[Dialogue] Iraq cancels peace talks after scores more die

[Harry Wainwright]

Iraq cancels peace talks after scores more die

. Indefinite delay is blow to credibility of government
. Militia kills 46 Sunnis after 17 Shia found beheaded

Michael Howard in Irbil and agencies in Baghdad
Monday October 16, 2006

Guardian

The unremitting wave of sectarian violence that has greeted the Muslim holy
month of Ramadan claimed scores more Iraqi lives at the weekend, as
authorities in Baghdad announced the indefinite postponement of a conference
of political leaders seen as crucial to quickly diminishing hopes for
national reconciliation.

In a terse statement from the ministry for national dialogue, the government
said the reconciliation conference, which had been scheduled for this
Saturday in Baghdad, would be delayed until further notice for "emergency
reasons".

The cancellation is a further blow to the credibility of the national unity
government of Nuri al-Maliki. The embattled prime minister has come under
intense pressure from the US and Britain, as well as ordinary Iraqis, to
halt the communal violence and the activities of armed militias and death
squads.

In the weekend's most vicious act of score-settling between the Shia and
Sunni Arabs, at least 63 people were killed in the town of Balad, 50 miles
north of Baghdad.

On Friday, police said the decapitated bodies of 17 Shia labourers had been
found in an orchard near the town, which has a mixed Shia-Sunni population
but lies in a majority Sunni area. In apparent retaliation, at least 46
Sunni Arab men were reportedly killed on Saturday and Sunday, as heavily
armed, black-clad men described by one police source as being from the
al-Mahdi militia of the radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr set up fake
checkpoints in the town, stopping vehicles and hauling out anyone suspected
of being a Sunni.

Officials at Balad's main hospital said bullet-riddled bodies had been
arriving throughout Saturday night and Sunday morning. Some showed signs of
mutilation and torture. "We are preparing ourselves to receive more bodies
as long as the situation can get worse," Qasim al-Qaisi, the hospital's
chief, told Reuters. "Sectarian killing is sweeping the area."

In a disturbing parallel to attacks in Baghdad, the Balad killings appeared
to be unaffected by extra Iraqi police and the imposition of a curfew.
Police said last night that the town was "tense but calm".

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia on Saturday met prominent Iraqi Sunni and Shia
clerics in Mecca and urged them to seek an end to the violence to allow the
two sides to be reconciled.

Northern Iraq also witnessed a dramatic surge in attacks. At least 10 people
were killed yesterday by a coordinated wave of suicide bombs in the
contested oil city of Kirkuk. In one blast a bomber blew up his car outside
a teachers' institute for women, killing four.

Last week Jan Egeland, the UN's top humanitarian official, said the "blunt,
brutal violence" was killing at least 100 Iraqis every day and displacing
9,000 every week. "Revenge killing seems to be totally out of control," he
said.

Mr Maliki, a member of the ruling Shia alliance which is accused by some of
fostering sectarian death squads, appeared to acknowledge the problem.
Speaking yesterday, he renewed a pledge to disband militias. "The state and
militias cannot coexist and arms can only be in the hands of the
government," he said. "No one has the right to be above the law. Militias
cannot be a substitute for the government and its security agencies."

Meanwhile, Iraq's central criminal court sentenced an al-Qaida member to
death and convicted 64 others on charges of belonging to armed groups and
other crimes, the US command said yesterday. It did not name the condemned
man.

In the US, a bipartisan commission to formulate policy on Iraq, is reported
to have ruled out the prospect of establishing a democracy, and is focusing
instead on the more modest options of trying to achieve a modicum of
stability or redeploying troops elsewhere in the region.

The commission, headed by a former Republican secretary of state, James
Baker, will not officially publish its findings until after the November
elections but, according to leaks to the New York Sun, it is considering two
option papers Stability First and Redeploy and Contain. Stability First says
US troops should focus on stabilising Baghdad while US diplomats negotiate a
settlement with insurgents. Redeploy and Contain calls for a phased
withdrawal, retaining the ability to strike from a distance. 

Guardian Unlimited C Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

 

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