Iraq broke out amid a wave of mass protests that has galvanised several Middle Eastern countries in the recent weeks, leading to the collapse of two governments in Egypt and Tunisia.

Iraqi Kurdistan has witnessed several demonstrations in the last few years where people protested corruption and mismanagement. A number of people were killed and injured during those protests as well.

The organisers of the Thursday rally in Sulaimaniya had called on the protestors to disperse after a few speeches were read out in line with the protest's objectives. But tens of protestors continued marching toward nearby Salim Street, where a number of high-profile government and party buildings are based.

Upon arriving at the local headquarters of the KDP, the protestors started chanting slogans against Kurdish rulers. Minutes later they began throwing stones at the KDP's building, shattering its windows.

Eyewitness accounts say panicking guards of the building started opening fire on the demonstrators. Sulaimaniya's top health official told the local media that one person died and over 50 others were injured as a result of the shooting.

'I could hear the sound of bullets whizzing by my head. At that second I thought that I was going to die. They were shooting right into the crowd,' Karzan Kardozi, a blogger who was among the protesting crowd Thursday, told IPS. 'We hid in a parking lot for about three minutes and they were still shooting.'

'There should be an inquiry,' Kardozi said. 'Those who shot the people should be brought to justice or the government will further lose credibility with its people.'

There are fears that increasing tensions in Iraqi Kurdistan might lead to serious instability, especially in light of the regional events and the prospect of further protests.

Many see Thursday's demonstrations as an outburst of pent-up frustrations among sections of the Kurdish society toward the failure of Kurdish authorities to deliver in key areas such as providing services, combating what is often seen as rampant corruption and undertaking serious political reforms.

'The ruling establishment in Kurdistan has failed to carry out serious self-criticism, review of its action and take serious measures accordingly to address the public grievances,' said Rahman Gharib, an activist who was among the protesters.

'The fact that there is widespread domestic discontent coupled with the current storm of protests in the region must have compelled the Kurdish authorities to meet public demands,' he said.

Shortly after the bloody incident in Sulaimaniya, the KDP put out a statement saying 'the security forces did not play their role adequately, the small number of guards protecting the (KDP)'s building had to defend themselves. Unfortunately, as a result a number of attackers were hit.'

Unlike Erbil, most of the security forces in Sulaimaniya are loyal to the PUK.

Sulaimaniya, once a stronghold of the PUK, is currently dominated by the Gorran opposition movement. Inspired by the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, Gorran issued a statement in late January calling for the dissolution of the Kurdish government and parliament.

That infuriated the governing parties, which accused the opposition group of attempting to launch a 'coup' on the 'legitimate' institutions of Iraqi Kurdistan.

The current Kurdish government and parliament were born out of elections in July 2009 that were largely endorsed as 'free and fair' by the Iraqi electoral commission and international observers.

Many of Gorran's current leaders occupied senior positions within the PUK but split from the group in 2006. Gorran's top leader, Nawshirwan Mustafa, was PUK's number two for years.

The opposition occupies 26 seats in the 111-member parliament. The two ruling parties have 59 deputies in the chamber.

Many in Kurdistan have cautioned against any major protests, saying the situation in the autonomous region is essentially different from Egypt, Tunisia or other Arab countries.

The fact that Kurdistan is not an independent state has created fears that any major upheaval would practically spell the end of the Kurdish political entity in northern Iraq.

Such unrest also threatens to reverse the safety and increasing prosperity of Kurdistan, which over the past several years have distinguished it from the rest of chaos- stricken Iraq.

Internationally recognised 'free and fair' elections, a relatively free media atmosphere and the presence of legal and government-paid political opposition parties distinguish Kurdistan significantly from most parts of the Middle East.

But growing social injustice, widespread corruption, family rule and nepotism have led to deep-seated anger and sense of exclusion among many people, especially the youth.

On Wednesday, demonstrators in the southern Iraqi province of Wasit stormed the building of the provincial administration and council. Clashes there left at least three people dead and dozens more injured.

11-02-18 - CentPapiers -- Débordement de la colère populaire en Irak

18 février 2011

Par David Walsh

L’éruption de la révolution égyptienne, à la suite des événements de Tunisie, est une inspiration pour les populations du Moyen-Orient et d’Afrique du Nord.

Les protestations sur la question des conditions sociales se sont propagées à l’Irak cette semaine, où des manifestations se sont déroulées dans de nombreuses villes. Entre temps, un rassemblement de masse était prévu à Algers samedi. En Tunisie même, la population est toujours en ébullition, les mêmes structures de pouvoir restant toujours en place malgré la fuite de Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. La Jordanie, le Yémen et le Maroc sont aussi la scène de protestations.

La population irakienne commence à manifester ouvertement son opposition aux conditions misérables qui ont été crées par huit années d’occupation américaine et alliée, ainsi qu’un conflit sectaire acharné.

Le week-end dernier, des manifestants ont ont pris d’assaut des bâtiments gouvernementaux et un poste de police à Hamza, communauté défavorisée à forte proportion shiite du sud de l’Irak, pour protester contre des pénuries d’électricité, de nourriture et d’emplois et contre la corruption politique. Des représentants de la sécurité auraient ouvert le feu sur les manifestants, en tuant un et en blessant quatre autres.

Le National, des Emirats arabes unis, a cité le commentaire de Abu Ali qui aurait aidé à organiser la manifestation: « Il y aura une révolution des affamés et des chômeurs, comme cela s’est produit en Egypte, » a-t-il dit. « C’était une marche de chômeurs, de ceux qui ont perdu espoir et qui voient Nouri al Maliki [le premier ministre] et le nouveau gouvernement se transformer en une nouvelle dictature. »

Le 10 février, des protestations de taille variée se sont produites à Bagdad, Basra, Mosul, Karbala, Diwaniyah, Kut, Ramadi, Samawah et Amara. A Sadr City, dans Bagdad, des manifestants sont descendus dans la rue pour protester contre le manque de services publics, le chômage et la corruption gouvernementale. Des employés du secteur public ont rejoint les résidents. Un groupe d’employés du ministère de l’Industrie a dénoncé la décision de réduire de 20 pour cent leur salaire.

A Karbala, des résidents ont aussi demandé une amélioration des services municipaux et une enquête sur le gouvernement local. Sur une pancarte on pouvait lire, « Nous n’avons rien. Nous avons besoin de tout. La solution: Nous immoler par le feu, » en référence au suicide d’un jeune homme, qui a embrasé le soulèvement en Tunisie. A Najaf, des fermiers ont demandé davantage d’aide de la part du gouvernement et la démission du chef du gouvernement local. Des manifestants à Basra ont expliqué que les changements concernant la politique des rations de nourriture avaient laissé des familles dans l’incapacité d’acheter suffisamment de nourriture car le prix des denrées alimentaires de base avait presque doublé ces derniers mois.

Une des protestations les plus importantes a fait descendre quelque 3 000 avocats dans les rues d’un quartier musulman sunnite de Bagdad ouest. Ils ont appelé à la fin de la corruption judiciaire et du mauvais traitement des prisonniers dans les prisons irakiennes. La presse canadienne a cité le commentaire de Kadhim al-Zubaidi, porte-parole du syndicat d’avocats de Bagdad: « C’est en solidarité avec le peuple irakien… Nous voulons que le gouvernement renvoie les juges corrompus. » Il a ajouté, « Nous demandons aussi que les ministères de l’Intérieur et de la Défense nous autorisent à entrer dans les prisons secrètes [dont l'existence a été récemment révélée]… Nous voulons obtenir des informations sur ces prisons. »

A Karbala, le chef de l’association locale des avocats a ridiculisé la pitance que le gouvernement donne chaque mois au lieu des rations qui comprenaient de l’huile, du riz, de la farine et du sucre. « Nous rejetons ce montant d’argent, » a dit Rabia al-Masaudi, et il a ajouté à l’Agence France Presse (AFP), que « les députés sont payés 11 000 dollars par mois, alors que les nombreuses familles, parmi les six millions que compte le pays, dépendant des rations du gouvernement, recevaient à présent 12 dollars par mois au lieu de leurs provisions. »

Vendredi, d’autres manifestations se sont produites de par l’Irak. Une des manifestations de Bagdad est allée jusqu’à la zone verte où se trouvent les bâtiments du gouvernement et les ambassades, revendiquant une amélioration des services de base. Selon Reuters il y avait des pancartes portant des messages variés, comme « Où sont vos promesses électorales, les rations de nourriture et les services de base? » et « Place Tahrir n°2 », en référence aux événements du Caire.

A Bab-al-Sham, quartier défavorisé de Bagdad, dimanche dernier un manifestant, ingénieur de profession, a dit aux médias, « C’est une tragédie. Même au Moyen-Age les gens ne vivaient pas dans cette situation. » Reuters a fait remarquer, « Près de huit ans après l’invasion conduite par les Etats-Unis, l’infrastructure irakienne reste gravement endommagée. Le pays souffre de pénurie chronique d’eau, l’approvisionnement en électricité est intermittent et les eaux usées ne s’écoulent pas. »

En Algérie, l’appareil de sécurité se prépare à une importante manifestation, peut-être autour de dizaines de milliers de personnes prévue pour le 12 février par la Coordination nationale pour le changement et la démocratie (CNCD), groupement de défenseurs des droits de l’Homme, de syndicats et de partis « d’opposition » officiels tolérés par le régime du président Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

Le gouvernement a officiellement interdit la manifestation et devrait déployer quelque 30 000 agents de police pour bloquer la manifestation. Un porte-parole de l’opposition, Said Sadi a dit aux médias que le régime avait mis un cordon de sécurité autour de la capitale pour empêcher les gens de participer. « Les trains ont été arrêtés et les autres transports en commun seront arrêtés aussi, » a-t-il dit.

L’AFP rapporte: « De grandes quantités de grenades lacrymogènes ont été importées, a ajouté [Sadi]. On a vu des véhicules anti-émeute garés non loin de la place d’où le rassemblement est censé partir samedi, et la police en uniforme patrouille les rues adjacentes.

Des protestations ont eu lieu dans un certain nombre de villes algériennes le 8 février. Dans la ville d’Annaba, 600 kms à l’est d’Alger, une centaines de jeunes hommes au chômage ont manifesté devant la préfecture de la ville et dans les rues. Dans un acte particulièrement désespéré, dans la ville voisine de Sidi Ammar, sept hommes sans emplois se sont infligés des blessures à l’arme blanche et ont menacé de se suicider en masse devant la mairie.

