iraq update (may 18th):
Meanwhile. although the Al-Adhamiya wall is nearing completion, the Iraqi parliament has passed a unanimous decision calling on the occupation forces to stop building it. "We know that our decision will be ignored, but we had to make the point for the record," an Iraqi parliamentarian who did not wish to be identified said. "The wall was built, ostensibly to protect Al-Adhamiya from attacks, but it will only serve to exacerbate factional segregation," he said. [a sovereign, democratic nation indeed!]
(...) In a rare sign of unity, the inhabitants of the Sunni neighbourhood of Al-Adhamiya and the Shia neighbourhood of Al-Kadhimiya staged a joint demonstration from Al-Adhamiya to Al-Kadhimiya, calling for the wall to be removed. However, the demonstration was barely covered in the media.
(...) On another front, 144 parliamentarians signed a petition calling upon the occupation forces to set a timetable for their withdrawal. The parliamentary spokesman for the Sadr Block, Saleh Al-Uqayli, said the petition was the idea of Al-Sadr supporters. "Those who signed the petition call themselves the Liberal Block. This is not a new parliamentary block, but only a group of parliamentarians who demand a timetable for withdrawal."
(...) At present, the Iraqi parliament is debating an oil law, but some argue that the law is designed to promote US interests. A source at the Probity Committee said that up to $1.5 billion have been lost due to wastage and mismanagement in the Iraqi oil sector. Foreign sources add that, since the beginning of the occupation, billions of dollars in oil revenues are believed to have vanished due to oil- related corruption.

iraqi unity? and al-adhamiyah:
Are the Americans interested in protecting Al-Adhamiyah, or in protecting other areas from fighters based in Al-Adhamiyah?
(...) The city of Kirkuk is being Kurdicised. Up until the occupation, ethnic Arabs mostly inhabited the city. Now the Kurds want to annex it to their province. Why is that? Because Kirkuk sits on a lake of oil, and the Kurds need to control the oil as part of their plan to secede from Iraq.
(...) Meanwhile, plans are underway to declare a Basra Province in southern Iraq, although no attempts at secession have so far been made.
(...) The Americans want to see Iraq divided; Kurdistan in the north, Basra in the south, and the Sunni triangle in the middle. But what does all this have to do with Al-Adhamiyah?
(...) The Kurdish government would be pleased to forge a close alliance with the Americans. Such an alliance would offer the Kurds protection from the Turks, the Iranians and the pan-Arab government that may emerge in central Iraq. The southern province would also rush into US arms, for more or less the same reasons. Iraq would thus be reduced to the same status as any of the Gulf states, just another group of sheikhdoms reliant on oil and foreign backing.
(...) Founded at the time of Caliph Abu Jaafar Al-Mansour, Baghdad was built on the opposite banks of the Tigris. The west bank of the river was known as Al-Karkh, the east bank as Al-Rasafa. Until recently, the centre of the city was divided equally between the two banks. The mausoleum of Abu Hanifa was in Al-Rasafa, and that of Imam Al-Kazem was in Al-Karkh, with the Imamayn (two imams) Bridge connecting the two. Al-Adhamiyah took its name from the words "Al-Imam Al-Adham", or Abu Hanifa, a leading Sunni doctrinaire. During the Ottoman era, Al-Adhamiyah had a reputation for rebellion that continued even during the communist tide of the 1960s. Since the fall of Baghdad, Al-Adhamiyah has been active in resistance.
(...) For the past four years, Al-Adhamiyah has been a hotbed of resistance. The Americans repeatedly declared the area "liberated" from the resistance. But when the Americans tried to send the Iraqi army -- the new one they had created -- to its first real test in Al-Adhamiyah, dozens of Iraqi and US troops were killed. After this, the Americans tried to send troops in dinghies across the river, but suffered further losses.
(...) So there you have it. Al-Adhamiyah is part of the US drive to restrain, not protect, the Iraqis. This quest is likely to fail, as it did repeatedly in the past. The days of the occupation are numbered.

on another apartheid wall (p. cockburn):
Residents of a Sunni enclave of Baghdad demonstrated and shouted slogans yesterday against a newly built wall sealing off their neighborhood from the rest of the city. About 2,000 people marched through al-Adhamiyah in east Baghdad carrying banners saying that their district was being turned into "a big prison". "Adhamiyah will be isolated from all other areas," said one man in a cafe in the district. "We'll be like the Palestinians and we will not accept that." The US military in Baghdad says it is constructing the 12ft high walls to create so-called "gated communities" in five different districts in Baghdad to protect them from sectarian attack.
(...) But the Sunni see the walls as being primarily directed against insurgents, just as the French army walled off the Casbah in Algiers during the Algerian war in the 1950s and early 1960s to prevent anti-French fighters moving through the city. Sunnis in Baghdad are worried that the soldiers or police at the entrances to sealed off districts will be Shia soldiers and police who may detain anybody.
(...) Banners carried by demonstrators yesterday proclaimed, "Separation is a big prison for al-Adhamiyah citizens" and "Children in al-Adhamiyah want a Baghdad without walls".
(...) People in al-Adhamiyah say they fear that, contrary to US and Iraqi army expectations, their district will become a fortress ruled by al-Qa'ida in Iraq. Extreme Sunni groups are allegedly already killing men who wear shorts or smoke or listen to music in public. A wall is also useless in preventing rockets or mortars being fired into the area.