Tuesday, May 20, 2003
Iraqi Families Move Into Gov't Buildings
From: spliffslips
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Iraqi Families Move Into Gov't Buildings
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By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
Associated Press Writer
May 20, 2003, 2:00 AM EDT
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The walls are charred. The floors are strewn with debris. But for hundreds of Iraqi families, it's home now -- and they are hoping it's going to stay that way.
When U.S. forces seized the capital, the elite of Saddam Hussein's regime bolted. Now, with no legal system left to stop them, Iraqi families are flooding into the buildings left behind, carving new homes out of abandoned residences, looted offices and bombed-out military bases.
"This is where we will build a future," said Hadi Ubid Jumha, who moved his wife and six children into the bombed remains of Saddam's Baghdad Air Command -- or, more specifically, three soot-blackened rooms at the back of a theater that was once part of an officers' social club.
"We want to celebrate our sons' weddings here," Jumha said, glancing proudly toward his two lanky teens.
Before the war, Jumha moved his family from place to place in a futile attempt to stay ahead of rent payments. His last home -- a single 10- by24-foot room -- took up all but 5,000 dinars ($2.50) of the 40,000 dinars ($20) he earned each month as a driving instructor.
Now, picking his way through broken bricks, twisted metal and shards of glass, Jumha organizes his future -- noting which walls need a coat of paint, where he plans to put in a door, where the toilets will be.
While Iraq was spared the refugee crisis many feared the war would cause, it is in the throes of a major housing crisis.
At the end of 2002, the housing ministry estimated that 800,000 new homes were needed in Baghdad and other urban areas to accommodate the country's growing population.
But while Saddam built one ostentatious palace after another for himself, giving his people shelter was one of his government's lowest priorities.
By the regime's end, public housing made up about 1 percent of new construction, said Saad al-Zubaidi, a long-serving Housing Ministry official and now its director-general. This in a country where incomes are so low it would take many people 150 years to pay off a mortgage. Complicated restrictions on who could buy and sell real estate in the capital only made matters worse.
None of that sat well with al-Zubaidi.
"Having a roof over one's head is a basic part of belonging to any country," al-Zubaidi said. "He who has no house has no nation."
Desperate Iraqis are finding novel ways to solve their housing problems.
Some families lost their homes when they ran afoul of the regime -- or when Saddam decided he needed a new building. Now, they have started reclaiming the properties by painting the walls with large Arabic letters: "Returned to the original owner."
Others are looting bomb sites for materials to build on any piece of land they can find.
Hassan Ibrahim Abed moved his 11-member family from a dank basement room into a sun-dappled, marble-floored guesthouse in a deserted government compound.
"You can't even compare this place to the last one," he said, standing in the garden. "It's the difference between heaven and hell."
When two other families moved in with them, they put a notice on the gate. "Full house," it said.
Now a political party wants to take over the premises, Abed said. First its representatives came with money; turned down, now they're making threats.
Neither side has a deed, but Abed says he's not giving up his new home.
"If they want to take this place, they will have to kill us first," he said.
Such disputes have already turned violent.
Landlords, forced by Saddam's government to house Palestinians for as little as 2,000 dinars ($1) a month, are now evicting these tenants at gunpoint or extorting huge rent increases, human rights groups say. Hundreds of Palestinians have fled to neighboring Jordan.
The tangle of housing claims and counterclaims is sure to be a major challenges for any new Iraqi government, though more immediate concerns like security and restoring basic services are occupying American administrators.
At some point, the government will need its buildings back. But Daniel Hitchings, the housing ministry's senior U.S. adviser, acknowledges that American and Iraqi officials haven't even begun to consider how to do that.
The new occupants cling to the hope they will be allowed to stay.
Najdi Hassan Ali, an Egyptian moneychanger, lost his home in 1994 after he quarreled with one of Saddam's nephews over a business deal. He was arrested on what he calls trumped-up charges and sentenced to hang.
He remained on death row until last October, when Saddam emptied jails across the country. But with no money left to pay rent, he had to leave his wife and children with relatives while he stayed with friends.
He finally brought his family together again by taking over a two-room apartment in a military barracks overlooking the Air Command's empty swimming pool. A faded carpet is spread on the floor, and a portrait of his two sons and daughters hangs on the wall.
"If the new government takes this place from the people who are living here," he said, "then they are no better than Saddam."
