Exodus of the Iraqi middle class
Shia militias are driving out professionals in
Baghdad
Daniel McGrory
Sadr's Madhi Milita
Control Staffs
May 10, 2006
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COLLEAGUES were astonished when
Hussain, a nurse at Kadimiyah Hospital in Baghdad, turned up for work
in a new suit with a pistol strapped around his waist and announced
that he was now in charge.
A doctor who ridiculed the idea
of this 34-year-old appointing himself administrator of the 700-bed
hospital was slapped across the face by his new boss, who ordered
armed security guards to escort the medic from the building.
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The expulsion was a brutal warning
to other staff who might question the right of the al-Mahdi Army, a Shia
militia, to install one of their own to run the hospital
The same is happening in schools and
colleges, the Civil Service and government ministries and leading
businesses as Baghdad’s middle classes are sacked to make way for militia
apparatchiks. For many professionals this assault on their livelihoods and
expertise is the final straw, and they are leaving Baghdad in droves.
Since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein they have put up with random
violence, curfews, kidnappings, rising prices, petrol queues and the
misery of surviving on two hours’ electricity a day. But they see little
point in staying in Iraq if they cannot continue with their work.
Professionals leaving
Saddiq al-Medhi, a
dentist queueing with his wife and two daughters at the city’s airport
yesterday, had his clinic hijacked by militiamen. "I kept telling
myself things would get better, but when?" he said. "This is my home.
I want it to work, but you can’t have the nonsense of
uneducated,
inexperienced people being put in control just because some cleric
with a militia saysso."
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Moqtada al-Sadr, the
militant Shia cleric who commands al-Mahdi Army and whose party is
expected to be given at least four Cabinet jobs by the end of the week,
refuses to allow any British or US experts to set foot inside the ministry
buildings he controls, including the Health Department.
Nurse Hussain won promotion at the Kadimiyah Hospital simply because his
father was appointed to a senior position in Mr al-Sadr’s head office in
east Baghdad. On his first day in charge, the inspector general of the
Health Department accompanied the nurse on a tour of the wards. Several
staff were fired without any reason being given. Senior figures who
objected were overruled and ordered to clear their desks.
At the main hospital in the west Baghdad district of al-Shula, the new
regime recently sacked several anaesthetists even though there were
already serious shortages of operating staff. Threatening letters from
unnamed militias were sent to the homes of others telling them to move,
prompting an exodus of skilled medics.
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One woman doctor working at the hospital,
who asked not to be named, said: "We can’t fathom their logic. Why
harm your own neighbourhood by driving away anaesthetists so we can’t
do operations, unless they want to sabotage everything and drive
people to all-out civil war?"
One unlikely
consequence of this takeover is that the militias have greater access
to scarce medical supplies. Senior staff at the Kadimiyah Hospital had
been requesting new equipment for months.
The new boss
sidestepped the Health Ministry, went straight to Mr al- Sadr’s office
and delivery was guaranteed the next day.
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Sadr's Madhi Army
Controls Teachers
Head teachers
complain that they have been usurped by militia loyalists who do not
have the necessary qualifications or experience. They say teachers are
afraid to discipline children of militia gunmen, or give these
youngsters anything but the highest marks. The headmistress of a
junior school in Gazaliyah, west Baghdad, was murdered for rebuking
the ten-year-old son of a local militia leader.
Her husband
was waiting at the school gates to drive her and their daughter home.
Two cars ambushed the family and shot dead all three in full view of
other parents.
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A Baghdad University
professor, who is too afraid to give his name, said: "We are all victims
of this new thought police. No longer content to intimidate us with
violence, these militias want to control our every move, so they appoint
the administrators and managers while dissenters lose their jobs."
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Madhi Shakes
Down Private Businesses
Private businesses, particularly those with lucrative government
contracts, have seen senior staff replaced by men with militia links.
Mustapha al-Ali, 46, who runs a trucking company, showed up at his
office in Sadr City last week to find a new "managing director" in his
chair accompanied by two gunmen.
Mr al-Ali had
spent months concealing his importation of health equipment for the
Health Ministry as that would make his company a target for Sunni
insurgents. Now the Shia militia have supplanted him.
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"It’s no good going to
the police to complain, because in my area they daren’t cross the Mahdi
Army," he said. "The militias are the new rulers."
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