In Iraq, perceptions drive sectarian bloodshed
Tue Jul 12, 2005
By Waleed Ibrahim and Maher Mohammed
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A Shi'ite family is massacred in their beds in east Baghdad.
The next day, across town, Sunni labourers are snatched from a hospital by police and then suffocate in a metal container.
Confusing accusations over these cases flew in both of Iraq's main religious communities on Tuesday; but only one thing seems certain -- yet more violence with a sectarian tinge.
The two tales of fresh bloodshed splashed across the front page of Iraq's leading newspaper Azzaman and widely reported elsewhere may not be directly linked to religious conflicts.
But that counts for little in a country where perceived threats, as much as real ones, seem to be driving tit-for-tat killings and have heightened fears that, but for the presence of U.S. troops, civil war would be at hand.
This week many Iraqis focused their anger on gunmen who killed a Shi'ite family of nine as they slept in their Baghdad home early on Sunday. Among the victims was a mother, her two daughters and four sons, relatives said.
As people in Baghdad digested that bloodshed, news of 12 deaths among the Sunni Muslim minority generated more fury and accusations of Shi'ite death squads operating in the police.
Workmen being treated in hospital after being shot -- by U.S. troops, according to relatives -- along with family members who were visiting them found themselves blindfolded by police and taken to suffocate in a metal container, relatives said.
"The police commandos have become like a well. Anyone they grab never makes it out," said Salaam al-Zubaee, whose brother and cousins were among those who died.
"They blindfolded them and tied their hands behind their backs and electrocuted them. The only survivor told us that they even listened to music while the 12 banged their heads against the metal container pleading for help," said Zubaee.
"When we reached Yarmuk hospital we found their bodies bruised with blood flowing from their noses, ears and mouths."
Police and Interior Ministry officials declined comment, although hospital staff said the ministry was investigating.
The new, Shi'ite-led government has acknowledged that abuses by police take place but insist they are curbing them.
The government and its U.S. sponsors hope to tame a Sunni insurgency by giving members of the minority community a share of power. But those promises have not eased the killing.
While suicide bombings have killed thousands, smaller scale slayings can inflame as much passion, partly because the family, tribal and sectarian origins of the victims are clearer.
OUTRAGE
Emotions ran high at Tuesday's funeral for the Sunnis in Zaydaan village near Abu Ghraib, a Sunni stronghold west of Baghdad. Weeping mourners carrying coffins yelled "God is Greatest".
The Sunni Iraqi Islamic Party condemned the violence.
"Today the whole world watched the ugliest crime committed by Iraqi police when they detained a number of citizens inside a police truck for 14 hours," it said in a statement.
The deaths alarmed a prominent Shi'ite cleric in parliament. Hussein al-Sadr stood up in the chamber on Tuesday and asked Interior Minister Bayan Jabor for answers.
In the Baladiyat district of Baghdad, the father of the Shi'ite children who were killed in their sleep along with their mother said he had no enemies despite his losses. His 10-year-old son Isa is in hospital with a bullet in his head.
"I hold criminals responsible for this awful act. I ask does any religion permit such a crime?," said Hussein Tarish as people visited him in a tent to offer condolences.
"I blame the Sunni and Shi'ite clerics for not condemning this. If the government ... and the National Assembly don't have the ability to control the country let them quit," an emotional Tarish shouted. "This is a disgrace."
The slaughter may have been triggered by a comment in the local barber shop: neighbours and police said a local barber insulted a member of the Tarish family about a Shi'ite motif on his mobile telephone. The barber was found dead five days later.
"So far we and the family are not accusing anyone but we have an indication that the case is related to sectarian motives," said a police officer at the local station.
A Western diplomat in Baghdad said: "Obviously local scores are being settled. It's an issue that worries us."
He said abuses by police were also a problem.
After decades of tyranny, human rights had to be respected, the diplomat said: "But it's not going to happen overnight."
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