Copyright (c) 2003, The Associated Press
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This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-iraq-moving-in,0,4635136.story
Visit Newsday online at http://www.newsday.com
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Iraqi Families Move Into Gov't Buildings
--------------------
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
Associated Press Writer
May 20, 2003, 2:00 AM EDT
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The walls are charred. The floors are strewn with debris. But for hundreds of Iraqi families, it's home now -- and they are hoping it's going to stay that way.
When U.S. forces seized the capital, the elite of Saddam Hussein's regime bolted. Now, with no legal system left to stop them, Iraqi families are flooding into the buildings left behind, carving new homes out of abandoned residences, looted offices and bombed-out military bases.
"This is where we will build a future," said Hadi Ubid Jumha, who moved his wife and six children into the bombed remains of Saddam's Baghdad Air Command -- or, more specifically, three soot-blackened rooms at the back of a theater that was once part of an officers' social club.
"We want to celebrate our sons' weddings here," Jumha said, glancing proudly toward his two lanky teens.
Before the war, Jumha moved his family from place to place in a futile attempt to stay ahead of rent payments. His last home -- a single 10- by24-foot room -- took up all but 5,000 dinars ($2.50) of the 40,000 dinars ($20) he earned each month as a driving instructor.
Now, picking his way through broken bricks, twisted metal and shards of glass, Jumha organizes his future -- noting which walls need a coat of paint, where he plans to put in a door, where the toilets will be.
While Iraq was spared the refugee crisis many feared the war would cause, it is in the throes of a major housing crisis.
At the end of 2002, the housing ministry estimated that 800,000 new homes were needed in Baghdad and other urban areas to accommodate the country's growing population.
But while Saddam built one ostentatious palace after another for himself, giving his people shelter was one of his government's lowest priorities.
By the regime's end, public housing made up about 1 percent of new construction, said Saad al-Zubaidi, a long-serving Housing Ministry official and now its director-general. This in a country where incomes are so low it would take many people 150 years to pay off a mortgage. Complicated restrictions on who could buy and sell real estate in the capital only made matters worse.
None of that sat well with al-Zubaidi.
"Having a roof over one's head is a basic part of belonging to any country," al-Zubaidi said. "He who has no house has no nation."
Desperate Iraqis are finding novel ways to solve their housing problems.
Some families lost their homes when they ran afoul of the regime -- or when Saddam decided he needed a new building. Now, they have started reclaiming the properties by painting the walls with large Arabic letters: "Returned to the original owner."
Others are looting bomb sites for materials to build on any piece of land they can find.
Hassan Ibrahim Abed moved his 11-member family from a dank basement room into a sun-dappled, marble-floored guesthouse in a deserted government compound.
"You can't even compare this place to the last one," he said, standing in the garden. "It's the difference between heaven and hell."
When two other families moved in with them, they put a notice on the gate. "Full house," it said.
Now a political party wants to take over the premises, Abed said. First its representatives came with money; turned down, now they're making threats.
Neither side has a deed, but Abed says he's not giving up his new home.
"If they want to take this place, they will have to kill us first," he said.
Such disputes have already turned violent.
Landlords, forced by Saddam's government to house Palestinians for as little as 2,000 dinars ($1) a month, are now evicting these tenants at gunpoint or extorting huge rent increases, human rights groups say. Hundreds of Palestinians have fled to neighboring Jordan.
The tangle of housing claims and counterclaims is sure to be a major challenges for any new Iraqi government, though more immediate concerns like security and restoring basic services are occupying American administrators.
At some point, the government will need its buildings back. But Daniel Hitchings, the housing ministry's senior U.S. adviser, acknowledges that American and Iraqi officials haven't even begun to consider how to do that.
The new occupants cling to the hope they will be allowed to stay.
Najdi Hassan Ali, an Egyptian moneychanger, lost his home in 1994 after he quarreled with one of Saddam's nephews over a business deal. He was arrested on what he calls trumped-up charges and sentenced to hang.
He remained on death row until last October, when Saddam emptied jails across the country. But with no money left to pay rent, he had to leave his wife and children with relatives while he stayed with friends.
He finally brought his family together again by taking over a two-room apartment in a military barracks overlooking the Air Command's empty swimming pool. A faded carpet is spread on the floor, and a portrait of his two sons and daughters hangs on the wall.
"If the new government takes this place from the people who are living here," he said, "then they are no better than Saddam."
Copyright (c) 2003, The Associated Press
--------------------
This article originally appeared at:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-iraq-moving-in,0,4635136.story
Visit Newsday online at http://www.newsday.com
