IN PROMOTING RETURNS TO HURRIYA, GOI GRAPPLES WITH

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 002308 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/24/2018 TAGS: EAID IZ PGOV PREF SUBJECT: IN PROMOTING RETURNS TO HURRIYA, GOI GRAPPLES WITH TOUGH ISSUES OF SECURITY, EVICTIONS, AND AWAKENING COUNCILS Classified By: RICHARD ALBRIGHT, SENIOR COORDINATOR FOR IDPS AND REFUGE ES, FOR REASONS 1.4(b) AND (d) ¶1. (C) Summary. The Implementation and Follow-Up Committee for National Reconciliation (IFCNR) Chairman Mohammad Salman on July 13 convened the Iraqi Army (IA) generals responsible for the Baghdad district of Hurriya and MNF-I to discuss the prospect for returns of IDPs and refugees to that area. In attendance at the meeting were relevant commanders of the Iraqi Army (IA),Iraqi Police (IP),MND-B Brigadier General Swan, representatives of USM-I and the Baghdad PRT and, at the invitation of IFCNR, representative Sunni community leaders from the area. The Ministry for Displacement and Migration was not present at the meeting. The heated discussion highlighted the challenges of providing sufficient security to enable refugees and IDPs to return to neighborhoods that have undergone severe displacement, the lack of a clear policy or plan to evict squatters from homes of the displaced and the controversial security role of the Awakening Councils. The meeting did not result in a clear way forward. End Summary. ¶2. (SBU) IFCNR, which reports to Prime Minister Maliki, is charged with promoting returns of IDPs and refugees to Baghdad neighborhoods. IFCNR Chairman Mohammed Salman explained to us that his mandate is to establish security and political reconciliation/consensus to create the conditions for return on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis. Programs to assist returnees and provide needed infrastructure are the responsibility of the Ministry of Displacement and Migration and other line ministries. IFCNR achieved some success with its initial returns effort in March 2008 in the Baghdad neighborhood of Saydiya with the return of 1800 families. However, the conditions in Saydiya were unique in that no militia controlled, it was relatively secure, and the area and most of the houses were vacant. This is not the case in Hurriya or most other neighborhoods that have experienced large scale displacement. ¶3. (C) Chairman Salman opened the meeting by stating that displacement is a humanitarian issue and that he wants to help the returnees. According to Salman, security was to be the focus of this meeting and a lack of security is the primary impediment preventing returnees from coming back to their homes in Hurriya. Salman also highlighted the fact that the Hurriya neighborhood poses significant problems because Sunni residents were displaced by Shia from all over the Karkh area of Baghdad, thus the return of original residents would involve Shias being evicted in favor of Sunni returnees. Salman stated that therefore the return operation should focus initially on returns to empty houses. It would take time to address the issues of occupied houses, given that many of those occupying houses had been displaced from other areas. The Chairman added that he had worked returnee operations in other areas with the help of Awakening groups providing security. Salman said that a return effort would require assistance from both the IA and CF. ¶4. (C) Two senior Iraqi Army (IA) officers (LTG Wajih Abdullah, BOC al-Karhk Commander and MG Abd-al-Ameer Yarallah, Commander of the 6th IA Division ),from the command groups responsible for Hurriya, discussed the issue of security. They stated that the IA, in cooperation with the Iraqi Police, would take full responsibility for providing security in the area, thereby allowing returns to take place. LTG Wajih emphasized the need for walling off the area and controlling access by way of checkpoints to insure the safety of returns. He stated that the walling off of the area and establishment of checkpoints could be accomplished by the end of July, and that at this point it is 80% walled. With this, he expected that security would be adequate. They would need to give squatters two to three weeks to leave the houses they were occupying before returns could take place. NO PLAN FOR EVICTING SQUATTERS ¶5. (C) The IA leadership present stressed that the GoI needs to develop and communicate a clear returns policy - providing procedures for returns operations and a well-defined evictions policy. The generals stated that they had surveyed the properties in Hurriya and marked which houses were vacant and which are occupied by owners, legal renters and squatters. They claimed that the majority of the squatters had come from peaceful areas of Baghdad and the outskirts. As such, most of these people are not legitimate IDPs, but