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Date: Mon, 15 Dec 2003 10:50:11 -0500
From: Gita Hashemi <gita@xxxxxxx>
Subject: from Baghdad: The homeless

the report below is by ehab lotayef, who is, along with 
photojournalist babak salari (both based in montreal), currently in 
baghdad on an independent, self-funded investigative mission.  i will 
forward his reports as i get them.  feel free to let me know if you 
prefer to not receive these forwards.

be well.

gita

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Feel free to widely distribute

Text and images by Ehab Lotayef
Baghdad, December 15, 2003

Squatters in military buildings

We had left the car and started walking in the barricaded Ministry of 
Interior road.  All of a sudden we heard gunshots.  Then heavier 
gunshots.  A group of youth passed us by and one of them said, 
"Saddam," and gestured with his hands what seemed to mean, handcuffs.

We were on that street responding to an invitation by one of the 
residents of the "Department of Military Surveillance" we met 
downtown a couple of days earlier.  He is one of many squatters, who 
after the army deserted its buildings all over Baghdad, and probably 
many other places in Iraq, took refuge in those buildings with their 
families.  Some of them lost their source of income after the 
invasion and couldn't pay their rent anymore, wherever they lived, 
others were living in very cramped conditions that these buildings 
provided a far better residences than where they were before, while a 
few were homeless, living under bridges or in containers before they 
moved to this place.

It took us and the squatters a while to get over the news of 
capturing Saddam, and get to what we were there for: seeing their 
living conditions and knowing more about their past, their current 
needs and their hopes for the future.

The situation is difficult to understand without knowing about the 
socio-economic changes that happened in Iraqi over the past 30 years. 
In the 1960s Iraqis seemed to have high hopes for a bright future and 
expectations of economic prosperity.  The youth dreamed of owning 
homes and cars.  As the years passed, war after war then sanctions 
that seemed to be getting tougher by the day, the dreams never 
materialized.  But those dreams didn't disappear either.  So, some of 
the squatters consider that it is their right to own a part of the 
"new free Iraq".  Most of them probably know that they will not be in 
these buildings forever (in some estimates there are hundreds of such 
buildings and army camps occupied by squatter all over Iraq), but 
they want to be secured against sudden evacuation They insist that 
they won't leave without getting promises of replacement housing by 
the government.  Yet, while they are there, they have urgent needs.

Food doesn't seem to be a problem, but heat does.  All these make 
shift living quarters are created from pieces of old furniture and 
sheets of metal and wood.  There are no doors and no windows.  Most 
of these buildings were looted long before the squatters moved in. 
The squatters need heaters and blankets more than anything else.

As Iraqis feel that the coalition, or the US, used WMD and Saddam as 
excuses to take over their recourses, the squatters feel that many 
political parties and NGOs use them and their suffering to gain 
popularity and raise funds they only partially benefit from.

The squatters have another problem, sanitation.  Most of the created 
units have no sewage due to the deign of the building.  I overheard 
them talking about designing and building a sewage system for 
themselves.  I don't know how far such plan will go.

The most encouraging part of this whole experience is that in this 
community, and as I hear in all similar ones around the country, the 
squatters elected a coordinator to organize their new society, its 
needs and plans.  Maybe right here a new Iraq is being built, from 
the ground up.

Ehab Lotayef

Baghdad, December 15, 2003

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