24 April 2002
Iraqi Regime Devastates Environment of Marsh Arabs
(Satellite imagery shows extensive injury to wetland ecosystem) (1440)
By Jim Fuller
Washington File Science Writer
Washington -- The marshlands of southern Iraq are a unique part of the
world. The region, lying between the lower reaches of the Tigris and
Euphrates Rivers, is where the ancient Sumerians, it is believed,
became the first people to control the flow of rivers by means of dams
and irrigation canals.
The region's current inhabitants, known as the Ma'dan people or Marsh
Arabs, have spent the last 5,000 years subsisting through farming,
fishing, hunting, reed gathering and the grazing of water buffalo.
They live on islands entirely constructed of reeds, using these to
build beautiful, cathedral-like homes in a wetland environment that
extends over an area of about 20,000 square kilometers -- about the
size of Lebanon and Qatar combined. The Marshlands are the Middle
East's largest wetland ecosystem.
After the Gulf War ended in 1991, the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein
began an ambitious civil engineering project aimed at deliberately
draining the marshes to permit military access and greater political
control of the Marsh Arabs. Iraq's Sunni government is attempting to
weaken the Marsh Arabs because they are Shiite Muslims. The systematic
draining of the land followed a 1991 uprising by Shiite Muslims in
southern Iraq that was immediately crushed by Iraqi forces.
Various international organizations monitoring the situation in
southern Iraq, such as the U.N. Human Rights Commission, the
International Wildfowl and Wetlands Research Bureau, and Middle East
Watch, have found evidence indicating that the Iraqi government has
been attempting to force the Marsh Arabs from their southern wetland
settlements by literally draining the life from Iraq's marshes.
According to a report released last February by the AMAR International
Charitable Foundation -- a non-governmental organization set up in
1991 in response to the plight of the Marsh Arabs -- the draining of
the marshes has led to the destruction of the Marsh Arabs'
self-sufficient economy, the near-complete atrophy of the entire
ecosystem, and the flight of tens of thousands of refugees, including
95,000 to a camp in Iran.
The AMAR Appeal (which stands for "Assisting Marsh Arabs and
Refugees") maintains a web site at www.amarappeal.com, which contains
documentation of the environmental devastation occurring in the Iraqi
marshes.
AMAR Executive Director Peter Clark said in an interview April 23 that
the key findings of the report, entitled "The Iraqi Marshlands: A
Human and Environmental Study," are based on satellite photos spanning
over two decades. The findings demonstrate how the government's
practice of draining the marshes through a series of dams and
irrigation works has devastated both the environment and the way of
life of the marsh dwellers -- the marshes themselves being reduced to
15 percent of what they once were.
Clark concludes that because the marsh dwellers have no sustainable
way of life to which they can return, they represent some of the most
desperate and overlooked victims of Saddam's regime.
Clark said the AMAR report, which is due to be published as a book in
June, and a three-day conference held in May 2001 are part of an
effort to promote the human rights of the Marsh Arabs and Iraqi
refugees.
"We have been delivering essential medical and educational services to
Iraqi refugees in Iran over the last 10 years," Clark said. He said
AMAR has received funding for its humanitarian projects from the
United States and Kuwait, as well as private organizations. He also
said AMAR has been in contact with international experts to explore
the feasibility of restoring a large portion of the Marshlands.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, European Parliamentary Rapporteur
on Iraq and AMAR president, told a conference in London last May that
the draining of the southern Iraqi marshes was "a humanitarian and
cultural catastrophe as much as an ecological one."
"One of the oldest natural habitats in the world has been
systematically destroyed for political reasons and its inhabitants
either killed or sent into exile," she said.
The United Nations, which has been attempting to monitor the
situation, has passed only one piece of legislation applying to the
Marshlands situation. U.N. resolution 688, passed in April 1991, calls
on the Iraqi government to provide free access to U.N. and
non-governmental humanitarian agencies to all parts of the marshes so
that essential aid can be provided.
