BAGHDAD'S KARADAH DISTRICT IS HAVEN FOR RICH AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 001898 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/01/2017 TAGS: KDEM PGOV PINR PINS PREF IZ SUBJECT: BAGHDAD'S KARADAH DISTRICT IS HAVEN FOR RICH AND POOR Classified By: Deputy Political Counselor Robert Gilchrist for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (U) This is a Baghdad PRT reporting cable. ¶2. (C) SUMMARY: Local council leaders from the Karadah district of Baghdad told PRTOff that since they began recording the number of displaced persons in their district, 4,000 families have moved into Karadah, and that in the past three weeks they have seen an increase in the number of families seeking shelter in their district. The chairwoman of the district's Migration and Displacement Committee has reported to local media outlets that the Government of Iraq is failing to react to this crisis and that she has seen more help come from the US Army than from her own government. END SUMMARY. -------------- Families move to Karadah for safety -------------- ¶3. (C) Karadah District Council (DAC) Chairman Mohammed al-Rubeiy and DAC Migration and Displacement Committee Chairwoman Madiha Hassan told PRTOff May 30 that the council has 4,000 families on record as internally displaced persons (IDPs). They said that number grows every day. In the past three weeks, Madiha said she has seen a noticeable increase in IDP movement into the district, particularly in the neighborhood of Zafariniya (majority Shia). Zafariniya was largely an industrial park prior to 2003 and home to several military installations, but has seen rapid population growth in recent months as people have occupied abandoned government buildings and unused warehouses. ¶4. (C) Karadah (mixed) is widely perceived to be one of the safest sections of Baghdad, according to Rubeiy, and has seen a net increase in population because few Karadah families have been displaced from their homes. Families from other districts and other areas of Iraq have arrived in Karadah looking for a safer place to live. Rubeiy said that the arriving families are a mix of Shia, Sunni and Christian families, and they come from both east and west. Some families come from nearby Salman Pak (Shia, southeast of Baghdad),and others from Fallujah (Sunni, west of Baghdad). ¶5. (C) Both rich and poor families have fled to Karadah, Madiha said. Rich people move in with wealthy relatives or rent apartments or houses in the affluent peninsula section of Karadah. Poor families have found shelter in the abandoned government buildings and warehouses in the Zafariniya section. Madiha said that there is a large group of displaced families living in the buildings of the Rasheed Camp, a former Air Force base in Zafaraniya. The poor families who move into these structures usually segregate themselves, so there are buildings that are Sunni and others that are Shia. Rubeiy said that the displacement crisis is hard to see in Karadah because most families do not live in camps; they stay with relatives or rent apartments. -------------- Not all claimants displaced by violence -------------- ¶6. (C) Madiha said that while many families in Zafariniya now claim to be displaced by violence in order to receive promised payments from the government, many actually moved into abandoned government and industrial buildings long before the wave of displacement that occurred in the wake of the Samarra bombing of February 2006. Rubeiy said that Baghdad saw an influx of immigrants beginning in 2003 when many poor farmers and laborers moved to Baghdad from the Southern provinces. Rubeiy added that many have found work in Baghdad's black market, selling gas and other commodities. -------------- Displacement affects real estate -------------- ¶7. (C) The Karadah peninsula is the historic home to many of Baghdad's wealthiest residents. Many of Iraq's political elite, who can afford private security details and protective measures, have set up residence in the district since 2003. Rubeiy said that the arrival of so many newcomers has had a dramatic impact on the real estate market in the district. Rubeiy said that wealthy Baghdad families often owned several houses on the peninsula, and these second and third homes are now creating rental income for the original homeowners. Apartment rentals are at nearly 100% capacity. A two-room unfurnished apartment that would normally rent for $200-$300 a month in other parts of the city now cost $500 a month in Karadah, Rubeiy said. Housing lots currently go for $1000 BAGHDAD 00001898 002 OF 002 per square meter for a 200 square meter lot, $600 per square meter for a 600 square meter lot, and $400 for a 1000 square meter lot. These increases raise the price of a large housing lot (not including the cost of building the home) in Karadah to over $1 million (USD). ¶8. (C) Rubeiy said that the former regime built a complex of 286 luxury apartments along the Abu Nuwas promenade of the peninsula for government employees. In 2003 these apartments were vacated and ransacked, their furniture looted. Now they have been occupied by illegal squatters coming from Sadr City and other sections of Baghdad. Rubeiy said that Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) now largely controls this apartment complex. He said that 70% of residents are JAM, 15% are Government of Iraq VIPs, and the other 15% are other well-off families. Rubeiy said that Prime Minister Maliki wants to clear these apartments and re-distribute them to new Government of Iraq employees, but he faces opposition on this proposal from well-connected residents. -------------- Government assistance to IDPs weak -------------- ¶9. (C) Madiha said that she and the other members of the Zafariniya Neighborhood Council (part of the Karadah District) have donated their own money to help IDPs in their area, because the response of the national and provincial government has been so weak. They collect money to purchase food, blankets, and plastic sheeting for IDP families. Plastic, curtains and other materials are used to sub-divide the large open buildings where IDP families often reside. ¶10. (C) Madiha said that the Baghdad Provincial Council has done nothing to help the IDP families in her district. Madiha said that the Ministry of Displacement and Migration(MoDM) office gave her 300 food boxes to feed the 4000 families, but this was not nearly enough. Each family should have received a box; each family should have also received two blankets, but the ministry only gave her 600 blankets to distribute. Madiha thought this was just an initial delivery from the ministry, but when she realized that nothing more was coming she collected money from other members of her Neighborhood Council (NAC) to purchase more supplies. Madiha wanted her NAC to "set an example" for her government and she set out to demonstrate the extent of the crisis. ¶11. (C) Madiha said that she went to local media outlets to raise awareness of the IDP crisis and the government's poor response. After a local US Army unit donated 1750 blankets and some other supplies, Madiha went to a local paper and told them that the US Army was doing more for IDPs than the Government of Iraq. ¶12. (C) Madiha said there is a lot of confusion about the promised payments to IDP families by the government. The Prime Minister has yet to disburse money to the Provincial Council or to the District Councils to make payments of 100,000 ID to IDP families. This 100,000 ID payment is authorized for any displaced family, and the Prime Minister announced that he would authorize a 1 million ID payment to displaced families who returned to their homes. Madiha said that only 1,500 families have been paid the 100,000 ID sum by the MoDM, and they were families in Husseiniya, Sadr City and Shula (Shia neighborhoods). Rubeiy alleged that so far, only one family in Baghdad has been paid the promised 1 million ID for returning to their home in the Mada'in district (east Baghdad suburb, mixed). CROCKER