Arrest of Minister’s Bodyguards Prompts Protests in Iraq
By DURAID ADNAN and TIM ARANGO
Ten bodyguards to Rafe al-Essawi, the finance minister and a top Sunni
politician, were arrested on terrorism charges, threatening to further
hinder Iraq’s halting process of sectarian reconciliation.
By DURAID ADNAN and TIM ARANGO
Published: December 21, 2012
BAGHDAD — Sporadic protests erupted Friday in Sunni-dominated areas of Iraq after 10 bodyguards to Rafe al-Essawi,
the finance minister and a top Sunni politician, were arrested on
terrorism charges in an episode that further deepened a political crisis
that first flared a year ago, after the American military departed.
Related
-
Iraqi President Is Flown to Germany for Treatment After Stroke (December 21, 2012)
The targeting once again of a Sunni leader by the Shiite-dominated
central government threatened to further hinder Iraq’s halting process
of sectarian reconciliation just as the country’s president, Jalal
Talabani, a Kurdish leader and one of the few politicians capable of
exerting a sense of calm over the country’s squabbling factions, was
rushed to Germany for medical treatment after a stroke that officials
said left him in a coma.
The arrest of the bodyguards on allegations of terrorism was reminiscent
of the campaign last year against Tariq al-Hashimi, a leading Sunni
politician who was then a vice president, on charges of running death
squads. Mr. Hashimi fled the country and has since been tried, convicted
in absentia and sentenced to death three times.
Many here were left wondering if Mr. Essawi himself, like Mr. Hashimi,
could soon be arrested. Many of Mr. Hashimi’s bodyguards were convicted
in a case that critics of the central government say relied on torture
to secure confessions.
As Sunnis took to the streets in protest on Friday, they expressed a
rising sense that their sect does not have a meaningful voice anymore in
the corridors of power here.
“Hashimi is gone, now Essawi, and we have no Sunni leader left to
follow,” said Ahmed Hashim, a shop owner in Adhamiya, a Sunni
neighborhood in Baghdad where several hundred people protested after
Friday Prayer.
At the protest, an imam in Adhamiya, referring to Mr. Talabani, said in a
speech: “We wish from God that the sick man in bed will recover and
wake up so he can solve our crises and calm things down. We condemn the
arrest of these guards. This is targeting the Sunnis, and we will not be
silent this time.”
In Falluja, in the Sunni province of Anbar, tribal leaders and an
estimated 2,000 citizens protested the arrests. “This targeting all the
Sunnis,” Sheik Hamid Ahmed said in a speech in Falluja. “It was Hashimi
first. Essawi now. Who knows who it will be next? The conspiracy against
the Sunnis will never stop. We will not keep silent for this.”
In response to the crackdown on Mr. Essawi’s guards, leaders from
Iraqiya, the Sunni-dominated political bloc, threatened to pull out of
the government and called for a no-confidence vote in Prime Minister
Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, which some parties tried and failed to accomplish
this year.
The circumstances of the arrests were murky, as conflicting accounts
emerged, with one version offered by the government and another by Mr.
Essawi. In a news conference Mr. Essawi said that “militia forces” had
raided his office and home and “kidnapped” his guards. He said he tried
to call Mr. Maliki but that the prime minister had turned his phone off.
“This is a new farce and a new kind of crisis dragging Iraq into the abyss,” Mr. Essawi said.
The Interior Ministry, in a statement, said that Mr. Essawi’s guards
were arrested based on legitimate warrants. A statement from Iraq’s
Supreme Court, issued on state television, said that one of the guards
had already confessed to carrying out terrorist attacks in cooperation
with Mr. Hashimi’s guards.
Mr. Maliki, who has weathered the continuing political crisis this year
and emerged more popular, according to some polls, and with a tighter
grip over the military and courts, sought to portray the latest arrests
as a nonsectarian judicial proceeding aimed at securing the nation from
terrorism.
“All Iraqis — Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and all other sects and
nationalities — must know that we will have no security without the rule
of law, and that it must apply to everyone,” Mr. Maliki said.
copy http://www.nytimes.com
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário