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CURRENT
ISSUE: March 6, 2006
VOL.
44, NO. 5Oakland,
CA
Chaldean priest: 'All of Iraq is in danger'
ROME -- As
killings increased in retribution for the bombing of a Shiite shrine in
Iraq, the Rome-based representative of Baghdad’s Chaldean Catholic
Patriarchate said that “all of Iraq is in danger.
“It’s not just about Sunni and Shiite, because they started
three weeks ago on Christians,” said Father Philip Najim, referring
to the near-simultaneous attacks in late January in Baghdad and Kirkuk,
a northern Iraqi city, launched just as some Sunday services had ended.
Father Najim said he believed the people behind the mid-February attacks
“came from outside Iraq and they (coalition forces) are doing nothing
about it.” He said that as an Iraqi, he could assure people “100
percent that no Iraqi man would ever do this. Not a Sunni, not a Shiite.”
The people behind the mid-February attacks “want to create division
and chaos. They want to stop the process of a new political situation”
of democracy and peace, Father Najim said, adding that he did not understand
what U.S. and British forces were doing to help keep order.
“Before we can talk about a constitution and democracy, we have
to bring stability and unity,” he said. “Instead, there is
Iraq being divided and creating different camps. Each group is like a
country in itself” with its own leader, people and army.
Gunmen shot dead 47 civilians during a protest against the bombing of
a sacred Shiite shrine known as the Golden Mosque in Samarra, north of
Baghdad. By Feb. 23, more than 110 people were believed killed in the
previous two days; many were shot execution-style. Since then the violence
has escalated with reports of more than 1300 bodies now lying in the Baghdad
morque.
Such attacks against religious places of worship have “never happened
in the whole history of Iraq; never (was) sectarian strife” caused
by the Iraqi people themselves, Father Najim said.
The terrorists “want to take advantage of the situation, and they
know that the most sensitive thing is people’s religious sentiments”
so they aim at religious places, Father Najim said.
“Our history has been destroyed, our archeology has been destroyed,
our culture is being destroyed and our sovereignty has been taken away.
The only things left are money from oil and our people,” and terrorists
were trying to control those by creating chaos, he said.
(Contributing to this story was Regina Linskey in Washington.)
Iraqi Shi’ites chant slogans as they hold the twisted remains of gold decorations from the shattered Shi’ite shrine, the Golden Mosque, in the town of Samarra. A dawn bomb attack, Feb. 22, wrecked the shrine, which sparked violent protests and sectarian reprisals.
RNS/ REUTERS