Un journal algérien rapporte que dans la même région, les résidents du village de Raffour sont aussi descendus dans la rue. Ces dernières semaines, près de 20 personnes ont tenté de s’immoler par le feu. Trois sont morts des suites de leurs blessures.

En Tunisie où Mohammed Bouazizi, 26 ans, s’est immolé par le feu à la mi-décembre et a contribué à lancer les protestations de masse, une femme a tenté de s’immoler par le feu jeudi devant les bureaux gouvernementaux de Monastir, lieu de naissance du dictateur en place depuis longtemps, Habib Bourguiba. La femme, originaire de Sfax, seconde plus grande ville de Tunisie, a entrepris cette action du fait de difficultés à obtenir un médicament pour son époux souffrant de cancer. Son état reste « sérieux » avec des brûlures au troisième degré.

Des manifestations ont eu lieu dans de nombreuses villes tunisiennes cette semaine, exigeant la démission des officiels associés au régime Ben Ali. A Kasserine, à 250 kms au sud ouest de Tunis des centaines de gens ont bloqué une artère principale pour attirer l’attention sur leurs problèmes sociaux. A Gafsa aussi mardi des manifestants ont réclamé la démission du nouveau gouverneur.

Au Yémen, deux manifestations ont eu lieu vendredi dans la capitale de San’a et dans le port d’Aden en solidarité avec la révolution égyptienne. Des centaines de jeunes manifestants se sont rassemblés dans l’après-midi à Aden. Selon le Wall Street Journal, « Selon des témoins, il y a eu des échauffourées entre la police et des manifestants et une dizaine de manifestants ont été arrêtés. Un agent de la sécurité d’Aden a dit que la police prenait des mesures pour assurer la sécurité dans la ville. »

Des étudiants de San’a ont aussi organisé une protestation, fermant l’accès aux artères principales pendant près de trois heures vendredi. Ils ont terminé leur manifestation devant l’ambassade d’Egypte. La manifestation a exprimé son soutien au peuple égyptien mais a aussi appelé le dictateur Ali Abdullah Saleh, qui jouit du soutien des Etats-Unis, à démissionner. Les manifestants ont dénoncé les mauvais traitements et la torture infligés aux détenus dans le quartier général de la police secrète.

Au sud Yémen, plusieurs milliers de personnes ont manifesté vendredi en faveur de la sécession et exigé aussi le départ de Saleh. Des tanks de l’armée, dit Reuters, « sont entrés dans Zinjibar, capitale d’Abyan, où des militants soupçonnés de faire partie d’Al Qaida sont actifs, et plus d’un millier de manifestants se sont rassemblés vendredi. Des centaines d’hommes se sont assis devant la maison d’un ancien dirigeant du sud Yémen, portant des linceuls blancs, symbolise de leur volonté de combattre jusqu’à la mort.

Ils scandaient, « Ali, Ali, rattrape Ben Ali, » impliquant par là que Saleh devrait suivre l’ancien président tunisien Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali en exil en Arabie saoudite.

A Amman en Jordanie, deux manifestations ont eu lieu, l’une (organisée par des organisations de gauche) exigeant la démission du nouveau premier ministre Marouf al-Bakhit, et la seconde en soutien à la lutte pour renverser Moubarak. Lors de celle-ci, organisée par des islamistes, Hamzeh Mansour, secrétaire général du Front islamique d’action, le bras armé du mouvement des Frères musulmans, a dit à la foule, « Les dirigeants arabes devraient écouter la voix de leur peuple et cesser de parier sur les Etats-Unis. »

Le syndicat des agriculteurs jordaniens a organisé une protestation vendredi, lançant des cageots de tomates sr l’autoroute Karak-Aqaba pour protester contre la chute des prix.

A Rabat, capitale marocaine, plus d’un milliers de manifestants s’est rassemblé vendredi pour exiger des emplois dans le secteur public. Un organisateur de la manifestation a dit aux médias qu’à une réunion le 24 janvier, le gouvernement avait appelé à une trêve du fait de l’agitation dans la région. La trêve a pris fin le 10 février, date butoir du gouvernement pour le recrutement de 4 500 diplômés hautement qualifiés. Le taux de chômage des diplômés de l’université est autour de 18 pour cent.

Selon le ministre de la Communication Khalid Naciri, au moins 21 manifestations ont lieu chaque jour au Maroc, nation assaillie par les inégalités sociale et la corruption gouvernementale.

11-02-18 - AFP -- Irak la contestation s'étend au Kurdistan où deux manifestants sont morts

Irak: la contestation s'étend au Kurdistan où deux manifestants sont morts

De Shwan MOHAMMAD (AFP) – Il y a 2 jours

SOULEIMANIYEH — Le mouvement de contestation sociale en Irak s'est étendu jeudi au Kurdistan où deux personnes ont été tuées et 47 ont été blessées par balles à Souleimaniyeh alors que le Premier ministre Nouri al-Maliki a mis en garde ceux qui incitent à la violence.

Dans cette région autonome du Nord, près de 3.000 personnes, en majorité des jeunes, ont manifesté à l'appel de l'Organisation de défense des droits et de la liberté, en accusant de "corruption" les deux partis traditionnels, le Parti démocratique du Kurdistan (PDK) de Massoud Barzani et de l'Union patriotique de Kurdistan (UPK de Jalal Talabani).

Ils se sont dirigés vers la rue où se trouvent les sièges des deux formations aux cris de "Gouvernement démission" "Du travail pour les chômeurs", "Les corrompus devant la justice".

Le Kurdistan possède son propre gouvernement dirigé par ces deux partis qui sont aussi majoritaires au Parlement régional.

"Nous manifestons contre les dirigeants qui utilisent à leur profit l'argent public et nous continuerons à le faire jusqu'à ce que les responsables corrompus soient punis", a affirmé à l'AFP Shaho Mohammad, 20 ans.

Des manifestants ont jeté des pierres sur le bâtiment du PDK et lorsque certains ont tenté de le prendre d'assaut, des gardes ont tiré en l'air puis des membres de services de sécurité du parti et de la police ont pris position dans la rue.

"Nous déplorons deux morts, âgés de 25 ans et 18 ans, et 47 blessés par balles", a affirmé à l'AFP Ricot Hama Rachid, responsable des services de santé de la province de Souleimaniyeh, à 270 km au nord de Bagdad.

Un siège du parti Goran qui a affirmé ne pas être impliqué dans cette manifestation a été incendié à Erbil, plus au nord. En dissidence avec les deux partis traditionnels kurdes, Goran a accusé des militants du PDK.

La veille, à Kout (160 km au sud de Bagdad), un manifestant de 16 ans avait été tué et 27 autres avaient été blessés lorsqu'une foule en colère avait incendié des bâtiments publics pour protester contre l'absence de services publics.

Il s'agissait de l'incident le plus violent depuis le début des manifestations en Irak qui ont débuté le 3 février dans la province de Diwaniya, à 185 km au sud de Bagdad. Ce jour-là, quatre manifestants avaient été blessés par balles.

Lors d'une conférence de presse, M. Maliki a mis en garde contre la violence. "J'accueille favorablement ceux qui manifestent pacifiquement pour leurs droits légitimes mais pas ceux qui exploitent ces revendications pour susciter des émeutes. Les auteurs seront traduits en justice", a-t-il dit avant d'accuser des puissances étrangères sans les nommer.

"Je dis aux manifestants de ne laisser personne s'infiltrer pour susciter des émeutes comme à Kout et Nassiriya. J'interdis aux forces de sécurité de d'user de la violence et (leur dis) de ne disperser les manifestations uniquement quand elles se transforment en émeute", a-t-il ajouté.

Dans la localité de Nasr, à 240 km au sud de Bagdad, près de Nassiriya, des dizaines de manifestants exigeant des emplois et des services publics ont pénétré jeudi dans la mairie, incendiant l'entrée et mettant le feu à des dossiers.

Par ailleurs, dans la cité multiethnique de Kirkouk, à 240 km au nord de Bagdad, 350 femmes et enfants ont défilé entre le bâtiment du ministère de la Santé et le gouvernorat en brandissant des banderoles écrites en arabe, en kurde et en turcoman sur lesquelles on pouvait lire "Nous voulons l'égalité", "Où sont nos droits?", "Protégez les orphelins des voleurs".

"A Kirkouk, il y a 2.000 veuves et 7.000 orphelins. Nous demandons qu'une partie de la manne pétrolière aille à des allocations pour les veuves, à la mise en place des foyers pour les orphelins et à des centres de traitement psychologique", a affirmé Najat Amid Yadkar, 57 ans, employé de la compagnie pétrolière et organisateur de ce défilé.

11-02-18 - Al Jazeera -- Fresh protests hit Iraqi cities

Fresh protests hit Iraqi cities

Reports of deaths as thousands turn out to demand better service delivery and jobs from government.

18 Feb 2011 13:57 GMT

Violent protests have taken place at various locations in Iraq, with anti-government protesters rallying against corruption, poor basic services and high unemployment.

In Basra, the country's second largest city, about 1,000 people rallied on Friday, demanding better service delivery from the government, jobs and improved pensions.

They called for the provincial governor to resign, and blocked a bridge for an hour. Protesters shouted slogans saying that while Friday's protests would be peaceful, ones held in the future may not be.

"We're living in miserable conditions, no electricity, dirty, muddy streets. We have to make changes. We should not be silent," said Qais Jabbar, one of the protesters.

"I have filed my papers with the provincial council but have gotten no job until now," said Hussein Abdel, an unemployed 25-year-old. "There is corruption in Basra - they have to start taking care of this city and must stop making fake promises."

Protests in Kurdish region

Protests were also held in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, which generally enjoys more economic prosperity than other parts of the country.

A Kurdish regional opposition party's offices were attacked by looters, officials said on Friday.

Seven offices of the Goran party in the northern Kurdish provinces of Arbil and Dohuk were attacked, in what officials say was a response to an attack on the ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) offices in Sulaimaniyah a day earlier. Two people were killed in that protest, after security forces opened fire on demonstrators.

Iraqi and Kurdish leaders have pledged to bring the perpetrators of the violence to justice. They have also attempted to head off the protests by slashing the salaries of ministers and MPs and diverting cash earmarked for the purchase of fighter jets to buy food for the needy.

