Efforts to reintegrate the cadre of the former ruling Baath Party in Iraq split opinion while security gains made remain fragile, Dina Ezzat reports from Baghdad "It has been a very long time since we came to this promenade. It has been years; indeed, our first time since the early months after the war on Iraq," said Ghofrane, an Iraqi woman in her mid-30s. Ghofrane and her husband and three children -- aged four to nine -- were spending a Tuesday afternoon in a park by the Degla River in Baghdad. Ghofrane's children, including Sarah, her eldest, did not seem aware of -- or at least fully conscious of -- the fact that their fun could suddenly, and mortally, be interrupted by violence or an explosion. "We are here to play a little. We don't get to play much. We just go to school and rush back home. It is a nice change," Sarah said while running around the run-down park. Ghofrane recalls that it was once beautiful, in times long past. Indeed, the park used to be the main attraction of Abu Nawas Street -- once a hub of social activities in Baghdad. Iraqis frequented this park fearlessly until the few months leading to the US war and subsequent occupation of Iraq in spring 2003. It was then abandoned and as the acts of violence turned into a daily occurrence the road, across the Degla River from the notorious but well protected Green Zone, was zoned off to pedestrians. "We have been through difficult times, really difficult times, but the last three years were the toughest. Things seem somewhat peaceful now, but of course we have to be very careful because we know that things could get bad again," Ghofrane said as she kept a watch over her children, even as her husband was there for them. "If I compare the situation now to what it was last year around the same time, then I have to say it is much, much better. It was impossible to be here a few months ago." Ghofrane is not sure about the future, especially with the upcoming withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. As for many Iraqis of her generation, this Iraqi woman carries the heavy weight of consecutive woes of dictatorship and foreign occupation that makes it difficult for her to be forthcoming in expressing any views that might be interpreted as political. "If the Americans withdraw really and fully then, well, it might be quite problematic and things might get unstable again," she said while trying to avoid the look of warning from her husband who put a stop to her words. Sarah, however, was not to be stopped. "I am too afraid to go anywhere by myself and I don't even go to school by myself. I am always escorted and we don't go out much," she said. The few families around Abu Nawas park testify that fear still reigns over Baghdad. "This was once a very busy street. It was once difficult for someone to identify a friend among the crowd. But now there are only a few families," said Haider, a merchant vendor of kahi, a type of waffle that Iraqis eat with sweet syrup, and sometimes cream. Haider said that his once successful business on the corner of Abu Nawas Street was harshly interrupted by waves of sectarian violence that besieged large parts of Iraq, especially its capital, in the wake of the US occupation of the country and subsequent strife that divided the population on a sectarian and ethnic bias: Shia, Sunni and Kurds. "These divisions were not strictly political, and they were not strictly a battle over power. These divisions are deep; they reflect serious intolerance that is bound to poison our lives for decades," said Alaa, an Iraqi social researcher in his late-30s. "Teenagers, Sunni or Shia, who saw relatives being slaughtered on ethnic basis will not recover easily from these wounds, and kids whose parents were forced by families to divorce, to end mixed Shia-Sunni marriages, will not be able to overcome the trauma of their confused identity for a long time," he added. Alaa, Ghofrane, Haider and Walid, a merchant vendor of candies, are all reluctant to reveal their last names for the obvious purpose of hiding their ethnic or sectarian identity. Even the first names they gave might not necessarily be accurate. "The ethnic stigma is not as harsh as it used to be in the worst years of sectarianism, especially 2005 to 2007, but people are still uptight. If someone is called Omar he might feel inclined to hide his name, so as not to reveal his Sunni identity, and if it is Ali he would equally want to hide his Shia identity." Walid now sells his chocolate and candy bars at a stable spot by the cornice of the Degla River. "This is the first month to regain the spot I had held for years before the terrible times of violence," he said. He identifies receding sectarianism as the reason for the apparent -- even if fragile -- security. But he does not pretend that sectarianism is over, and he cannot address a regular client, even a child, by his first name. It is