Over two million Shiites died under Saddam’s atrocities. During the various different excavations in Iraq major media organizations reported mass graves containing over 300 000 thousand Shiite Women, Men and children. The United States relied heavily on Shiite cooperation both at the onslaught of the occupation of Iraq and the subsequent ‘rebuilding’ of the country. The Shiites after living under the despotic rule of one of the most vicious tyrants of our time did not stand in the way of the American occupation. Furthermore, the Americans had promised them a peaceful democratic society free from persecution.
For at least the first decade of Saddam’s dictatorial regime the Reagan and Bush (Sr.) administration did not have a problem of supporting Saddam’s anti-Shiite movement. Things changed only after Saddam’s ambitious attack on Kuwait and its rich oil fields. In reality, they actively backed Saddam politically and militarily. In 1982, Saddam’s government was removed from the State Department’s list of States that sponsor terrorism. Saddam’s attack on Iran was received positively and military support was given under the garb of civilian assistance to military organizations responsible for Saddam’s non-conventional weapons programs.
But persecution of Shiites was not limited to Iraq. American backed Saudi Arabia’s royal family was using the oil revenues to sponsor anti-Shiite extremist movements in countries both in and outside Middle East including the killing of thousands of Shiites in Afghanistan in the hands of Usama Bin Laden. Saudi’s own maltreatment of its 25 percent Shiite population continues till today.
After the occupation of Iraq, the only thing the Shiites did not get was freedom from persecution. The Iraqi Sunnis backed by their fellow Sunni governments from neighbouring countries would not accept the majority democratic rule of Shiites. After one thousand four hundred years of the persecution of Shiites many Sunnis have become accustomed to refusing Shiites any rights. That attitude has also been transferred to the Western world. Western media has on numerous occasions given a positive spin to the Sunni extremist attacks on the Shiites as only natural for a group that have dominated for so long. The hundreds of Shiite children, women and men dying everyday due to suicide bombings is less important for policy decisions in such reporting than Iraq’s minority Sunnis having a bigger piece of the pie in Iraq’s government.
The Iraqi Shiites were promised their basic human rights by the Bush administration. Instead they got caught in a game of regional politics to gain supremacy in the Middle East and its vast natural resources. The Sunni faction of Iraq’s political arena has been dominated by political parties that support terrorists and actively speak against the Shiite majority. The intended aim of Iraqi Sunnis seems to be to exterminate Shiites at least to the point where they are no longer the majority.
The International Shia Cultural and Human Rights Organization (ISCHRO) has on many occasions received letters from these political groups expressing their desires to rid Iraq from its Shiite population. Indeed, that is exactly what Sunnis are doing in Iraq. The Bush administration has forced Shiites to stand down while Sunnis are inconsiderately executing Shiites children, women and men. About a year ago, without any regard the Sunnis attacked and destroyed the one thousand two hundred year old shrines of two Shiite Imams. The attack reminded Shiites around the world of the murder of Prophet Muhammad’s family by Sunni governments in the early history of Islam.
Now the Sunni governments of Iraq’s neighbouring countries are weighing in the Shiite-Sunni conflict. Jordan’s Abdullah and the Saudis, close allies of Washington’s current administration, have both publicly announced that if things don’t go in favour of the Sunnis, they will have to get involved in Iraq through military means. The statement of these two dictators is admitting to an attack on majority Shiites of Iraq to ensure the dominance of the Sunnis. Yet there was no outcry by the Bush administration and its coverage in Western media was minimal.
In a recent statement, Bush announced that Iranians in Iraq are now fair game for being arrested. Bush’s announcement was a reminiscence of the Saddam era when Iranians and Iraqis with Iranian ancestry were being arrested and expelled.
Bush administration’s plans for Shiites seem to not be limited to Iraq. Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, recently claimed that Sunni extremist groups were being supported by the Bush administration against the Shiites in various parts of Middle East.
The Bush administration has been pushing for a law to allow ex-Baathists to return to high positions in the Iraqi government. Ayad Allawi, a former interim Prime Minister of Iraq presented by the Bush administration as a Shiite, has recently claimed that the current ‘Shiite Iraqi government’ is not functioning and wants more Sunnis in the government. Presently 130 seats out of 270 are held by Shiites in the Iraqi parliament. This is less than fifty percent representation of the voice of a majority that comprises around seventy percent of Iraq’s population. The current seating was determined due to a last minute change to election laws voted for by half of the parliament to distribute votes in a way that would give more say to Iraq’s minority Sunnis. Bringing back Baathists is no different to the reinstatement of Nazis in Germany. To accept Allawi’s suggestion is to send out the message that anyone who kills Shiites will be rewarded positively and will be allowed to make decisions for how Shiites should live by having greater legislative power.
The atrocities against Shiites are grossly downplayed in Western media and the emphasis is placed on calling the blatant murder of Shiites as ‘a sectarian war’ between two opposing parties. In many instances bogus reporting of Shiite attack on Sunnis receives headline coverage and its subsequent falsification is gone unnoticed.
In February 2007, the media agencies reported a Sunni woman being raped by ‘Shiite policemen forces’. Immediately after, Sunni insurgents kidnapped random Shiite police officers and executed them. On March 3rd the Associated Press reported that
the basis for the claim that the woman was a Sunni was her name and cited an official from Iraq’s largest Sunni party, Iraqi Islamic Party, as saying that she had given a false name and the woman was in fact a Shiite.
The Shiite woman living in a Sunni district was attacked and raped by Sunnis wearing official uniforms of the Iraqi police force and was fearful of giving her real name. Being fearful of the reprisal she would not be identified as Shiite when reporting the incident to the local police station.
The mere handling of the atrocities committed against Shiites by Western Media is a human rights abuse on its own.
The abuse of Shiites throughout the Middle East must come to an end. The West should begin by reassess its position towards the Shiites. The only way to achieve this aim is with a unified Shiite voice. To this end, ISCHRO is requesting that every Shiite, friends of Shiites and sympathizers with Shiites around the globe to write into the local and international media outlets, the embassies of the United States and Britain, national governments and Human Rights organizations and call for an end to the atrocities against the Shiites by Sunni extremists and Sunni dominated governments.
For an example of a letter click here.
International Shia Cultural and Human Rights Organization (ISCHRO)