On Thursday, one person was killed during protests in the southern city of Kut. Forty-seven others were injured in the protests, prompting New York-based Human Rights Watch to call for an "independent and transparent investigation".

Protests were also held on Friday in the southern city of Nasiriyah and elsewhere in the country.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, said on Thursday that peaceful protests were the right of all Iraqis, but warned that those inciting violence would be brought to justice.

"I welcome those who demonstrate peacefully for their legitimate rights, but I am not in favour of those who exploit those claims to incite riots," he told reporters in Baghdad.

11-02-19 - The Daily Star -- Politics - Looters hit opposition offices in north Iraq demos

Looters hit opposition offices in north Iraq demos
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Saturday, February 19, 2011

A Kurdish regional opposition’s offices were targeted by looters, officials said Friday, after Iraq’s most violent protests since uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia left three dead in two days.

Rallies against corruption, poor basic services and high unemployment in several cities across Iraq have also left more than 100 people wounded.

The rare protests in the autonomous Kurdish region were the deadliest there since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Iraqi and Kurdish leaders have pledged to bring the perpetrators of the violence to justice. They have also attempted to head off the protests by slashing the salaries of ministers and MPs and diverting cash earmarked for the purchase of fighter jets to buy food.

Officials said looters had targeted seven offices Friday belonging to the Goran opposition party in the northern Kurdish provinces of Irbil and Dohuk in response to violent protests a day earlier in the region’s second city of Sulaimaniyah against the main ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP).

Goran has denied any involvement in Thursday’s demonstration, which left two dead and 54 wounded, according to provincial health chief Raykot Hama Rashid, when security forces fired into the air to disperse crowds.

By midday Friday, Irbil province’s governor said that Kurdish security forces had evicted the looters from the Goran offices.

The opposition party said in a statement Friday that it wanted an emergency session of the regional assembly to be held within 48 hours and a parliamentary committee formed to “investigate the events that took place.”

In a statement published late Thursday, regional president Massud Barzani blamed the violence on “a very small group of people … determined to undermine the stability of the region and detract from the significant economic, social and political progress it has made over the last decade.”

Also Friday, hundreds of demonstrators blocked a bridge in the southern port city of Basra, calling for an improvement in basic services and a lowering of unemployment.

The rally of about 1,000 people in Iraq’s second-largest city, also demanded the resignation of the provincial governor, who they say has failed to boost the quality of life even as security improves.

The city, 550 kilometers southeast of Baghdad, is a microcosm of postwar Iraq’s many woes.

“We’re living in miserable conditions, no electricity, dirty, muddy streets. We have to make changes. We should not be silent,” said one of the protesters, Qais Jabbar.

The 32-year-old father of three said despite a college degree, he works as a taxi driver and shares a small house with his three brothers and their families in eastern Basra.

“I have filed my papers with the provincial council but have gotten no job until now,” said Hussein Abdel, an unemployed 25-year-old. “There is corruption in Basra – they have to start taking care of this city and must stop making fake promises.”

Basra is the hub of the oil industry in a country that has some of the largest oil reserves in the world. But little of that wealth has trickled down to the city’s people.

Residents at the protest Friday called for the resignation of the governor, Sheltagh Aboud al-Mayahi, who they say has done little to improve the city since he was elected two years ago.

Maliki said Thursday that peaceful protests were the right of all Iraqis, but warned that those inciting violence would be brought to justice.

“I welcome those who demonstrate peacefully for their legitimate rights, but I am not in favor of those who exploit those claims to incite riots,” he told reporters in Baghdad. – AFP, AP

11-02-20 - Siasiat -- Bloody protests rock Iraqi Kurdistan

Bloody protests rock Iraqi Kurdistan

Sunday, 20 February 2011

Baghdad, February 20: Violence has again rocked the streets of the Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah as Kurdish demonstrators continue to demand the ouster of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Following a peaceful demonstration Saturday afternoon, protesters began burning tires on the street in front of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) headquarters and pelting rocks at military and police forces, a Media correspondent reported.

They said the move was in retaliation for those killed and injured during Thursday's protest.

Based on unofficial reports and eyewitnesses, demonstrations that began Thursday have so far left four dead and around 70 injured.

The report adds that some 5,000 KDP military forces were deployed on the streets of Sulaymaniyah over the past two days.

Following popular demonstrations in Iraqi Kurdistan over poverty and unemployment as well as financial and administrative corruption, Sulaymaniyah University students also joined the protests on Saturday.

As shots rang out on streets in the background during a brief talk with the Press TV reporter, Sulaymaniyah Police Chief Amed Salar claimed he had no idea who was shooting and why.

“I have no information, I don't know what is going on, I don't have any idea,” Salar told our correspondent.

Riot police were called in to stop the unrest. In ensuing clashes, 10 were arrested and 15 injured, including one journalist that was shot in the foot and at least two more that were beaten by police.

“I was covering the protests when security forces attacked me, they beat me with baton and never asked who I was. I have an ID card and I said I am working for Payam TV channel,” journalist Wrya Hussein told Media.

Ruling parties have pointed the finger at the leading opposition party Goran for inciting unrest after they released a statement last month calling for the dissolution of the Kurdistan Regional Government.

But the Goran Party says their members have had no role in recent demonstrations. Although the party supports the right of people to protest, it says that it does not, in any way, condone violence used by protesters over the past three days.

Students at the University of Sulaymaniyah say they will continue demonstrations until the KDP forces leave the city and they receive answers from the government about Thursday's shootings.

11-02-23 - Romandie -- Irak un policier tué lors d'une manifestation à Halabja

Irak: un policier tué lors d'une manifestation à Halabja

SOULEIMANIYEH (Irak) - Un policier a été tué et un autre blessé mercredi à Halabja, au Kurdistan, lors d'une manifestation contre les deux partis traditionnels de cette région du nord de l'Irak, a indiqué le maire de la ville.

"Un policier a été tué et un autre a été blessé par les tirs de manifestants qui avaient des armes. Ils n'étaient pas d'ici, c'étaient des Arabes", a affirmé Goran Adham, membre de l'Union patriotique du Kurdistan (UPK) dirigé par Jalal Talabani, président de la République.

"Nous disposons de vidéos prouvant qu'ils étaient armés", a-t-il précisé aux journalistes.

Mais cette version est totalement démentie par les manifestants. "Nous n'avons pas d'armes. Ce sont les policiers qui ont tué un de leurs collègues et blessé un deuxième en tirant en l'air", a affirmé l'un d'eux, qui a tenu à garder l'anonymat par peur d'être arrêté.

"Les manifestants se sont rassemblés vers 14H00 (11H00 GMT) sur la place Hourriya, au centre de Halabja, puis se sont dirigés vers la mairie. J'ai entendu des tirs sans pouvoir en identifier la provenance et je me suis enfuie", a raconté à l'AFP une journaliste de l'hebdomadaire indépendant Awene.

Un médecin de l'hôpital de Halabja, à 50 km à l'est de Souleimaniyeh, a indiqué avoir reçu le corps d'un policier et prodigué des soins à un policier blessé par balle et quatre manifestants frappés à coup de bâton.

Il s'agit du second jour d'affrontements dans cette ville qui avait été gazée en 1988 par Saddam Hussein. Mardi, selon le maire, 32 policiers avaient été blessés.

Des témoins avaient affirmé que les manifestants, qui réclament la chute du gouvernement régional et la fin de la corruption, avaient tenté de prendre d'assaut un siège du Parti démocratique du Kurdistan (PDK) du président de la région autonome Massoud Barzani. La police les en a empêchés et les manifestants leur ont alors jeté des pierres.

Par ailleurs, comme ils le font depuis une semaine, 3.000 manifestants se sont rassemblés dans l'après midi à Souleimaniyeh pour réclamer la démission du gouvernement régional, la lutte contre la corruption et la traduction en justice des responsables de la mort de trois jeunes manifestants tués dans des accrochages avec les forces de sécurité et des gardes du PDK.

Ils scandaient: "Où est le président de l'Irak? Où est le président de la région?".

Lundi, le Premier ministre kurde, Barham Saleh, avait affirmé: "nous respectons la liberté individuelle, à condition qu'elle s'exerce dans le cadre de la loi; nous nous opposerons à quiconque veut semer le chaos et provoquer des émeutes".

Le principal parti d'opposition, Goran, dont plusieurs bureaux ont été brûlés ces derniers jours, avait quitté la réunion car il exigeait le début de réformes avant la fin de la contestation alors l'UPK et le PDK exigeaient le contraire.

(©AFP / 23 février 2011 17h08)

11-02-25 - Le Monde -- Des milliers d'Irakiens en colère manifestent contre le gouvernement

Des milliers d'Irakiens en colère manifestent contre le gouvernement

LEMONDE.FR avec AFP et reuters | 25.02.11 | 15h11

Des milliers d'Irakiens en colère manifestent vendredi 25 février à Badgad.REUTERS/THAIER AL-SUDANI

Des milliers d'Irakiens sont descendus dans les rues à Bagdad et dans le reste du pays pour crier leur ras-de-bol dans la rue, vendredi 25 février, à l'occasion d'une "Journée de colère" contre le gouvernement. Des affrontements ont éclaté entre forces de sécurité et manifestants à Hawija, au nord de Bagdad, et à Mossoul (nord), où sept manifestants ont été tués par balles, selon la police.

A Bagdad, les manifestants se sont rassemblés sur la place Tahrir, dans le centre de la ville.
Au milieu d'un important déploiement militaire et policier, quelque 5 000 manifestants étaient rassemblés sur la place, alors que d'autres protestataires affluaient. Des restrictions ont également été imposées sur les manifestations à travers le pays.

Les forces de sécurité ont bloqué avec de grands blocs de béton l'entrée du pont al-Joumhouriya menant à la zone verte, le secteur ultrasécurisé qui abrite le siège du gouvernement et l'ambassade des Etats-Unis. Des manifestants sont parvenus à renverser deux blocs de béton et ont commencé à jeter des pierres, des chaussures et des bouteilles d'eau sur la police anti-émeute et les soldats qui ont fini par les bloquer.

UNE MANIFESTATION POUR "LE CHANGEMENT"

Un député, Sabah al-Saadi, qui essayait de rencontrer des manifestants a été accueilli par des huées. "Pourquoi les députés ont un salaire de millions de dinars [des milliers de dollars] et nous n'avons rien ?" lui a lancé un manifestant.

