- BASRA -- Burnt tyres and
stones that were thrown at British soldiers trying to contain riots by
Iraqis infuriated by constant power cuts and a fuel crisis still littered
the streets of Basra yesterday.
-
- Calm had been restored to the city after two days in
which at least one Iraqi protester was killed - who fired the bullet is
still unclear - and a Nepalese former Gurkha soldier was shot dead when
his UN car was ambushed in the street. But you get the sense the British
are sitting on a pressure cooker.
-
- How serious the riots were depends on whom you speak
to. Ask the British occupation authority which runs the south of Iraq,
and it was all a storm in a teacup. Ask the Iraqis on the streets of Basra,
and you hear a different story. There is anger seething on the streets.
-
- "Only a thousand people were involved in the protests,
out of a city of two million," says Steve Bird, a spokesman for the
military. "If you ask the people here, they'll tell you they want
us here, to help rebuild the infrastructure." But even as Mr Bird
says reassuringly that the security situation in Basra is under control,
the crackle of gunfire can be heard through his office window. Outside
the fortified British compound, American soldiers arrive in a Humvee. Iraqi
children shout abuse at the Americans. They want to throw stones, but some
older Iraqis nervously restrain them.
-
- "If you had come yesterday, we would have beaten
you," Majid al-Eidani, one of the Iraqis queuing at a local petrol
station, tells me.
-
- "We are very happy that Saddam Hussein is gone,"
said another man in the queue, Laith al-Tayi. "But sometimes we say
at least Saddam Hussein is a Muslim, but the British are foreigners. We
cannot accept them. They must know they cannot stay here for 40 years.
If they try, we will kick them out. What would you do if you were in our
shoes?"
-
- These are the Shia heartlands, which suffered cruelty
and repression at the hands of Saddam. Nowhere in Iraq were they happier
to see him go, and until now, the British have been enjoying relative calm
while the Americans suffer daily attacks in Baghdad and elsewhere.
-
- But the British appear to be running out of goodwill
fast. The riots were spontaneous, according to everyone we spoke to in
Basra - despite British claims of some shadowy group behind them.
-
- The people came on to the streets because they were enraged
at a total, 24-hour power blackout, and a fuel crisis so acute that Mr
Tayi says he queued for 12 hours to get petrol for his car and still went
home empty-handed.
-
- To understand how important electricity and fuel are,
you have to feel the heat in Basra. Temperatures soared above 50C this
week. Air conditioning is vital: when the power goes, Basrans turn to their
home generators. But they run on fuel. This week they have been keeping
cool by drinking water, which they keep cold by buying huge blocks of ice
and carrying them home.
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=432843
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