Sunni "gated community" controversy

"The U.S. military is walling off at least 10 of Baghdad's most violent neighborhoods and using biometric technology to track some of their residents, creating what officers call 'gated communities' in an attempt to carve out oases of safety in this war-ravaged city.
The plan drew widespread condemnation in Iraq this past week. On Sunday night, Prime Minister Nouri-al Maliki told news services that he would work to halt construction of a wall around the Sunni district of Adhamiyah, which residents said would aggravate sectarian tensions by segregating them from Shiite neighbors.
. . . The tactic is part of the two-month-old U.S. and Iraqi counterinsurgency plan to calm sectarian strife and is loosely modeled after efforts in cities such as Tall Afar and Fallujah, where the military says it has curbed violence by strictly controlling access. The gated communities concept has produced mixed results in previous wars -- including failure in Vietnam, where peasants were forcibly moved to fortified hamlets, only to become sympathizers of the insurgency.
. . . [S]outhern Ghazaliyah is a base for al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent groups." [1]

"The barrier quickly drew criticism from Adhamiyah residents, who . . . likened it to the barriers Israel has constructed around the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, which are much-maligned in the Arab world. Other critics joined the outcry, among them human rights activists and representatives of anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, one of whom told reporters in Najaf that the walls amounted to a 'siege of the city.'
. . . Dawood al-Azami, deputy director of the Adhamiyah local council, said 90 percent of respondents to a survey distributed in the neighborhood on Sunday were strongly opposed to the wall, the Associated Press reported.
U.S. military officials say many residents of the city's newly walled-off neighborhoods are pleased with the barriers. Mohammad al-Kabi [a building contractor] is one.
. . . Checkpoints and road closures already have severed his ties to friends and business partners on the other side of wall, he said. There used to be daily clashes on his street. Now, with the wall going up, he said he feels more protected.
'There are no other options,' said Kabi, a Shiite Muslim. 'It has reduced the violence. The snipers are not shooting at us anymore.' [2]

"The strong reaction underscores the sense of powerlessness Iraqis feel in the face of the American military, whose presence is all the more pervasive as an increasing number of troops move on to the city’s streets.
And it has proved to be an unlikely boon for Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, making the Shiite politician — at least for now — into a champion for Sunnis because he publicly opposed the wall’s construction." [3]

source
[1] Brulliard, Karin. (The Washington Post). 'Gated Communities' For the War-Ravaged. April 23, 2007.
[2] Bruillard, Karin. (The Washington Post). Iraq Blast Kills 9 GIs, Injures 20 At Outpost. April 24, 2007.
[3] Rubin, Alissa J. (The New York Times). Frustration Over Wall Unites Sunni and Shiite. April 24, 2007.

posted: wednesday, april 25, 2007, 3:48 PM ET

tags: iraq gated communities