Depuis le début du mouvement populaire il y a quelques semaines en Irak, onze manifestants et un policier ont été tués. S'inspirant des révoltes en Tunisie et en Egypte, un mouvement dénommé "la Révolution de la colère irakienne" a appelé via Facebook à manifester pour exiger "le changement, la liberté et une démocratie véritable". La majorité des organisateurs insistent sur leurs seules revendications de "réformes". "Il ne s'agit pas de faire tomber le gouvernement", soulignent-ils dans un communiqué.

Jeudi le premier ministre Nouri al-Maliki a accusé les organisateurs de la manifestation d'être des partisans de l'ancien dictateur Saddam Hussein, des "terroristes", appelant "dans un souci de contrecarrer les plans des ennemis" à ne pas participer spécifiquement à cette manifestation.
"Aucun de nous n'appartient à Al-Qaïda ni aux partisans de Saddam, nous sommes des citoyens irakiens ordinaires qui protestons contre l'absence de services publics, la corruption et nous voulons la réforme du système", a rétorqué Mme Abayachi.

11-02-25 - Le Monde -- La Tunisie et l'Égypte sous pression, 'journée de la colère' meurtrière en Irak

La Tunisie et l'Égypte sous pression, "journée de la colère" meurtrière en Irak

Le Monde | 25.02.2011 à 18h22 • Mis à jour le 25.02.2011 à 20h46

Alors qu'en Libye la contestation au régime de Khadafi s'étend désormais de l'ouest de Tripoli à Benghazi (suivre les évènements en direct), les Tunisiens et les Egyptiens continuent vendredi de battre le pavé pour défendre "leurs révolutions". Au Yémen, au Bahreïn mais également en Irak, les manifestations ne faiblissent pas.

• TUNISIE : Une marée humaine contre Ghannouchi

Plus de 100 000 Tunisiens, selon la police, ont réclamé vendredi le départ du gouvernement de transition dirigé par Mohammed Ghannouchi, devant la Kasbah, épicentre de la contestation, où de nouveaux cortèges de manifestants affluaient encore en début d'après-midi. Selon des membres du Croissant-Rouge et des manifestants, il "s'agit de la plus grande manifestation depuis la chute de Ben Ali", le 14 janvier. Les manifestants sont venus affirmer que "leur révolution" qui a chassé du pouvoir le régime de Ben Ali "ne sera pas usurpée", avec des slogans tels que "Ghannouchi dégage", "Honte à ce gouvernement", ou encore "Révolution jusqu'à la victoire". En fin de journée, les forces de l'ordre ont procédé à plusieurs tirs de sommation à Tunis pour disperser les manifestants.

Sous la pression populaire, qui dénonçait le maintien à des postes clés de caciques de l'ancien régime, M. Ghannouchi avait déjà remanié, le 27 janvier, un gouvernement formé dix jours plus tôt. Depuis, des élections libres ont été annoncées, avec une échéance fixée à six mois : vendredi le gouvernement transitoire a annoncé la tenue d'"élections au plus tard mi-juillet", sans préciser s'il s'agirait d'un scrutin présidentiel ou législatif.

Dans la soirées, des journalistes de l'AFP ont fait état de poursuites entre des soldats, des policiers et des manifestants dans le centre de Tunis, alors que de fortes détonations pouvaient être entendues. Après des tirs d'armes automatiques précédés de tirs de sommation, les forces de l'ordre ont commencé à quadriller l'avenue Habib Bourguiba, et se sont lancés dans une course poursuite de manifestants dans les rues adjacentes.

Des manifestants avaient volé auparavant des parasols et des chaises des cafés dans l'avenue Habib Bourguiba, où est située le ministère de l'Intérieur avant d'y mettre le feu en trois endroits le long de l'avenue Bourguiba. Ils cassaient également des pots de fleurs pour en faire des projectiles pour les jeter en direction du ministère de l'Intérieur.

• EGYPTE : La place Tahrir du Caire vibre encore

Des milliers d'Egyptiens se sont rassemblés sur la place Tahrir au Caire pour célébrer la "révolution" mais aussi pour réclamer un nouveau gouvernement composé de technocrates, 15 jours après la démission sous la pression populaire du président Hosni Moubarak. "Le gouvernement de Chafic est inféodé au régime corrompu", proclamait une pancarte, tandis que des manifestants exigeaient le départ du premier ministre Ahmad Chafic. Le nouveau gouvernement remanié mercredi compte toujours quelques figures de l'ère Moubarak. Les manifestants réclament également la suppression des très redoutés services de sécurité d'Etat.

Ailleurs, d'autres groupes scandaient "A bas Kadhafi" en agitant des drapeaux libyens en signe de solidarité avec la Libye voisine. Suite à la démission, le 11 février, de l'ex-président Hosni Moubarak, le conseil suprême des forces armées a chargé le gouvernement de M. Chafic de gérer les affaires courantes en attendant des élections. Le nouveau gouvernement a assuré qu'il n'y "aurait pas de retour en arrière" tout en s'engageant à poursuivre la lutte contre la corruption.

• YÉMEN : Pro et anti-Saleh à Sanaa, un mort à Aden

Des dizaines de milliers de partisans et d'adversaires du président yéménite Ali Abdallah Saleh ont organisé des manifestations séparées dans la capitale Sanaa. Devant l'université, des manifestants scandaient "Le peuple exige la chute du régime", tandis qu'à l'autre bout de la ville, des partisans de Saleh criaient leur soutien à un président garant, selon eux, de l'unité d'un pays divisé. Des témoins rapportent qu'à Sanaa, les forces de l'ordre ont formé des cordons autour des groupes de manifestants rivaux afin d'éviter des affrontements.

Dans un communiqué publié jeudi soir, le ministère de l'intérieur a ordonné aux forces de sécurité de "redoubler de vigilance et de prendre les mesures requises pour contrôler tout élément terroriste" qui pourrait profiter des manifestations afin de s'infiltrer à Sanaa. Saleh avait auparavant ordonné aux "services de sécurité d'accorder une entière protection aux manifestants" et de prévenir tout affrontement. L'agence Saba rapporte que le président yéménite a chargé une commission présidée par le Premier ministre Ali Mohamed Megawar de recueillir les doléances des manifestants et d'ouvrir un dialogue avec eux. Dix-sept personnes ont été tuées depuis le début, il y a neuf jours, de la vague de contestation.

Dans la ville portuaire d'Aden, un manifestant a été tué par la police lors de manifestations contre le régime, selon des sources hospitalières. Selon ces mêmes sources, Mohammed Ahmed Saleh, 17 ans, est mort à l'hôpital de la République, un établissement gouvernemental de la ville du sud du Yémen. Aden a été le théâtre de deux importantes marches et d'échauffourées avec la police qui ont fait 20 blessés, selon un nouveau bilan de sources médicales.

• IRAK : Meurtrière "Journée de la colère"

La "Journée de la colère" contre l'impéritie du gouvernement irakien et la concussion a tourné à la violence avec la mort par balles de quinze manifestants dans tout le pays lors d'affrontements avec les forces de sécurité. Selon la police et les hôpitaux, il y a eu cinq morts à Mossoul (nord), deux à Hawija, dans la riche province pétrolière de Kirkouk, cinq à Tikrit et deux à Samarra (centre), et un jeune de 15 ans à Calar, une localité kurde dans la province de Diyala. Cela porte à 19 manifestants et un policier le nombre des tués depuis le début de la contestation il y a trois semaines. En outre, 134 personnes, dont 21 policiers et soldats, ont été blessées dans une dizaine de villes et quatre bâtiments publics incendiés. Dans cinq villes, dont la capitale, l'interdiction de circuler était maintenu jusqu'à samedi.

A Bagdad, quelque 5 000 manifestants s'étaient rassemblés sur la place Tahrir en présence d'un important déploiement militaire et policier. Un mouvement dénommé "la Révolution de la colère irakienne" a appelé via Facebook à manifester pour exiger "le changement, la liberté et une démocratie véritable". La majorité des organisateurs insistent sur leurs seules revendications de "réformes".

Jeudi, le premier ministre Nouri al-Maliki avait accusé les organisateurs de la manifestation d'être des partisans de l'ancien dictateur Saddam Hussein, des "terroristes", appelant "dans un souci de contrecarrer les plans des ennemis" à ne pas participer à cette manifestation. "Aucun de nous n'appartient à Al-Qaïda ni aux partisans de Saddam, nous sommes des citoyens irakiens ordinaires qui protestons contre l'absence de services publics, la corruption et nous voulons la réforme du système", a rétorqué l'une des organisatrices, Chourouq al-Abayachi.

Pour tenter de calmer la grogne, le gouvernement a récemment multiplié les gestes, augmentant notamment d'un milliard de dollars le montant alloué aux rations alimentaires distribuées à six millions de familles.

• BAHREIN : Statu quo sur la place de la Perle

Des cortèges de manifestants ont envahi les rues de Manama, à l'appel de religieux chiites, et exigé de nouveau des réformes politiques dans le petit royaume de Bahreïn, au douzième jour d'une contestation qui ne faiblit pas. Cette forte mobilisation est intervenue alors que les Etats-Unis ont renouvelé leur soutien à la monarchie et au dialogue national proposé à l'opposition. Aucune estimation officielle de la mobilisation de vendredi, jour de prières, n'était disponible mais les voies conduisant à la place de la Perle, épicentre de la contestation, ont été bloquées par des dizaines de milliers de protestataires.

• ALGERIE : L'état d'urgence levé

Les autorités ont levé comme promis l'état d'urgence décrété il y a 19 ans, mais l'opposition reste déterminée à mener une nouvelle manifestation samedi pour un changement de régime. Le décret, daté du 23 février, a été publié en ligne au Journal Officiel de jeudi. Il lève une mesure instaurée pour lutter contre la guérilla islamiste. L'un des principaux dirigeants de l'opposition, Said Sadi, qui préside le Rassemblement pour la Culture et la Démocratie a qualifié cette mesure de "manoeuvre": "Nous sommes déterminés à un changement de régime et toutes les semaines il y aura des marches".

