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is not something ''new'', isn't it? minority christian always be the victim
of oppresion and condemnation with justification called '' in the name of
religion''...
"Ambon"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
cc:
10/21/2004 06:13 Subject: [ppiindia] Iraqi Christians
need protection, too
AM
Please respond to
ppiindia
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FJ22Ak01.html
Iraqi Christians need protection, too
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - While the successful penetration by suicide bombers, who
killed
10 people, including four United States nationals, of the carefully guarded
"Green Zone" in downtown Baghdad grabbed headlines here this week, another
measure of the deteriorating security situation in Iraq came from a more
surprising source.
In an article published Thursday in the online edition of the right-wing
National Review, an influential neo-conservative activist appealed to the
Bush administration to create a "safe haven" within Iraq specifically for
Iraq's estimated 800,000 Christians, or "Chaldo-Assyrians", 40,000 of who
are believed to have left the country since the US invasion in the face of
growing persecution.
The creation of such a zone, which is contemplated under the interim
constitution approved by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority earlier
this year, could curb the growing exodus and might even persuade some who
left to return, according to the author, Nina Shea, the director of Freedom
House's Center for Religious Freedom.
"The community needs US help to create such a district, which should
encompass the traditional community villages located near Mosul, in the
Nineveh Plains," according to Shea. "They believe that thousands of their
members who have fled to other countries in the Middle East over the
decades
but are not permanently resettled could be persuaded to return to such a
secure place."
She also called on the State Department to begin providing reconstruction
aid directly to the Christian community in the region, and not just to Arab
and Kurdish groups living in the region.
Calling the Chaldo-Assyrians the "canaries in the coal mine for the Great
Middle East", Shea, who enjoys good relations with the Bush White House,
noted that "the extent to which they are tolerated in the new Iraq is being
watched closely by Maronites of Lebanon, the Copts of Egypt, and other
non-Muslim populations in the region." Like the Chaldo-Assyrians, the
Maronites and Copts are Christian.
Her appeal echoed those of a number of Iraqi-American Christian groups,
which met here earlier this month in a concerted effort to draw attention
to
life in their co-religionists' communities, which has deteriorated sharply
since the US invasion in March 2003.
"Widespread and systematic abuse of human rights and targeted killings of
Christians continue every day in Iraq, mainly in the Kurdish-controlled
areas in the North, Mosul and Baghdad," asserted a letter to the US
Congress
sent by the 70-year-old Assyrian American National Federation late in
September. "As a result of such atrocities, some 40,000 Assyrians have
already fled Iraq since July of this year," it added.
"Iraq, once the center of the earliest Christian churches in the world, may
soon be cleared of its Assyrian population, the only indigenous people of
that country - ancient Mesopotamia," warned the letter, which also called
for Congress to earmark 5% of total reconstruction aid for Iraq "for the
safety of the Christian population and the rebuilding of their villages".
Communities of Christians have inhabited modern-day Mesopotamia virtually
since the dawn of Christianity 2,000 years ago. Most are Chaldeans, or
Eastern-rite Catholics, whose native tongue is Aramaic, the language of
Jesus.
Most of the other Christians are Assyrian, who belong to different
denominations, including the Ancient Church of the East, the Syrian
Orthodox
Church, the Chaldean Church and Protestant churches. The remainder consist
primarily of Syrian, Armenian, Greek Catholics; Armenian and Greek
Orthodox;
and, Mandaeans, who are followers of John the Baptist.
Historically, the Chaldeans and Assyrians have been concentrated in the
Mosul area, although many left seeking economic opportunities in other
regions. During successive periods of "Arabization" in the post-colonial
era, and particularly under Ba'athist rule, some Christian communities,
like
other non-Arab groups, particularly Kurds, were displaced in order to make
way for Arabs, especially from the southern part of the country.
According to the last national census in 1987, Iraq had some 1.4 million
Christians, but most sources estimate that 800,000 at most remain in the
country of some 23 million today. Most of the emigration took place after
Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when UN sanctions brought intense
economic hardship on middle-class families, in particular, a
disproportionate number of which are Christian.
As the sanctions continued to weaken the middle class during the 1990s,
tens
of thousands of Christians emigrated to nearby Arab countries, notably
Syria
and Lebanon, Europe and North America.
Under former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, Christians, particularly
Assyrians, who were sometimes referred to as Christian Kurds, suffered from
forced relocations in the north, and, like Kurds and Shi'ites, were banned
from organizing political parties.
At the same time, they were welcomed into the Ba'ath Party (which was
co-founded by a Christian) and were permitted to rise, as did then prime
minister Tariq Aziz, to senior posts. The regime did not interfere with
their religious practice, and, in some cases, even provided subsidies to
churches.
With the rise of Islamist sentiment, even before the US-led invasion,
Christians grew increasingly concerned about their fate in Iraq. Popular
pressure induced the regime to adopt Islamic slogans, build mosques and
even
introduce a ban on alcohol, which hit the almost exclusively Christian
liquor-store and restaurant owners particularly hard.
On the eve of the war, Pope John Paul II, along with a number of Iraqi
Christian clerics, made private and personal appeals to the Bush
administration not to go to war, in major part because of their fears that
the aftermath could expose the community to much greater risks and
persecution.
"The concern is that Christians will disappear," Bishop Pierre Whalon, an
episcopal official working with the Chaldean church, told the London-based
Financial Times on the eve of the war. "The present regime gives them some
tolerance; who knows what the next one will do."
Those fears, which were broadcast before the war by US Christian
denominations but pooh-poohed by the neo-conservatives and other hawks
before the war, now appear to have been well grounded.
Christian liquor-store and restaurant owners and their families have been
attacked - sometimes fatally - in predominantly Muslim towns and cities,
while last August five churches in Baghdad and Mosul were blown up in a
co-coordinated series of bombings. At the same time, wealthier Christian
families have been targeted for kidnapping by criminal gangs.
Christians have also come under attack by Kurdish militias in the north,
including Mosul itself, where Kurds have clashed frequently with Arabs and
other minorities as they have tried to extend their control to "Arabized"
areas, which they consider to have been traditionally Kurdish.
"They worry that this may be the beginning of either a jihad by Muslim
extremists or an ethnic-cleansing campaign by Kurds, with whom they live in
close proximity, or both," wrote Shea, who said the administration "cannot
afford to be indifferent to the persecution facing the Chaldo-Assyrian
religious minority".
The result has been an exodus of an estimated 40,000 Christians so far,
most
of who have emigrated to neighboring Syria. At the same time, many others
from Baghdad and the south have reportedly tried to move back to their
traditional homeland near Mosul, particularly around Dahouk, Zakho and
Irbil.
It is this area that, according to Shea and the Christian Iraqi-Americans,
should be carved out and given special protection as contemplated by
section
53(d) of the CPA-approved Basic Law, on which the interim Iraqi government,
however, has not yet taken a position.
(Inter Press Service)
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