The current protests in Iraq are the most serious seen in the country for years, and are taking place at the heart of some of the world’s largest oilfields. The Iraqi government headquarters in Basra was set ablaze, as were the offices of those parties and militias blamed by local people for their wretched living conditions. Protesters have blockaded and closed down Iraq’s main sea port at Umm Qasr, through which it imports most of its grain and other supplies. Mortar shells have been fired into the Green Zone in Baghdad for the first time in years. At least 10 people have been shot dead by security forces in an effort to quell the unrest.
The causes of the protests are self-evident: Iraq is ruled by a kleptomaniac political class that operates the Iraqi state apparatus as a looting machine. Other countries are corrupt, notably those rich in oil or other natural resources, and the politically well connected become hugely wealthy. However big the rake-off, something is usually built at the end of the day. In Iraq it does not happen that way, and among the angriest victims of 15 years of wholesale theft are the two million inhabitants of Basra. Once glorified as the Venice of the Gulf, its canals have turned into open sewers and its water supplies are so polluted as to be actually poisonous. Basra is now threatened by a cholera outbreak, according to local health officials. Basra hospitals have already treated 17,500 people for chronic diarrhoea and stomach ailments over the past two weeks, after they became ill from drinking polluted water. Salt water is mixing with fresh water, making it brackish and reducing the effectiveness of the chlorine that would otherwise kill the bacteria. There is plenty of bacteria around because the water system has not been updated for 30 years and sewage from broken pipes is mixing with drinking water.
Protests erupted earlier this year because of the lack of electricity, water, jobs and every other government service. The injustice was all the more flagrant because the oil companies around Basra are exporting more crude than ever before. In August this totalled four million barrels a day, earning the government in Baghdad some $7.7bn over the course of the month.
Even if a new government is formed under the current prime minister Haider al-Abadi, or some other figure, it may not make much difference. The party that unexpectedly polled best in the election was the one following the nationalist populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which was allied to the small Iraqi Communist Party, thereby emphasising its secular, non-sectarian and progressive policies. On the other hand, critics claim that in the past government Sadrist ministers have been just as corrupt as those of the other parties. The problem is not just individual corruption but the political mechanism as a whole: ministries are shared out between the parties which then use them as cash cows and sources of patronage jobs. Mudher Salih, a financial adviser to Abadi, explained “unless the political system is changed it is impossible to fight corruption”.
Many have climbed onto the gravy train over the past 15 years and would not know how to improve matters even if they wanted to. One former governor of Basra is reported to have handed back a large part of its budget because he said he could not think of anything on which to spend the money.
Iraqis are no longer preoccupied by the threat posed by Isis to themselves and their families. They are focused instead on the ramshackle state of their country – the lack of roads, bridges, hospitals and schools, as well as the shortage of electricity and water, in a place where summer temperatures reach 50C. Many Iraqis say they favour radical or even revolutionary change but the status quo will be difficult to uproot, however unsatisfactory it may be. It is not only the elite who plug into the oil revenues. Some 4.5 million Iraqis get salaries from the state and they – and not just crooked billionaires – have an incentive in keeping things as they are, however toxic. Iraq will most likely continue to be misruled by a weak dysfunctional government.
Taken from here
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/11/why-the-world-should-care-about-what-happens-in-basra/
The causes of the protests are self-evident: Iraq is ruled by a kleptomaniac political class that operates the Iraqi state apparatus as a looting machine. Other countries are corrupt, notably those rich in oil or other natural resources, and the politically well connected become hugely wealthy. However big the rake-off, something is usually built at the end of the day. In Iraq it does not happen that way, and among the angriest victims of 15 years of wholesale theft are the two million inhabitants of Basra. Once glorified as the Venice of the Gulf, its canals have turned into open sewers and its water supplies are so polluted as to be actually poisonous. Basra is now threatened by a cholera outbreak, according to local health officials. Basra hospitals have already treated 17,500 people for chronic diarrhoea and stomach ailments over the past two weeks, after they became ill from drinking polluted water. Salt water is mixing with fresh water, making it brackish and reducing the effectiveness of the chlorine that would otherwise kill the bacteria. There is plenty of bacteria around because the water system has not been updated for 30 years and sewage from broken pipes is mixing with drinking water.
Protests erupted earlier this year because of the lack of electricity, water, jobs and every other government service. The injustice was all the more flagrant because the oil companies around Basra are exporting more crude than ever before. In August this totalled four million barrels a day, earning the government in Baghdad some $7.7bn over the course of the month.
Even if a new government is formed under the current prime minister Haider al-Abadi, or some other figure, it may not make much difference. The party that unexpectedly polled best in the election was the one following the nationalist populist cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, which was allied to the small Iraqi Communist Party, thereby emphasising its secular, non-sectarian and progressive policies. On the other hand, critics claim that in the past government Sadrist ministers have been just as corrupt as those of the other parties. The problem is not just individual corruption but the political mechanism as a whole: ministries are shared out between the parties which then use them as cash cows and sources of patronage jobs. Mudher Salih, a financial adviser to Abadi, explained “unless the political system is changed it is impossible to fight corruption”.
Many have climbed onto the gravy train over the past 15 years and would not know how to improve matters even if they wanted to. One former governor of Basra is reported to have handed back a large part of its budget because he said he could not think of anything on which to spend the money.
Iraqis are no longer preoccupied by the threat posed by Isis to themselves and their families. They are focused instead on the ramshackle state of their country – the lack of roads, bridges, hospitals and schools, as well as the shortage of electricity and water, in a place where summer temperatures reach 50C. Many Iraqis say they favour radical or even revolutionary change but the status quo will be difficult to uproot, however unsatisfactory it may be. It is not only the elite who plug into the oil revenues. Some 4.5 million Iraqis get salaries from the state and they – and not just crooked billionaires – have an incentive in keeping things as they are, however toxic. Iraq will most likely continue to be misruled by a weak dysfunctional government.
Taken from here
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/09/11/why-the-world-should-care-about-what-happens-in-basra/
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