11-02-26 - Al Jazeera -- Deadly protests rock Iraq

Deadly protests rock Iraq

Images appear to show police shooting at protesters in Falluja during country's "day of rage" protests. Last Modified: 26 Feb 2011 07:25 GMT

Al Jazeera has obtained pictures which appear to show police shooting at protesters in the Iraqi city of Falluja, during Friday's deadly nationwide "day of rage". An unprecedented lockdown of Iraq's capital failed to deter thousands of Iraqis from protesting, serving notice that the anti-government rage sweeping the Middle East will not be easily extinguished in Baghdad. The "day of rage" protests rocked other Iraqi cities as well, as demonstrators burned or tried to storm government buildings from the southern port of Basra to the northern cities of Mosul and Falluja, where at least 12 protesters were shot dead by security forces. Around 5,000 people thronged Baghdad's Tahrir Square, with angry crowds throwing stones, shoes and plastic bottles at riot police and soldiers blocking off a bridge connecting the site to Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the US embassy and parliament. The protest was the biggest of at least 17 separate demonstrations across the country, some sparking clashes in which more than 130 people were wounded, according to a tally based on accounts by officials. Four government buildings were also set ablaze and one provincial governor resigned. By evening, most of the crowd in Baghdad had left and security forces refused to allow anyone to enter the area surrounding the square. The next day, Iraq's Baiji oil refinery was shut down after fighters carried out a bomb attack and set it on fire, the governor of Salahuddin province said. The refinery is situated in the town of Baiji, about 180km north of Baghdad.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

11-02-26 - Nouvelobs -- Irak journée sanglante contre l'impéritie du gouvernement, quatorze morts

26/02/11 09:02

Des manifestants furieux ont lancé des pierres sur les forces anti-émeutes vendredi à Bagdad, au moment où des milliers d'Irakiens sont descendus dans la rue à travers le pays pour une "Journée de colère" contre le gouvernement marquée par des heurts ayant fait sept morts. (c) Afp

11-02-26 - Zeenews -- Iraq 15 killed on `Day of Rage`

Iraq: 15 killed on `Day of Rage`

Around 5,000 people thronged Baghdad`s Tahrir Square, with angry crowds throwing stones, shoes and plastic bottles at riot police and soldiers blocking off a bridge connecting the site to Baghdad`s heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the US embassy and Parliament.

The protest was the biggest of at least 17 separate demonstrations across the country, some sparking clashes in which more than 130 people were wounded, according to a tally based on accounts by officials. Four government buildings were also set ablaze and one provincial governor resigned.

By evening, most of the crowd in Baghdad had left and security forces refused to allow anyone to enter the area surrounding the square.

A journalist said security forces had used a water cannon and tear gas in a bid to disperse the crowd. An Interior Ministry official said 15 people were wounded.

During the protest, demonstrators overturned two concrete blast walls on Jumhuriyah bridge, spurring lines of anti-riot police and soldiers to block it off.

Security was deployed in force, imposing a city-wide vehicle ban after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki claimed al Qaeda insurgents and loyalists of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein were behind the demonstrations.

The vehicle curfew, initially put in place overnight, had not been lifted by security forces in the capital by late on Friday.

After the Baghdad protests ended, Maliki said in a statement that Iraqis behaved responsibly, and that the country "did not give a chance to terrorists to take action”. Rallies in Iraq have called for improved public services, more jobs and less corruption, and some for broader political reforms.

Rated the fourth-most corrupt country in the world by Transparency International, Iraq suffers from poor electricity and water provision, as well as high unemployment nearly eight years after the 2003 US-led invasion.

MP Sabah al-Saadi, who turned up at the Baghdad protest, was met with shouts and jeers, with one protester asking: "Why are MPs taking millions of dinars (thousands of dollars) in salaries?"

"You have to cut your salary -- we have nothing! Why are you taking so much money when we have no money?"

But attendance at the Baghdad protest, which had been expected to draw tens of thousands, was partly muted by the fact that several religious leaders asked their followers not to attend.

Radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, in particular, said his partisans should give the government, of which his bloc is a key member, six months to improve its record.

Friday`s rally, like others across the region, was largely organised on social networking website Facebook and billed as Iraq`s "Day of Rage”, in reference to events in Egypt that forced out president Hosni Mubarak.

Mostly young men gathered in Tahrir Square, which shares the name of the square in Cairo where Egyptians rallied to overthrow Mubarak.

"It is now eight years, and they have done nothing for us. Stop the words, we want action!" said Ammar Raad, 33. Press watchdog Reporters Without Borders criticised the vehicle ban, saying television channels would not be able to park their satellite trucks near the protests and thus were unable to broadcast live.

A cousin of Muntazer al-Zaidi, who shot to fame for hurling shoes at then US President George W Bush in 2008, said the reporter had been detained by security forces since Thursday after arriving to join the protests.

Elsewhere in Iraq, vehicle curfews were slapped on the central cities of Samarra, Tikrit, Baquba, and the western city of Ramadi.

North of Baghdad, clashes between security forces and demonstrators in the cities of Mosul and Tikrit each left five people dead, while two others died in the northern town of Hawija.

Two other demonstrators were killed in Samarra, while a 15-year-old boy died in the mostly Kurdish town of Kalar in central Diyala province.

Protesters set fire to provincial government offices in Mosul and the city council building in Hawija, as well as two official buildings in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

In the port city of Basra, the provincial governor resigned after 3,000 protesters gathered, while crowds chanted, "Liar, liar, Maliki!" in the southern cities of Nasiriyah, Karbala and Kut.

In a bid to head off protests, Iraq slashed politicians` pay, increased food funds for the needy and delayed a planned law that would raise import tariffs and, thus, prices of goods in markets.

11-02-26 – Washington Post -- Iraq 'Day of Rage' protests followed by detentions, beatings

By Stephanie McCrummen

Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, February 26, 2011; 1:34 PM

BAGHDAD - Iraqi security forces detained hundreds of people, including prominent journalists, artists and intellectuals, witnesses said Saturday, a day after nationwide demonstrations brought tens of thousands of Iraqis into the streets and ended with soldiers shooting into crowds.

Four journalists who had been released described being rounded up well after they had left a protest at Baghdad's Tahrir Square. They said they were handcuffed, blindfolded, beaten and threatened with execution by soldiers from an army intelligence unit.

"It was like they were dealing with a bunch of al-Qaeda operatives, not a group of journalists," said Hussam al-Ssairi, a journalist and poet, who was among a group and described seeing hundreds of protesters in black hoods at the detention facility. "Yesterday was like a test, like a picture of the new democracy in Iraq."

Protesters mostly stayed home Saturday, following more than a dozen demonstrations across the country Friday that killed at least 29 people, as crowds stormed provincial buildings, forced local officials to resign, freed prisoners and otherwise demanded more from a government they only recently had a chance to elect.

"I have demands!" Salma Mikahil, 48, cried out from Tahrir Square on Friday, as military helicopters and snipers looked down on thousands of people bearing handmade signs and olive branches signifying peace. "I want to see if Maliki can accept that I live on this," Mikahil said, waving a 1,000-dinar note, worth less than a dollar, toward Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's offices. "I want to see if his conscience accepts it."

The protests - billed as Iraq's "Day of Rage" - were intended to call for reform of Maliki's government, not revolution. From the southern city of Basra to northern cities of Kurdistan, protesters demanded the simple dignities of adequate electricity, clean water and a decent job.

As the day wore on, however, the demonstrations grew violent when security forces deployed water cannons and sound bombs to disperse crowds. Iraqi military helicopters swooped toward the demonstrators in Baghdad, and soldiers fired into angry crowds in the protest here and in at least seven others across the country.

And in that way, the day introduced a new sort of conflict to a population that has been targeted by sectarian militias and suicide bombers. Now, many wondered whether they would have to add to the list of enemies their government.

Ssairi and his three colleagues, one of whom had been on the radio speaking in support of protesters, said about a dozen soldiers stormed into a restaurant where they were eating dinner Friday afternoon and began beating them as other diners looked on in silence. They drove them to a side street and beat them again.

Then, blindfolded, they were driven to the former Ministry of Defense building, which houses an intelligence unit of the Iraqi army's 11th Division, they said. Hadi al-Mahdi, a theater director and radio anchor who has been calling for reform, said he was blindfolded and beaten repeatedly with sticks, boots and fists. One soldier put a stick into Hadi's handcuffed hands and threatened to rape him with it, he said.

The soldiers accused him of being a tool of outsiders wishing to topple Maliki's government; they demanded that he confess to being a member of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. Hadi told them that he blamed Baathists for killing two of his brothers and that until recently he had been a member of Maliki's Dawa Party.

Hadi said he was then taken to a detention cell, his blindfold off, where he said there were at least 300 people with black hoods over their heads, many groaning in bloody shirts. Several told him they had been detained during or after the protests.

Hadi, who comes from a prominent Iraqi family, and his colleagues were released after their friends managed to make some well-placed phone calls.

"This government is sending a message to us, to everybody," he said Saturday, his forehead bruised, his left leg swollen.

Although the protests were primarily aimed at reform, there were mini examples of revolution all day Friday, hyperlocal versions of the recent revolts in Egypt, Tunisia and, in a way, Libya. Crowds forced the resignation of the governor in southern Basra and the entire city council in Fallujah. They also chased away the governor of Mosul, the brother of the speaker of parliament, who was there and fled, too.

The protests began peacefully but grew more aggressive. Angry crowds seized a police station in Kirkuk, set fire to a provincial office in Mosul and rattled fences around the local governate offices in Tikrit, prompting security forces to open fire with live bullets, killing four people. Three people were killed in Kirkuk.

Six people were killed in Fallujah and six others in Mosul, according to reports from officials and witnesses in at least seven protests. On Saturday, officials reported additional deaths: a 60-year old man in Fallujah; two people, including a 13-year old boy, in Qobaisa; and two in Ramadi, all in predominantly Sunni Anbar province.

The reports attributed most casualties to security forces who opened fire.

By sundown in Baghdad on Friday, security forces were spraying water cannons and exploding sound bombs to disperse protesters, chasing several through streets and alleyways and killing at least three, according to a witness.

Two people were also reported killed in Kurdistan, in the north.

The day's events posed a unique challenge for the Obama administration, which has struggled to calibrate its responses to the protests rolling across the Middle East and North Africa but has a particular stake in the stability of the fledgling democracy it helped usher in.

Analysts said Friday's developments were at best awkward for the United States.

