IRAQ: In one 'Black Night,' another Baghdad neighborhood is walled in

By Usama Redha in Baghdad

The vehicles moved through the cratered roads and alleys, looking for a way to leave the neighborhood.

My microbus driver zig-zagged aimlessly, changing course or going straight as other drivers made hand gestures to indicate that the road ahead was closed or open.

After a while we were all moving like a convoy, a convoy of microbuses searching for a way out of the neighborhood.

It was the day after the wall went up. The wall consists of gloomy concrete chunks, 12 feet high, set side by side to enclose my neighborhood.

Seven miles of it went up overnight. We call it "the Black Night."

The wall wasn't erected completely, so my driver hoped to find an opening he could squeeze his microbus through. Eventually he gave up and went to the exit manned by two checkpoints and took his place at the end of a long line. When we finally cleared the checkpoints, the other passengers and I saw fresh graffiti that said, "Rafah Crossing welcomes you."

But we were not in Rafah Camp, we were not in Israel at all; we were in Baghdad and the area was Hurriya.

Hurriya has been a hot zone, used by the Madhi Army militia of the anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada Sadr to launch missiles and mortars against American bases in Baghdad. To avoid capture, the militia would hide among the civilians.

Until Sadr renewed a cease-fire declared last year, there were sometimes several attacks a day.
Recently the attacks diminished as the Madhi Army splintered and declined under the U.S. and Iraqi campaign against militias.

Despite the reduced threat, the Americans informed the municipal council of Hurriya that they intended to wall the suburb on the northwest side of the city, said a council member who declined to be named. The engineers left four entrances.

"But it was not enough because Hurriya is a vast area," the council member said. "We need at least five for the vehicles and six for people."

On the first day of the wall, people made their own entrances by squeezing through the cracks.
The graffiti that quickly showed up expressed several points of view:

"Yes to the government," one person wrote. "Fat people stay out," said another.

But the workers came back that night, and the next day, the cracks were gone.

Abd al-Sahib, 34, an electrical engineer, was outraged.

"This is a war against the people of Hurriya," he said. "I barely could find a hole between a chunk and electricity pole close to my house."

Abu Sara, 26, a civil servant who was visiting his brother in Hurriya, approved.

"I wish they would wall it completely and burn it to the ground because of the bad people," Sara said.

A police officer who asked not to be named took a middle stance.

"The reason behind walling the city is to make it a no-arms zone, to pave the way to bring the displaced people back to their homes."

Whether it is good or bad, this I can say about the wall. It is exhausting me. I now wait at the checkpoint every day, sweltering in a vehicle with no air conditioning as the thermometer rises past 100.

My father has suffered too. When I dropped by to say hello after work, I saw that his legs were bandaged.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I found a good entrance," he said. "But the second day, when I wanted to use it again, it was smaller, and I didn’t have the energy to go looking for another one."

Now some people are starting to pry apart the concrete blocks with tools.

Photo: A child tries -- and fails -- to scale the wall that encloses Baghdad's Hurriya neighborhood. Credit: Usama Redha / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[truth]

sadr is a terrorist who has ethnically cleansed many neighborhoods in baghdad from sunnis and christians. almost all refugees in syria and jordan are sunnis and christians. his militia is doing this in full force not only splinter groups and is recieveing orders directly from sadr, so dont lie openly to the millions of iraqis and arabs who are outraged at the massacres of innocent civilians because of their sect. the mahdi army is an iranian proxy, an islamist extremist group which the americans do suport but will eventually switch sides on when they get to powerful which they have been doing latly supporting the awakening councils. dont ever support a group because of their sect affiliation support them for ideas and actions

[lydia]

Obviously the same mob responsible for turning Palestine into a Ghetto.Building similar walls to those used by the Israel to steal more Palestinian land.

[Shirin]

Thank you, Leyla, for pointing out that Iraqis have no history of serious internal conflict prior to 2003. That is absolutely true. Iraqis have lived together comfortably and interacted and yes, intermarried for more than a thousand years. It is the U.S. invasion and occupation, and the policies and tactics used by the invaders and occupiers to divide and weaken Iraqi society, plus the conduct self-interested militias, including sectarian death squads run by the Iraqi make-believe government that have caused the current internal conflict.

In any case, the killing is not taking place at the level of the society. The Iraqis doing the killing are members of militias, including government-affiliated militias, criminal gangs, and the Iraqis serving as proxy forces for the occupation who are doing the killing. The rest of Iraqis are just trying to survive, and help each other survive.

Iraqis have never needed walls before, and they do not need them now. The walls are only being used to further divide Iraqis from each other.

[Sporty]

Listen to the arrogant Americans shooting their mouths off about a country which has done nothing to us, yet we illegally invaded them as Hitler did in his time , torturing , lying and stealing the resources of others.

What is the matter your stock in the oil companies and war contractors still not risen enough for you.

Their only problem is they had Oil and our corporate oil companies wanted it.

So we illegally and criminally invade their country , kill million of their citizens , run millions across the bordens into other countries while calling ourselves christians and stating that we believe in democracy and the rule of law and had concerns for the people we were destroying for power and greed.

Bush , Cheney and our government doesn't even believe in our constitution , bill of rights , democracy and laws, how can anyone even come close to believing their lies , deceit , proganda and BS.

If we were so d... high and mighty then we would not be calling them foul names and agreeding with this illegal invasion of their country.

You are greedy and cut from the same mold as these criminals which has stolen our elections and divided our country so they can take full control of it..

You are the evil in which you call others.

[Leyla]

to 3489

Iraqis did not kill each other for 1400 years , they even lived in the same streets, buildings, intermarried etc.. the mercenaries and the US press divided them slowly and recruited criminals to bomb each community so they can blame each other , America did want a civil war , that s the only way they can justify a long stay and reap benefits from oil plundering . Iraqis are not stupid many are writing and speaking about it openly . the Mossad have contributed to that too . Ben Gurion was at the time speaking about diving ALL arab countries on the basis of ethnicity and let them fight and kill each other . they wont rest until they do it in iran , syria etc....

[Shirin]

I am very disappointed to see here the use of the inaccurate propaganda phrase "anti-American cleric Muqtada Sadr. Sadr is not anti-American, he is a nationalist who is opposed to the US occupation of his country. There is an important difference there.

[Shirin]

Aron, Iraq's make-believe prime minister Maliki is not the one who is ordering and building the walls, it is the Americans under the direction of David Petraeus who is responsible for all those lovely decisions about how Iraqis need to live (or try to). Maliki has no actual power or ability to do anything much in Iraq.

[Aron G.]

iraqi tragedy played by americans. if iraq was truely free democratic, how can this happen? In communis China they don't build walls around their own people, but I guess the Maliki government thinks this is not a human rights issue. Who wants to live walled in? This war is turning not just our allies, but the people we are trying to "free" against us too.

[3489]

If the Iraqi people would quit fighting and killing each other and get their act together you wouldn't need walls. Quit whining and grow up! Be part of the solution and not the problem.

[Jacob Freeze]

This is the Surge in action, and it's obvious why it "succeeds." Turn Baghdad into a stinking zoo, make it almost impossible to move, and almost all signs of life disappear, including resistance to the American occupation.