AnCaps
ANARCHO-CAPITALISTS
Bitch-Slapping Statists For Fun & Profit Based On The Non-Aggression Principle
 
HomePortalGalleryRegisterLog in

 

 Disputes over vacant homes in Iraq often turn violent

View previous topic View next topic Go down 
AuthorMessage
CovOps

CovOps

Female Location : Ether-Sphere
Job/hobbies : Irrationality Exterminator
Humor : Über Serious

Disputes over vacant homes in Iraq often turn violent Vide
PostSubject: Disputes over vacant homes in Iraq often turn violent   Disputes over vacant homes in Iraq often turn violent Icon_minitimeMon Feb 18, 2008 6:10 am

Tens of thousands of Iraqis displaced by the war have difficulty finding a safe place to live. U.S. forces aren't allowed to intervene.

BAGHDAD -- When Muhannid Halki's father was killed in sectarian fighting, the twentysomething car mechanic fled with his pregnant wife and young child to a vacant home in what he viewed as a safer neighborhood of the capital.

But now, less than two years later, Halki is dead, a victim of the sometimes violent disputes that occur when squatters move into homes vacated in the turmoil since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Such real estate free-for-alls pit dweller against would-be dweller, with the most well-connected and best-armed often prevailing.

Halki, a Sunni Arab, had moved in 2006 from the capital's Shiite-dominated district of Hurriya to a vacant home a few miles south in the mostly Sunni neighborhood of Adil. But with improved security in the capital, tens of thousands of displaced Iraqis are returning to their homes, and in some cases, new rounds of squatters are moving in, backed by the muscle of the Shiite-dominated security forces.

Under official policies, neither American military nor Iraqi security forces in Baghdad are allowed to intervene in the subsequent disputes.

But some Iraqi soldiers have disregarded the orders, helping Shiite families claim homes by falsely detaining Sunnis or escorting moving trucks into hostile neighborhoods.

American officers say they are deeply worried about the development but are limited in what they can do.

"We can't become the landlords of Baghdad," said Col. Edward Chesney, who commands an American battalion in west Baghdad.

'Iraq's Beverly Hills'

Residents of Adil once proudly introduced the district to Americans as "Iraq's Beverly Hills" because of its large white-washed mansions. But the wealth also allowed residents to vacate in droves, and their flight to foreign countries made Adil a haven for displaced Sunnis.

About 70% of occupied homes in Adil now have squatters, renters or guards as residents, but the lack of reliable documentation makes it almost impossible to draw lines among those groups, said U.S. Army Capt. Mark Battjes.

"Any or all of them could intend to stay in the homes for the foreseeable future without any payment to the owner, and the law is on their side," said Battjes, who commands soldiers just south of Adil, citing a Baghdad local government policy not to remove displaced Iraqis until they have another home, to reclaim or resettle.

For now, the issue of displaced Iraqis' property rights is largely in the hands of neighborhood advisory councils, low-level political bodies that serve the Baghdad City Council and were established during the early months after the American-led invasion.

The councils attempt to keep records of homeowners, renters and squatters and to facilitate rent payments when possible. But because of jurisdictional boundaries, the councils are not able to play a substantial role in returning the displaced to their rightful homes.

Human rights groups estimate that 1.2 million people have been displaced within Iraq over the last two years and that the need to peacefully resettle them swiftly is crucial. But nearly half of those displaced say they do not intend to return to their old homes and neighborhoods, and that number is expected to increase, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration.

Even so, longtime residents consider the newcomers unwelcome guests. Many blame them for the violence in their neighborhoods, calling them criminals, religious extremists or shrugi, a pejorative implying low class or rural.

"If we had known the problems that this has caused, we would have left them in the street so that the government would have dealt with the problem from the outset," said Basil Zaki Shaker, a 44-year-old electrical engineer and longtime resident of the nearby Jamia neighborhood.

Shaker, a Sunni, said some newcomers had opened small vegetable stalls on the sidewalk, a sight unfamiliar on the residential streets in Adil before the war.

"Of course, we would like to remove them, but the law does not allow this, and we would probably be killed," said Shaker, chairman of Jamia's neighborhood council. "If you are deprived of a home, a wife, a dog, you have nothing to lose."

Neighborhood councils have such limited power that in some cases the leaders are themselves displaced. Ahmad Sabih Tawfeeq, a Sunni and council chairman in the mixed neighborhood of Mansour, three miles from the high-security Green Zone, fled to an undisclosed Baghdad district after members of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr's Mahdi Army militia killed his brother and put a $10,000 bounty on his head.

"There is so much sadness in me," he said, "that I cannot concentrate on one thing. I don't smoke, I don't drink, but sometimes for no reason, I begin to cry."

More here
Back to top Go down
 

Disputes over vacant homes in Iraq often turn violent

View previous topic View next topic Back to top 
Page 1 of 1

Permissions in this forum:You cannot reply to topics in this forum
 :: Anarcho-Capitalist Categorical Imperatives :: AnCaps On Rights, Individualism & Lifestyles-