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.

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Families move to Karadah for safety
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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.

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Not all claimants displaced by violence
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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.


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Displacement affects real estate
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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

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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.

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Government assistance to IDPs weak
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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