>>Army sparks suspicion as it moves into Ba'ath party HQ
(Filed: 29/03/2003)
They were thought to have been the bastions from which an
evil regime terrorised its people. But yesterday at a local Ba'ath party headquarters occupied now by British troops the debris left behind by Saddam's fleeing henchmen seemed to suggest a community centre planning the next village fete rather than an outpost bent on repressing the local community.
Against a poster of Saddam a British soldier dozed after a long night patrol of the still restive population. Little heart- shaped messages were pinned to the picture of a grinning leader with rifle in hand.
"We love Saddam. Please take care of us," read one message, written in childish Arabic that appeared to have been composed by a pupil at the local school. In another room was the material for a jamboree: hand-painted placards, festive ribbons and floral wreaths.
"It looks like they were organising a party when the bombs began to fall," said one bemused soldier from the 1st Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
It was only in one small ante-chamber of the modest concrete building built after an abortive uprising by the local population in 1991 that any indication was given of some of the more sinister activities at the headquarters.
Files holding the names and pictures of local Iraqis lay scattered on the floor, left in haste as the Ba'ath party activists fled.
An attempt had been made to burn them, and the room's incongruous curtains - printed patterns of chrysanthemums - were blackened around the edges. On one file the words "To be watched" were written above a picture of a frowning housewife.
When asked what had happened to the Ba'ath party members, a local lorry driver called Hamid laughed and said: "They were terrified. You should have seen them. They ran all the way to Basra a week ago when the fighting started."
Questioned further, Hamid said Ba'ath party members had gone into hiding and were being protected by their local communities. "Most of them are here in the village now where they have their families," he said.
"They don't mean any harm and we must look after them. They are our people. Please don't tell anyone or they will be captured."
Another Iraqi man who would not give his name said: "This is a very bad situation for us. We don't know if the British are here to stay, so we cannot say anything. Maybe the Ba'ath will come back and then they will surely be angry with us if we have helped the British."
His sentiments highlighted the struggle faced by British forces trying to win over the population.
Jasim Sarbah, an employee of the local oil company, described how two days ago a British soldier shot his neighbour as he took his tomato crop to market. "We are very scared. We just want to be able to go about our jobs in peace," he said.
"After the man in the village was shot we had a meeting and decided we can have the British here for a few weeks, but if they stay longer we will become angry."
That already appears to have happened in the town of Zubayr, where, although the local Ba'ath party headquarters was destroyed by an airstrike several days ago, local militiamen continue to gather.
Iraqis also talk with fear about what they call "British prisons", the handful of prisoner of war camps that have been built in southern Iraq. Originally intended for the thousands of expected Iraqi deserters, they are slowly being filled by militiamen and looters in an effort to bring some order to the area. They have been greeted with scepticism by local Iraqis.
A British sentry at a roadblock tried to explain to an Iraqi caught with a stash of army batteries and gun cleaning equipment why he had to go a nearby PoW camp.
"We just need to take your name and make sure you have found these things by the roadside. You will be fed, given water and cigarettes. Do you understand?"
The man nodded, but then briefly tried to struggle as he climbed into the back of a jeep before he was finally taken under escort to the camp.
"This is getting very frustrating," said the sentry. "We just want the Iraqis to co-operate with us."
At the camp, a large open enclosure with mess tents and sleeping quarters surrounded by earthen ramparts, Iraqi PoWs drifted around listlessly in the sun. "We must go back to our families now," said one Iraqi.
A sergeant on duty said the man had been found with two AK47s under the seat of his car and a box of ammunition.
"It's got to the stage where we don't know who is a civilian and who is an enemy," the sergeant said.
"All we can do is stay focused on our task which is liberating Iraq." But back at the still intact Ba'ath Party headquarters the irony of the British occupation of the building was not lost on the local people.
"They have come to free us, but instead they move in where the Ba'ath party used to live," said one Iraqi.
"We are going to tell them they should take that building down."<<
dailytelegraph.co.uk |