"Obama wants to convey that yes, Iraq has a number of problems that need to be addressed, but the country is on the right track," said Joost Hiltermann, deputy director for the International Crisis Group's Middle East program. "You can't possibly say, 'Iraq is in a crisis, and by the way, we're leaving.' "

The United States is set to complete the withdrawal of all its troops from Iraq by the end of the year.

The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad played down Friday's violence, as well as the draconian measures Maliki took to stifle turnout.

Iraq's security forces "generally have not used force against peaceful protesters," said Aaron Snipe, an embassy spokesman. "We support the Iraqi people's right to freely express their political views, to peacefully protest and seek redress form their government. This has been our consistent message in Iraq and throughout the region."

The turnout Friday appeared to surprise many of the demonstrators, coming as it did after a curfew on cars and even bicycles forced people to walk, often miles, to participate. There were also pleas - some described them as threatening - from Maliki and Shiite clerics, including the populist Moqtada al-Sadr, to stay home.

Sadr, whose Mahdi Army is blamed for some of the worst sectarian violence of the war, is now part of Maliki's governing coalition and attempting to position himself as both insider and outsider. Sadr's power lies in his rare ability to call hundreds of thousands into the streets, and analysts said he is perhaps concerned about losing his impoverished urban followers to the new and still only vaguely unified protest movement .

By mid-morning in Baghdad, people were walking toward Tahrir Square along empty streets fortified with soldiers in Humvees, snipers on rooftops and mosque domes and checkpoints with X-ray equipment that might reveal a suicide vest.

Young and old, some missing legs and arms, some chanting old slogans of the Mahdi Army, the protesters passed crumbling high-rise apartment buildings webbed with electrical wires hooked to generators. At times, the air smelled like sewage.

"Bring electricity!" they shouted. "No to corruption!"

By afternoon, several thousand people were milling around the square, which is next to a bridge leading to the heavily guarded international zone housing the government's offices. Overnight, security forces had hauled in huge blast walls to block the bridge from protesters, who nonetheless managed to hoist a rope around one of them and pull it down.

"As you can see, they are hiding behind this wall!" shouted Sbeeh Noman, a white-haired engineer who said he walked 12 miles to reach the square and was now heading for the bridge. "The government is afraid of the nation. They have found out that the people have the real power."

11-02-26 - CNN -- More deaths and clashes follow Iraq demonstrations

From Mohammed Tawfeeq, CNN

February 26, 2011 5:25 p.m. EST

Baghdad (CNN) -- At least eight people were wounded Saturday in the Iraqi city of Samarra during clashes between security forces and angry mourners accompanying the caskets of two people killed in protests the day before, according to local police.

Also, two protesters critically wounded in Friday protests in Tikrit died on Saturday, police said. And a teenaged boy died Friday night during protests in Kubaisa, in Anbar province, police said Saturday.

With those deaths, the number of those reported killed in protests across the country rose to 13, according to official accounts.

Since early February, thousands of protesters have participated in a series of demonstrations across the country, apparently inspired by popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Their protests are against corruption, restrictions on freedom of expression, unemployment and poor government services.

In Saturday's incident in Samarra, protesters defied curfew to attend the funerals of two people killed during protests there, chanting "God is great" and "Down with the government."

Security forces battled some of the protesters and later opened fire to disperse the crowd, wounding at least eight, police said.

The death in Kubaisa, a small town about 140 kilometers west of Baghdad, came after security forces opened fire to disperse protesters late Friday night. Later, demonstrators attacked the city council building and set it on fire, police said.

Two protesters critically injured during Friday protests in the Iraqi city of Tikrit died on Saturday, according to police there, bringing to four the number of people who died as the result of clashes with security forces.

In Basra, mourners also held a funeral procession Saturday for a protester killed the day before.

Ali Ghaim al-Maliki, the head of Basra's security council, told reporters Saturday that at least 71 people were wounded in Friday's clashes -- including 51 security forces and 20 anti-government protesters. Most of the injuries in the city, located about 550 kilometers (342 miles) south of Baghdad, occurred during fighting with stones and batons, he said.

In several cities, police said security forces fired at crowds of protesters to disperse them. In Tikrit, police said two protesters were killed and 17 others were wounded during the clashes. In Samarra, two people were killed and seven protesters were injured, police said.

Police said five other demonstrators were killed in the cities of Mosul and Hawijah. Unrest also flared in Baghdad, Falluja, Ramadi and in two towns in the province of Salaheddin.

In a statement released Friday, Human Rights Watch called on Iraqi authorities to investigate the deaths of demonstrators.

"The Iraqi authorities need to rein in their security forces and account for every single killing," said Tom Porteous, the organization's deputy program director. "The security forces need to use the maximum possible restraint in dealing with protesters."

The country's defense ministry has not issued a response to the reported deaths.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had urged citizens not to participate in Friday's planned massive protests, claiming former members of Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorists were plotting to take advantage of the demonstrations to create chaos in the country.

The Iraqi government was formed in December, nine months after an inconclusive national election. This is the second elected government in the nearly eight years after a U.S.-led invasion toppled Hussein.

11-02-27 - Le Monde -- Troisième démission d'un gouverneur en Irak

Troisième démission d'un gouverneur en Irak

LEMONDE.FR avec AFP

27.02.11 Mis à jour le 27.02.11 Mis à jour le 27.02.11

L'Irak est endeuillé par des manifestations de plus en plus violentes depuis début février. REUTERS/ATEF HASSAN

Plombé par ses médiocres résultats en matière d'amélioration des services publics, le gouverneur de Babylone, au sud de Bagdad, Salman al-Zargani, a annoncé dimanche 27 février sa démission. "J'ai décidé de démissionner en raison (...) des problèmes techniques qui empêchent de mener à bien des projets, notamment la construction de routes et de ponts", a-t-il déclaré lors d'une conférence de presse. "Il existe aussi un manque d'harmonie avec les conseillers provinciaux", a-t-il également admis.

Cela faisait six mois que le conseil provincial réclamait son départ, lui reprochant sa lenteur dans l'exécution des projets et dans la lutte contre la corruption. Il s'agit du troisième gouverneur élu en 2009 sur la liste de "l'Etat de droit" du premier ministre Nouri al-Maliki, à quitter ses fonctions depuis début février, quand ont commencé les manifestations contre l'absence de services de base - comme l'électricité et l'eau potable - et la corruption. Maliki a prévenu dimanche qu'il donnait 100 jours au gouvernement pour "faire ses preuves".

NOUVEL APPEL À MANIFESTER

Un appel a été lancé pour de nouvelles manifestations vendredi à travers l'Irak pour exprimer la déception des électeurs près d'un an jour pour jour après les législatives du 7 mars et rendre hommage aux 18 manifestants tués la semaine dernière. "Bonjour les affamés d'Irak. Pour le premier anniversaire des élections, vous et nous serons au rendez-vous du 'vendredi du regret', pour avoir élu des députés qui ne servent pas l'Irak et ne répondent pas au désir des Irakiens", affirme un message publié sur le site Djiaa ("les affamés").

Le gouvernement a été convoqué dimanche pour une réunion exceptionnelle visant à établir un plan de mobilisation sur les services publics, dont l'absence est dénoncée par les manifestants, a affirmé samedi le porte-parole Ali al-Dabbagh, cité par la télévision publique.

11-02-28 - Libération -- Irak al-Maliki met la pression

28/02/2011 à 00h00

Irak al-Maliki met la pression

Le Premier ministre irakien, Nouri al-Maliki, a donné hier cent jours à ses ministres pour faire leurs preuves, à la suite des manifestations de colère vendredi (photo) et samedi dans les principales villes du pays contre l’incompétence du gouvernement. «Un bilan sera alors tiré sur les échecs et les réussites de chacun dans leur mission», a annoncé un communiqué du cabinet du chef du gouvernement à l’issue d’un Conseil des ministres extraordinaire. Les manifestations pour dénoncer l’absence de services publics décents et la corruption ont fait 23 tués depuis un mois. photo Nabil Al-Jurani. AP

11-03-28 - Carnegie -- Iraq Protest, Democracy, and Autocracy - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Popular protests have spread across the Middle East and North Africa and have reached Iraq and Kurdistan. The political circumstances in these regions will determine whether the protests succeed in forcing the government to respond to the demands of its citizens.

Despite its much-publicized, American-installed democratic system, Iraq has proven to be no less vulnerable to street protests than other countries in the region. Since early February, a continuous stream of relatively modest protests has unfolded. Although in a democratic political system citizens are supposedly able to put pressure on the government and hold it accountable by relying on institutional channels, Iraqis appear to have concluded that—like people in authoritarian countries—they will not be heard unless they take to the streets in number. 

It is not surprising that they had reached such a conclusion because, for well over a year, Iraq has been consumed by pure politics devoid of policy: a fierce battle for electoral votes and, even more brazenly, nine months of jockeying by politicians about who would form the government and who would get what, with little regard for the problems of the country or the needs of its citizens. Even the government formed in December remains focused on politics without policies; witness the large amount of legislation that has been accumulating in parliament without being passed.

 

Protests so far have engendered plenty of rhetoric but no significant corrective action on the part of the government. Political repercussions, however, have been significant. The demonstrations have further undermined the already tenuous governing alliance, as parties seek to blame each other and several politicians reconsider their relationship with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. In addition, they have led to the resignation of several provincial governors and to new tensions between the central government and provincial councils. While Maliki’s government does not yet appear seriously threatened, it has been shaken.

In the same period, protest has also broken out in Kurdistan, although it has been largely limited to Suleimaniya. While all demonstrators in Iraq share some similar concerns—particularly about economic hardship and government corruption—protests in the two parts of the country have followed different paths and engendered different government responses. Indeed, the protests highlight the degree to which Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq function separately from each other. Protesters in each part of the country organize independently, and there is no discernible spillover effect from one to the other.

Maliki Turns to Carrots and Sticks

Protests broke out in Iraq on February 4 and continued in the following days with rather small-scale demonstrations in Baghdad, Mosul, Basra, Ramadi, and Diwaniya. Protesters voiced discontent with the government’s failure to improve services—electricity shortages being a major complaint—and the de facto cutbacks (because of unavailability) in the food rations the government had been distributing since well before the U.S.-led invasion. The government’s response was remarkably swift, showing that it was aware—after weeks of protests elsewhere—that small incidents can mushroom into upheavals and that economic demands have political implications. 

First came the economic promises. The parliament’s financial commission declared the government would create 288,000 jobs once the budget was approved—which Maliki confirmed officially several weeks later—and Maliki announced the government would give 15,000 dinars (about U.S.$12) monthly to each citizen to make up for the decrease in food rations. He also promised that electricity shortages would end by winter. 

Then came the political steps, which were modest in terms of substance but belied the government’s fears. In a populist gesture, Maliki immediately declared that he would cut his own salary—believed to be over 41 million dinars (about U.S.$350,000) a year—in half, putting pressure on other officials to do the same. On February 5, he announced that he would not run for a third term—a strange promise because a prime minister does not “run” for office—and that he would seek a constitutional amendment imposing a two-term limit on the position. Meant to allay concerns that Maliki intended to become prime minister for life, the promises showed that he saw himself more as a president with a popular mandate than as a prime minister responsible to the parliament. Maliki and other government officials, including Parliament Speaker Osama Nujeifi, also hastened to reassure the public that, because the government was being responsive, protests need not escalate. 

As protests continued in the following days, government officials made more concessions, at times appearing to compete with each other to demonstrate that they considered the public’s demands justified and would do their best to implement appropriate reforms. Speaker Nujeifi pledged that the parliament would make sure the electricity shortages would be addressed and that the food supplies needed to service the ration cards would be available. Maliki exhorted ministers and governors to mingle with the protesters and listen to their demands and grievances.

But the government also used force to end the protests. When demonstrators in Wasit province set the governor’s house and a section of the governorate building on fire—allegedly after waiting for hours for an official to open the door and hear their demands—security officials reportedly responded by firing live ammunition, killing at least one person. Maliki called for an investigation, but the governor called the protesters thugs with no justifiable demands. Baghdad Operations Command denounced all protests as a Baathist plan to create chaos, while the Baghdad Provincial Council accused al-Qaeda of being behind the demonstrations. 

On February 21, Maliki himself, while continuing to promise to address the grievances swiftly, declared there were too many protests and accused unnamed parties of fomenting unrest to reap unspecified advantages. The next day, he accused the Baathists of being behind the Wasit protest. In another venue, he declared that people with “evil intentions” were determined to destroy the political process and bring back the days of armed groups and foreign intervention. And when protesters called for a “day of rage” on February 25, the Baghdad Operations Command responded by imposing a curfew on vehicular traffic beginning the night before the protest, in an attempt to reduce the number of participants by forcing them to walk long distances.

With the call for a February 25 day of rage, the protest took on a more political tone. It was no longer isolated groups asking for better services, but angry citizens challenging the government. As a result, politicians started positioning themselves to avoid becoming targets. Maliki declared that people had the right to protest but also said that this was not the right time to do so. He warned of infiltrators determined to create violence and appealed to Iraqis not to participate. President Jalal Talabani announced he would defer to the prime minister and kept silent. 

The ministry of interior (still headed by Maliki as caretaker minister) claimed to possess numerous documents showing al-Qaeda intended to commit terrorist acts targeting the protest. In response, eight militant groups—including some suspected of having links to al-Qaeda—announced they would suspend all activities on February 25 to give protesters a chance to demonstrate peacefully. The heads of the Sunni, Shi’a, and Christian endowment offices issued a joint statement pleading with would-be protesters to give the government time to implement the newly approved 2011 budget, which they said would address many of the problems. At the same time, though, some Shi’a religious authorities backed the protest, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who declared through a spokesman that protest was a democratic right—and, indeed, a representative of Sistani even joined the protesters in Baghdad. 

The day of rage turned out to be a relatively minor affair, certainly compared with what was happening elsewhere. Protests took place simultaneously in many cities, but the scale was unimpressive—reports from most cities cited participation only in the hundreds of people; even in Baghdad, a few thousand people, at most, took to the streets. But the protests were definitely angrier and more political than past demonstrations, and so was the government’s response. 

In Baghdad, demonstrators took down some barriers around the Green Zone and proceeded inside, where they denounced the U.S. occupation and the police state in Baghdad. In Nineveh, protesters asked for the resignation of the provincial council and for the reform of the central government, dramatizing their demands by setting fire to the provincial council building; Speaker Nujeifi and his brother, Nineveh Governor Atheel Nujeifi, were inside. Protesters also set fire to a government building in Mosul. 

While February 25 hardly qualified as a day of rage, its political impact was remarkable. First, the protests triggered a wave of resignations, not in the central government but on the part of governors and local police officials. Second, the protests shook the already tenuous governing alliance, leading several parties to put some distance between themselves and Maliki and to reconsider their options. Third, the demonstrations affected the relationship between the central government and the provinces, as Maliki and other officials at the center sought to scapegoat provincial officials, who in turn pushed back.

Beleaguered Officials Resign

Iraq’s political system is less centralized than that of most Arab states. While a trend toward increasing centralization in Baghdad clearly exists—as does the monopolization of power in Maliki’s hands—Iraq has elected provincial councils (the provincial governors are appointed). It also has local councils, although they were formed six years ago in a nondemocratic process that mixed outright appointments with consultation and have not been renewed since. 

The relative decentralization of the system affected the protests as well. The crowds taking to the streets targeted not only issues of common concern throughout the country—from electricity shortages to corruption—but also specific local grievances, often expressed as demands for local officials to resign.

And resign many did, with surprising speed. The day of rage led in short order to the resignation of Governor Shiltagh Abboud in Basra and Governor Salman al-Zirkani in Babil, both State of Law coalition members targeted specifically by the demonstrators. A number of police chiefs and some high-ranking provincial officials around the country quit as well. 

Shifting Center-Periphery Relations

Resignations were only part of the story. The protests also triggered a series of changes—or attempted changes—in the relationship among federal, provincial, and local officials, who all sought to shift blame onto each other for the problems the protesters were denouncing.

Maliki sought to blame the provincial and local councils. Shortly after the day of rage, he called for early provincial council elections, as well as for the renewal of local councils. But provincial council elections had been held in January 2009, and their members, not surprisingly, were united in rejecting early elections, arguing that the dismal status of service delivery was due not to their neglect but to the sluggishness of the ministries and the central government. 

Maliki also tried to force the resignation of the governors of Wasit and Nineveh. He was successful in Wasit, where Governor Latif Hamad al-Turfa (a State of Law member) was forced to resign by the provincial council. The issue there was essentially corruption. In addition to the accusation that his mishandling of earlier protests had led to casualties, allegations of corruption against Turfa had already been referred to the independent Commission on Integrity. 

But Maliki was not successful in Nineveh, where the situation was more complex. First, Governor Atheel Nujeifi, a brother of the parliament speaker, did not belong to Maliki’s State of Law coalition. A Sunni with a strong power base in an important province bordering on Kurdistan, he had joined the Iraqiya coalition in the elections and had opposed Maliki’s bid for a second term as prime minister. Not surprisingly, Nujeifi refused to resign, stating that he would do so only in response to popular demand or if dismissed by the provincial council. 

Nothing would be remarkable in this round of totally predictable reciprocal accusations—after all, nobody wants to take responsibility for failure if he can blame it on someone else. Yet in the context of Iraq and even more broadly of the Arab world, with its highly centralized political systems, the exchange indicated something remarkable: a real degree of decentralization, with provincial governments having their own power bases and thus some independence. There was politics both at the center and in the provinces. 

It was far less clear, however, whether decentralization was also achieving what decentralization is supposed to produce in theory—namely, governance that is responsive to citizens’ demands. Governors and provincial councils have demonstrated clearly that while they will jealously protect their power and autonomy, they have yet to show a commitment to effective governance. 

Part of the shift in center-periphery relations was the renewal of the discussion about forming new self-governing regions like Kurdistan. In early March, twelve of the 28 members of the Najaf provincial council signed a petition demanding the transformation of Najaf from a province into a region similar to Kurdistan. The petition was particularly significant because the signatories belonged to different parties, including the Sadrist Trend, State of Law, Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI), and former prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari’s Reform Party—all Shi’i parties, to be sure, but Najaf is a heavily Shi’i province.

The Iraqi constitution recognizes the right of provinces—individually or as part of a group—to demand recognition as regions, allowing them to enjoy the autonomy and self-government that is present now only in Kurdistan. If at least one-third of a provincial council’s members demand the formation of a new region, the government is obliged to consider it. No such petition had been submitted until the Najaf initiative; an early discussion about the possibility of forming a mega-region comprising nine predominantly Shi’a provinces in the south and center of the country was quickly abandoned. Proponents of a Najaf region claimed that they wanted Najaf to be recognized as a region because they believed it would bring larger financial transfers from the central government to Najaf. Protesters saw this as a political maneuver to avoid responding to their demands and angrily rejected the idea.

Rethinking Alliances

Probably the most important effect of the protests to date has been the shaking up of Iraq’s governing coalition. The government set up in December 2010 after nine months of wrangling following the March 7 parliamentary elections was, from the outset, based on a fragile grand alliance of parties brought together not by a common ideology or a common governing program, but by expediency. Neither Maliki nor Iraqiya leader Iyad Allawi had been able to forge an alliance that provided the required majority of parliamentary seats but excluded their rival. Shi’a parties that had initially rejected Maliki’s bid to remain as prime minister—particularly ISCI and the Sadrist Trend—had not been able to coalesce around an alternative candidate. All parties were thus forced to come together, but they did so without much enthusiasm or conviction. 

By the time the protests started, government formation was still incomplete. Many cabinet posts were occupied by caretaker ministers because the parties had been unable to agree on specific nominees. Most important, Maliki was personally acting as minister of defense, interior, and national security, and he appeared to be in no hurry to cede the posts to permanent appointees. While sources close to the prime minister indicated that the delays were due to the lack of a consensus on the candidates by the various coalitions, Maliki was more blunt, stating that he did not see a consensus developing. And the National Council for Higher Strategic Policies, a mechanism that Maliki had agreed to form as a means to bring a reluctant Allawi into the government, had not yet been set up because there was no agreement about its role. Allawi, slated to head the council, argued that it must be a powerful executive body that could curb the prime minister’s power, but Maliki insisted it would simply be an advisory council. As a result, legislation languished in the Council of Representatives. 

Once the protests started, the rival parties in the governing coalition became more interested in accusing each other of having caused the problems than in working together to find a solution. Most Iraqi politicians probably did not want to see the government fall, but their attempts to deflect the public’s anger from their party by pinning it on another one undermined the government. 