a question of privacy not social courtesy. "It was never particularly typical in Iraqi culture to use first names. But now it is not just about the common culture; it is the ethnic fear," Alaa observed as he chewed his kahi and strolled by the Degla River. He added that this is especially the case in mixed ethnic neighbourhoods, like Al-Keradah. Al-Keradah was once the scene of sectarian killings, among Sunnis and Shias, to the point that the Christians living in Al-Keradah fled for fear of being caught in the crossfire. Today, as the violence seems to have receded, many of the houses of this neighbourhood are still boarded up as their residents have yet to come back. "We are trying to get as many Iraqis back home. We are trying to provide guarantees for personal safety and professional security to get Iraqis back. We started to get some to come back home, but we still have a very long way to go before we get them all back," said Iraqi Minister for Refugees and Migration Sultan Abdel-Samad last week in Baghdad. Abdel-Samad was speaking to the press following a meeting with Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa, who visited Baghdad, Najaf and Sulimaniyah for four days last week for talks with top officials, as well as religious, political and tribal leaders. Abdel-Samad said he asked Moussa to support the "endeavour of the Iraqi government to get Iraqis back home", even if later rather than sooner. According to Saleh Al-Motlak, leader of the National Dialogue Front, return will only happen if Iraqis in the Diaspora are confident that they are not coming back to be targeted, physically, politically or professionally. As such, Al-Motlak said after talks with Moussa in Baghdad that this return would have to include Baathists, but obviously not the Baath Party. The Baath Party was the ruling force during the years of Saddam Hussein. Many Iraqis, across the socio-economic -- and to an extent ethnic -- board, willingly or forcibly joined the party, either out of conviction, professional or social ambition, or simply out of fear that by not joining the party a citizen would be deemed as opposed to the state, which would lead to consequences, and even persecution. During the rule of Saddam Hussein, top professionals and top army and police officers were by definition, and not necessarily by choice, Baathists. "The Baathists were the top cadres in Iraq. They were Sunnis and Shias alike, but they were secular. They were men and women of different socio-economic background. Their political ideology did not count as much as their faith in Iraq and in the strength of Iraq," said Alaa. According to Al-Motlak, "it was the Baathists who built a strong Iraq during the past 35 years, prior to the US occupation of the country. It was the Baathists who built a strong Iraq that Iran had to take seriously, very seriously." Today, some Iraqis, especially Sunnis, complain that Iranian intelligence agents are openly and freely acting across Iraq to serve Iranian purposes that might align to an Iraqi -- or even Arab -- agenda. The debate on whether or not Iraq under the rule of Baathists was stronger or as strong as Iran is getting increasingly popular in Baghdad. This is partially due to a recent call made by the Shia -- and clearly pro-Iranian -- coalition of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki for Baathists "who were not involved in killing Iraqis and who are willing to play by the rules of the new Iraqi constitution" to be immediately included in a process of national reconciliation. "Iraq is certainly moving towards achieving its target of pursuing reconciliation and abandoning sectarianism," Al-Maliki said in Iraq last week following talks with Moussa. Senior Iraqi diplomatic sources in Baghdad told Al-Ahram Weekly that Al-Maliki had already sent clear messages to some top Baathist figures who are currently residing in nearby Arab capitals asking them to return to Iraq and negotiate a power sharing formula that would accommodate their wishes without bending the rules of the "New Iraq" that leaders of the country, especially Shia and Kurds, insist returning Baathists would have to observe. Interpretations of the intentions behind Al-Maliki's call for reconciliation vary, depending on political and ethnic background. Some suggest that the US has urged, or pressured, the Iraqi prime minister to "recruit a few good Baathists" in order to bring the cadres -- especially in the army, police and intelligence -- back who are capable of holding the line that Washington believes Tehran has crossed in Iraq. Others suggest that the invitation comes as part of a deal struck earlier between Al-Maliki and some top Baathist figures who ran the "anti-American resistance" and who agreed to suspend their militant activities in return for a limited formula of power sharing. Arab lobbying is also accredited for turning the tide towards the