Bassorah, “Mission accomplished”, suite et fin

Les Britanniques ont définitivement “transféré” hier leur autorité sur la province de Bassorah aux autorités locales. Lesquelles ? On verra bien… “les violences à Bassorah sont réduites de 90%” a dit Gordon Brown aux Communes. En d’autres mots : “Mission accomplished”.

Par conséquent, un rapide coup d’œil sur le venimeux article du Sunday Times du 16 décembre nous permet de nous faire une idée sur la façon dont l’Occident règle ses comptes pour l’établissement tant attendu de la démocratie locale. Qu’on nous pardonne de citer substantiellement cet article, – court mais édifiant.

«It was just after 11pm and the shopkeeper was closing up for the night when a van screeched to a halt outside. The back doors flew open. “Someone inside threw a woman onto the street,” he said. “She was lying on the road but she was still alive. A man lent out and shot a machine-gun into her body.”

»As the van raced away, the shopkeeper ran over to her. She was aged 25 to 30 with long dark hair and was lying face up. “There was so much blood,” he said. “The police just took a photograph and put her in the back of a van.”

»There have been 48 women killed in six months for “un-Islamic behaviour”. The murders in the teeming southern port of Basra have highlighted the weakness of the security forces and the strength of Islamic militias as Britain prepares to hand over control to Iraqi officials today.

»In another case, two teenagers saw a woman beaten to death by five or six men from the Mahdi Army, Basra’s most powerful militia. One picked up a rock and crushed her skull. The teenagers were told that their home and family would be destroyed if they betrayed the killers.

»Gordon Brown told the Commons last week that Iraq was now a democracy, that violence in Basra had fallen by 90% and that the Iraqis were “taking control over their own security”.

»However, Major-General Jalil Khalaf, the police chief, said the city’s 28 militias were better armed than his men. “They control the ports which earns them huge sums of money” he said.

»As well as skimming profits from oil exports, they were importing weapons from Iran. “You could smuggle a tank across that border if you wanted to,” he added.

»During four days of reporting independently in Basra – the first western journalist to do so for a British newspaper in almost two years – I met a Baghdad official who had come to investigate the port. He was abducted, tortured and freed only after a “gift” was promised to the kidnappers.»

Cette situation à Bassorah est largement confirmée par le Guardian de ce matin, qui rend compte d’un film Guardianfilms/ITV News, visible sur son site et qui doit être diffusé sur ITV News aujourd’hui. Il s’agit notamment d’une interview du chef de la police de la ville, qui confirme le reportage du Sunday Times.

«The full scale of the chaos left behind by British forces in Basra was revealed yesterday as the city's police chief described a province in the grip of well-armed militias strong enough to overpower security forces and brutal enough to behead women considered not sufficiently Islamic.

»As British forces finally handed over security in Basra province, marking the end of 4½ years of control in southern Iraq, Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. “They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world,” he said in an in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV.

»Khalaf painted a very different picture from that of British officials who, while acknowledging problems in southern Iraq, said yesterday's handover at Basra airbase was timely and appropriate.»

Le chef de la police fait le procès de l’action britannique, à l’image de la décision et de l’action de leur Premier ministre de l’époque après tout (bien intentionnée mais aux conséquences catastrophiques). Il met l’accent sur la situation provoquée par l’intolérance religieuse des groupes extrémistes qui agissent en toute impunité (notamment l'assassinat des 48 femmes pour des raisons “religieuses”, signalé plus haut). Il n’y a sans doute pas d’aspect de la situation irakienne actuelle où l’on constate le plus nettement combien l’intervention des Anglo-Saxons dans le pays a rendu la situation générale pire qu’elle n’était avant leur arrivée.

«Khalaf, who has survived 20 assassination attempts since he became police chief six months ago, said Britain's intentions had been good but misguided. “I don't think the British meant for this mess to happen. When they disbanded the Iraqi police and military after Saddam fell the people they put in their place were not loyal to the Iraqi government. The British trained and armed these people in the extremist groups and now we are faced with a situation where these police are loyal to their parties not their country.”

»He said the most shocking aspect of the breakdown of law and order in Basra was the murder of women for being unIslamic. “They are being killed because they are accused of behaving in an immoral way. When they kill them they put underwear and indecent clothes on them.”

»In his office Khalaf showed the Guardian a computer holding the files of 48 unidentified women. “Some of them have even been killed with their children because their killer says that they come out of an adulterous relationship,” he said.»

Mis en ligne le 17 décembre 2007 à 05H21