Moqtada al-Sadr was the first important figure to distance himself from the government, declaring on February 14 that Iraqis had the right to demonstrate for better services and against the occupation. The Sadrists were in a difficult position: Having chosen, in the hope of gaining popularity, to control ministries that delivered services to the public, they now risked losing support if blame for poor performance was directed at them.

Criticized by Maliki and others in the State of Law coalition for attacking a government of which he was a part, Sadr did not desist. He announced that his party planned a referendum of sorts on people’s views of the state of services in the country, but he also pleaded with the protesters to give the government six months to address their grievances. If the government did not perform, Sadr said, he would fully support the protesters. 

Not surprisingly, when the survey results were published in mid-March, they indicated that the vast majority of the 3.8 million Iraqis from across the country who allegedly participated agreed that services were in bad shape and that they would support protests if services did not improve in six months. Less flamboyantly, the ISCI and its leader, Ammar al-Hakim, also criticized the government’s handling of the protests and expressed support for the protesters’ demands.

After the February 25 protests and the crackdown by security forces across the country, other members of the National Alliance—the coalition of Shi’i parties that Maliki had succeeded in cobbling together through months of efforts—tried to distance themselves from it without causing a complete break. Allawi announced that he was giving up the leadership of the still-to-be formed Strategic Council (effectively ending his cooperation with Maliki) and traveled to Najaf to meet with Sadr. The Iraqiya spokesman announced that the organization was beginning to coordinate with the Sadrist Trend. 

Desertions also took place inside Maliki’s own State of Law alliance. Safiya Suheil, one of the few women in the organization, resigned shortly after the protests began and declared her independence. And Jaafar Baqir al-Sadr, a son of the late Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, resigned from the Council of Representatives. Jaafar al-Sadr had run for parliament as an independent on the State of Law slate and received the second-largest number of votes in Baghdad. He quit the parliament on February 17, claiming that a few individuals were monopolizing decision making in the State of Law coalition, that the parliament was ineffective because of sectarianism, and that neither the parliament nor the government could devise policies or had a vision for the future. 

Adding to Maliki’s woes, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani openly backed the protesters. He sent a personal representative to participate in the February 25 day of rage and subsequently praised the participants for peacefully asking for their rights. The highly revered religious leader also called for concrete reforms, warning of dangerous ramifications if the government continued down its current path. 

At the time of this writing in mid-March, it was still too early to judge whether the cracks appearing in the governing alliance would widen to the point of causing a collapse. Certainly, tensions were increasing: the distrust of Maliki that delayed for months the formation of the National Alliance had resurfaced; Allawi was sulking; and factions were emerging in Iraqiya. But no party was confident that it would be any more possible to form an alternative governing coalition today than it was in the past. All factions were testing how far they could push each other without provoking a break and causing the government to fall. 

Protests in Kurdistan

Kurdistan has also been shaken by protests initially triggered by a combination of domestic grievances and the so-called demonstration effect of events in Tunisia and Egypt. But the separation between Kurdistan and the rest of the country is so wide that there were no linkages between protesters in the two areas. Protestors in Kurdistan followed their own path as popular discontent about corruption and other problems was superseded by the rivalries among Kurdish parties and blunted by a nationalist appeal by the leadership trying to deflect the protest away from itself.

 

Kurdistan has long been dominated by two political parties, representing two political families and two different sub-regions. The largest party—the Kurdistan Democratic Party, or KDP—is linked to the Barzani family. It controls the presidency of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and alternates with the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or PUK, in naming the KRG’s prime minister. The PUK, linked to the Talabani family, is dominant in Suleimaniya; it also controls the presidency of Iraq, and, currently, the position of prime minister of the KRG. Since 2009, the PUK has been losing support to a new party, Gorran (Movement for Change), which was founded by former PUK member Neshirvan Mustafa. The protests became part of the partisan politics of the regions and the competition among its major political parties. 

Unrest started in Suleimaniya on February 17. The demonstration was called ostensibly as a show of solidarity with the youth of Tunisia and Egypt, but before long the protesters started marching to KDP headquarters, calling for reform and reportedly chanting that “the corrupt must face justice.” It is unclear who took the initiative but it was Gorran, the upstart party, which took the blame for the anti-KDP demonstrations—although it denied playing any role. 

Presumably in response to the protests, Gorran’s headquarters in Irbil were set on fire, as were the headquarters of KNN, a television station owned by Gorran’s leader Mustafa. At the same time, units of the peshmerga, Kurdistan’s defense force, were moved from Irbil to Suleimaniya to avert any possible escalation. The next day, Gorran offices in another northern city, Dohuk, were looted. Journalists sympathetic to the protesters or linked to Mustafa’s media company, Wusha, were also subject to attacks and harassment. Small-scale protests also took place in a few other towns but quickly died down. 

The KDP and PUK tried initially to handle the protests as a security issue. Without naming any organization, they claimed that the protests had been planned deliberately to destabilize Kurdistan. But when protesters started calling for the resignation of Kurdistan Prime Minister Barham Saleh, a PUK member, the two parties changed tactics. Betraying how worried it was about the unrest, the PUK leadership announced that it supported holding early elections and forming an enlarged government, presumably with Gorran’s participation. KRG officials also set up a special committee to study the demands of the protesters and opposition in order to address the problems. 

The promises did not mollify the opposition, however. On March 3, Gorran and two smaller opposition parties boycotted the session of the Kurdish parliament. Clearly alarmed, Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani immediately called for a dialogue with the opposition to devise a reform program. Most recently, he said he would step down if the reform program failed, though his pledge was made only after the nine Kurdish parties—including PUK, KDP, and Gorran—signed an agreement not to mobilize the street against each other. 

Barzani also called for early elections, denying that he intended to remain as president for life. Prime Minister Saleh, a fairly reform-minded member of the PUK, then expressed his willingness to step down if the parliament called on him to do so—probably an empty gesture because the parliament is dominated by the KDP and PUK and thus unlikely to ask for his resignation. Taking advantage of the major parties’ moment of weakness, Gorran continued to push for faster change, rejecting the president’s promises as insufficient and calling for the government to step down without waiting for new elections. 

The Kurdish leadership also played another card to end the political crisis: it sought to unite all Kurds around an issue on which they agreed—the annexation of the disputed town of Kirkuk. On February 27, Barzani ordered two peshmerga units to deploy around Kirkuk, claiming that terrorists had infiltrated the city to organize protests and that the deployment of the peshmerga was necessary to protect residents. Despite calls by Maliki, Arab and Turkoman residents, and even by the United States to demobilize, the KRG refused to withdraw the peshmerga—former KRG prime minister Neshirvan Barzani even threatened to deploy more troops if the situation did not improve. In a totally unexpected move that called into question his allegiance to Iraq as a whole, Talabani on March 8 declared that Kirkuk was “Kurdistan’s Jerusalem” and called for a Kurdish-Turkmen strategic alliance against the “terrorists and new occupiers” of Kirkuk. 

By creating a crisis in Kirkuk, the KDP and the PUK may have succeeded in silencing the Kurdish opposition, which cannot be seen as lukewarm on the issue of Kirkuk. They have also succeeded in reviving the issue of the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, which calls for a referendum in which the residents of Kirkuk will decide whether they want the city to become part of Kurdistan. While beneficial in the short run to the dominant Kurdish parties in their attempt to silence the opposition, in the long run the crisis could dearly cost Iraq as a whole by renewing tensions that threaten the country’s unity. 

Already changes in Kirkuk’s political makeup are occurring as Governor Abdul Rahman Mustafa and Rezkar Ali, the head of the provincial council of Kirkuk, announced their resignations on March 15 for personal reasons. In reality, the resignations were the result of a political agreement between the Kurdistan Alliance and the Turkoman Front, which will now probably head the provincial council. This may be the beginning of the strategic alliance Talabani called for, and will put greater pressure on Maliki to implement Article 140.

Conclusion

The success of protest movements in Tunisia and Egypt in overthrowing two unpopular presidents and launching a process of political transitions has created expectations that other Arab countries would go down the same path. Conversely, when the governments of Yemen, Libya, and Bahrain employed force to suppress uprisings and reestablish control, many observers jumped to the conclusion that the Arab spring was over. Iraq and Kurdistan suggest a different conclusion, namely that protests in each country follow different dynamics, dictated by that country’s specific political situation.

 

Undoubtedly, similar conditions exist in Arab countries that foment protest, and a demonstration effect encourages citizens of one country to follow the example of those in another country. All Arab countries are experiencing a youth bulge; all, including the wealthier ones, have high unemployment rates, particularly among the young. And everywhere, regimes—even those that respect at least some of the forms of democracy—are authoritarian and unresponsive to their citizens. But even if similar factors spark protest, what happens next is driven by different political circumstances.

 

In Iraq, popular protest has been quite limited—although persistent—bringing into the streets crowds that rarely exceeded more than a few hundred people. In a country with an authoritarian, monolithic regime, such protests would have hardly mattered. They probably would have been swiftly dispersed by the authorities, without political consequences. Only much larger protests would have persuaded the government to make concessions. 

 

But Iraq has a different kind of political system. While Maliki has displayed clear and worrisome authoritarian tendencies, he does not preside over a monolithic regime. The governing coalition is divided and, hence, is internally vulnerable. Furthermore, separate centers of power exist at the provincial level. The system is not democratic, but it is pluralistic. As a result, protests that would have had few, if any, repercussions in more monolithic political systems shook the governing alliance in Iraq and affected the relationship between the central government and the provinces. This outcome is not necessarily positive for citizens who want the government to address their problems. The protests, in fact, had the opposite effect: reigniting a political competition devoid of policy content, thus keeping the authorities from addressing the country’s concrete problems.

 

In Kurdistan, popular protest was quickly hijacked, under circumstances that are unclear, by the political parties. Protests thus became a tool that the ruling parties in Kurdistan tried to use against the opposition. When that maneuver failed, the Kurdistan government managed to overwhelm the protests in a wave of Kurdish nationalism. That succeeded in uniting the Kurds but dividing Iraq—with the risk of igniting serious conflict.

 

The story of popular protest is still unfolding in both Iraq and in Kurdistan. It would be unwise to predict the outcome, but it seems safe to conclude that the political circumstances in both regions will preclude either the Tunisia/Egypt scenario or the Yemen/Libya/Bahrain scenario from unfolding. In the end, the outcome will be determined by the political dynamics in Iraq and Kurdistan.