Baathists, though not out of sympathy for Baathist ideology but rather out of fear that the growing Shia and Kurdish influence over Iraq is all but stripping the country of its Arab identity. "It was unhealthy from the beginning to suggest that Baathists should be eliminated from society simply because if you cut the Baathist cadres out one effectively cuts out a generation that accessed quality education and that held a firm faith in the regional role of Iraq," Al-Motlak said following talks with Moussa in Baghdad. Al-Motlak, like other top Iraqi officials who received the Arab League secretary-general, had no words to offer on the role of the Arab organisation or some of its key member states, especially in the Arab Mashreq, in reintegrating the "good Baathists". Hoshyar Zebari, the Kurdish foreign minister of Iraq, said that the Arab League and Arab states have an important role to play in supporting the ambitious reconciliation process designed and pursued by Al-Maliki. Adel Abdel-Mahdi, vice-president of Iraq, stated during a joint press conference with Moussa that the Arab League should support Iraqi reconciliation efforts with an eye on the fact that nothing in the Iraqi constitution eliminates the right of former Baathists to seek political engagement in the "New Iraq" on the understanding that the Baath Party will not reform. Even Amar Al-Hakim, son of Abdel-Aziz Al-Hakim, leader of the openly pro-Iranian Supreme Islamic Council, a major Shia bloc, said in a joint press conference with Moussa that the return of cadres of Baathists "who were not involved in abusing, persecuting or killing Iraqis" is tolerable, but "never the return of Saddamists". Moussa for his part praised the "widening and more embracing scope of reconciliation that has become more inclusive than exclusive and that is moving towards the attraction rather than the uprooting of the Baathists". The secretary-general, however, would not commit himself, or the Arab League, to a specific role in re-engaging the Baath. The League, Moussa said, would support the expanding reconciliation process, but the "components of reconciliation are strictly the choices of the Iraqi people". Moussa's cautious statement is partially due to the sensitivity of the issue. But it is also due to the fact that Arab states have yet to decide how far and what way they want to support this process that does not command the full agreement of all Iraqi political powers. Indeed, following talks with Moussa, Salah Al-Obaidi, spokesman for the Sadr Camp, an influential Shia bloc opposed to that of Al-Hakim, criticised the scheme to re-engage Baathists. The currently promoted scheme, Al-Obaidi said, is not about including the cadres of the Baath "who are currently involved in ruling Iraq", but rather "the re-inclusion of certain leaders of the higher echelon of the Baath Party that caused many segments of the Iraqi people much suffering". Al-Obaidi called for "reconsideration" of the scheme to re-engage the Baath and said that any opening in that direction should be conditional. "There should be enough guarantees that those Baathists would not attempt to orchestrate a coup that would get them back in control and deny Iraqis the freedom that they gained in the new Iraq and that they much deserved," he added. According to Al-Obaidi, as well as Sunni figure Adnan Al-Duleimi, the focus of reconciliation for the government of Al-Maliki, should be the liberation of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of different political and ethnic backgrounds who are currently held in the jails run either by the Iraqi government or the US army. Speeding up the reconciliation process and improving the combat readiness of the reconstituted Iraqi army and police is a priority for Maliki who is counting down to the first pull out of US troops from Iraq next September, and who is promising that the Iraqi government will be in a position to take care of security and stability henceforth. "We are up to the mission," he said. During talks with the Iraqi prime minister, and with Iraqi President Jalal Talibani and influential Shia leader Ali Al-Sistani, Moussa promised maximum Arab support for Iraq as "it slowly regains its wellbeing". The Arab League chief sounded cautiously hopeful about the prospects of sustainable Iraqi reconciliation. "It is coming along, but the way for Iraq to regain its full strength is still long," he said near the end of his visit. For Ghofrane, as for other average Iraqis who spoke to the Weekly in Baghdad, it is fine for the road to be long so long as "there are no serious setbacks that would take us again to recent terrifying scenes of bloodshed". This week, Iraqis were reminded of such scenes when a suicide bomber killed 25 and wounded 45 in Diyala Province north of Baghdad. Many could not but hold their breaths, hoping that the violence of past months will not pick up again.