In January 1995, the European parliament passed a resolution
characterizing the Marsh Arabs as a persecuted minority "whose very
survival is threatened by the Iraqi government." The resolution
described the government's treatment of the marsh inhabitants as
"genocide."
In March 1995, the U.N. Human Rights Commission passed a resolution
calling for an end to military operations and efforts to drain the
Iraqi marshes.
According to a U.N. report, from December 4, 1991 to January 18, 1992
"military attacks were launched against the Marsh Arabs ... resulting
in hundreds of deaths. Animal and bird life was said to have been
killed in large numbers, while the marsh waters themselves were
allegedly filled with toxic chemicals."
AMAR reports that during that two-month period, the Iraqi army had
encircled the region and tightened control over food supplies coming
into the area. Iraqi army records showed that more than 50,000 people
were removed and 70 marsh villages were destroyed.
According to AMAR, in September 1994, "military forces used incendiary
bombs and launched an armored attack against the area of Al Seigel in
the Al Amara marshes," home to the Ma'dan people near the confluence
of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The army later set fire to the
entire area. The 1994 military operations caused an undetermined
number of civilian casualties, and forced more than 10,000 refugees
from the marshes to flee to Iran.
A report released on September 13, 1999, by the U.S. Department of
State, entitled "Saddam Hussein's Iraq,"
(http://www.usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/iraq99.htm) states: "In
the southern marshes, government forces have burned houses and fields,
demolished houses with bulldozers, and undertaken a deliberate
campaign to drain and poison the marshes. Villages belonging to the al
Juwaibiri, al Shumaish, al Musa and al Rahma tribes were entirely
destroyed and the inhabitants forcibly expelled. Government troops
expelled the population in other areas at gunpoint and also forced
them to relocate by cutting off their water supply."
AMAR reports that there have been schemes for draining the marshlands
throughout the 20th century. However, while drainage plans drawn up by
British companies in the 1940s and 1970s were linked to irrigation and
cultivation projects, the massive water diversion efforts undertaken
by the Iraqi regime over the last decade were aimed at destroying the
environment of the marsh dwellers.
According to AMAR, another motive for the drainage is related to
Iraq's negotiations since 1991 with several international oil
companies for the prospective development of southern oil fields in
close proximity to the marshes.
The AMAR reports provide satellite imagery that shows the draining of
the marshes increased sharply in 1991-1992. Compared to the mid-1980s,
when initial marsh drainage projects were conducted to reclaim
agricultural land, "the amount of land drained (by 1992) had
quadrupled to approximately 367,000 hectares," the report said.
It notes that within the central Marshland area, a large, formerly
permanent lake, Haur Zikri, appeared on satellite imagery to be
"desiccated and covered with a salt crust." The most easterly of the
central marshes, Al Azair and Al Jazair, had been completely
reclaimed.
According to reports from various international organizations, the
Iraqi government by 1993 was able to prevent water from reaching
two-thirds of the Marshlands; the flow of the Euphrates River had been
almost entirely diverted to the so-called Third River Canal, bypassing
most of the marshes; and the flow of the Tigris River had been
channeled into tributary rivers, their artificially high banks
prohibiting water from seeping into the Marshlands.
AMAR reports that this has had disastrous ecological, social and human
consequences for the region. The sparse water remaining has
contributed to the salinization of the land. Crops are being
destroyed, as well as the land and the marshes themselves. Humans are
being displaced. The future for wildlife in the region also looks
bleak. The marshes are home to fish and migratory birds from western
Eurasia such as pelicans, herons and flamingos. Without fresh water,
the ecosystem will easily become damaged.
U.S. government analysts have estimated that more than 200,000 of the
250,000 former inhabitants of the marshes have been driven from the
area since 1991. Experts report that if the marshes continue to be
drained at the current rate, they will probably cease to exist in
another 50 years.
(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
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