opportunistic squatters who had moved into houses vacated by the sectarian violence. General Ameer observed that it would be difficult to get these people to return to the far more modest dwellings and villages from which they had migrated. The two generals said that handling the displacement problem is a political issue, and the IA needs clear direction from the GoI to execute all aspects of a returns policy. They would be ready and able to implement a clear policy. They further stated that they believed that the Awakening members are basically an untrustworthy group and they in particular cannot be trusted to provide security for returnees. ¶6. (C) A discussion by local Sunni sheiks and religious leaders - invited by IFCNR - also highlighted the lack of a clear GoI policy regarding the process for returnees. Noting regular contacts with their community, who had fled to Jordan, Syria and the Gulf, they said that the refugees needed to see security and a clear policy. Echoing the IA,s distrust of the Awakening groups, they said that their people would not return as long as those groups were in control. They stated that this must be a high priority, as its actions will have far-reaching consequences throughout Baghdad. They also noted that since 1950 Sunni and Shia have lived harmoniously in this area and, with proper instructions and enforcement from the GoI, they could again in the future. ¶7. (C) In a detour that sidetracked the majority of the meeting, both generals took the opportunity to complain that Coalition Forces are moving too slowly to transfer oversight of the SOI volunteers to Iraqi control. General Wajih Abdulla claimed that the SOI are simultaneously responsible for the IDP problem in Hurriya because they are ¬ from the neighborhood8 and are squatting in other peoples, houses and, rather than securing the neighborhood, are instead engaging in threats and violence that makes the neighborhood unsafe. The generals insisted that they have a &plan8 to take control of the SOI and that the ISF should assume salary payments of the SOI by August 1. (Note: Wajih,s proposal is not widely endorsed within the ISF leadership, which has developed a nationwide plan for transfer of the SOI in partnership with the MNF-I. He is likely expressing the frustration of some of the local leaders who believe the process could move more quickly, although they are still putting in place the mechanisms to absorb and pay SOI. End Note.) The Sunni sheiks attending the meeting expressed differing opinions, with some of them agreeing that the SOI in Hurriya are causing instability and others offering alternative points of view. They also called for more employment opportunities for volunteers not integrated into the ISF. Chairman Salman stated that twenty per cent of Awakening members were to be incorporated into the government (IP/IA); the remaining eighty per cent were to receive grants and go to vocational training schools. Chairman Salman noted that the screening process for integrating the twenty per cent of Awakening members into the ISF would take several months. He said he would discuss eviction and the concerns about the Awakening groups with the Prime Minister. (Note: On separate occasions, Salman has noted to Coalition officers the necessity of involving SOI into the IDP-return process given the key security role SOI have in a number of disputed neighborhoods. He points out that a POSITIVE contribution by SOI in the IDP returns process would help to allay concerns harbored about SOI. End Note.) (C) Several subsequent meetings held by the IA with potential returnees to Hurriya and to Adl and Jamiyah at which MNF were present, have shown that these fundamental issues remain unresolved. Moreover, in those two districts, there were conflicting reports about how many houses were unoccupied and uncertainty about whether IA would be engaged in eviction. ¶8. (C) Comment: Returns of refugees and IDPs is a slow and difficult process that will depend first and foremost on security and will also require political reconciliation, and enforcement of private property rights and programs to assist returnees and those who are evicted, some of whom are IDPs themselves. The IFCNR meeting on Hurriya generated a frank debate because the issues are difficult and the government has not yet developed a clear policy to deal with eviction. In the Hurriya area, as in some other areas in Baghdad, the reality is that the GoI would be evicting large numbers of poor Shia so that Sunnis could return to their homes. Although the participants did not frame the issue in precisely these terms, the contentiousness of the conversation, the reputation of the generals as Shia partisans and the skepticism of the Sunni leaders made it obvious that this idea was a strong undercurrent. End Comment. CROCKER