Interview with Minister of Displacement and Migration

Sorya Isho Warda, Minister of Displacement and Migration, was once displaced herself. She told IRIN she narrowly escaped being killed by former president Saddam Hussein by fleeing the country and living in exile. Warda faces a nearly impossible task: How to create an equitable distribution of housing for people who were moved from southern Iraq to northern Iraq and vice-versa under Saddam's Arabisation programme. These days, many families have taken matters into their own hands, showing up at former houses and demanding them back. Other displaced people were forced out by landlords who put up rents. QUESTION: What is your main goal? ANSWER: Our job is to help every returnee from another country and all displaced people in Iraq. Every country that took in people fleeing from Saddam wants to send them back. We said, please wait for us until the security is better. We have some projects started, but this will take a long time. Q: We know former US administrator Paul Bremer started some housing projects for displaced people. What is happening with them? A: Many things were promised. But it went very slowly. We will begin them soon. Nothing has started. We want to rebuild our country, but security is the main problem stopping us. In addition, many Iraqis want compensation for the crimes of the previous regime and they come to us to help them. Saddam's regime was helping his friends in so many other countries, but he didn't help people in his own country. These people destroyed our psychological feelings as a country. You see all of the factories with the old machines, just everything is so run down. Q: What is happening to people living in former military barracks around the country? Will the Iraqi army take over those barracks and camps? A: We have many displaced persons living in these barracks. This is a huge problem. We are preparing projects but we don't want to build collective centres, we want to make sure people get apartments to live in. North to south and south to north, we want to rebuild housing projects all over the country. But how can we deal with all of these people who were moved? We may do something to compensate people and try to find land to build new villages for them. For example, the reconstruction minister wants to build a new city in Diyala province (northeast of Baghdad) that was destroyed. Many hopeful people are still waiting. This shows how the bad security situation is holding things up, but these people did not lose hope yet. Q: So what will you do exactly in terms of projects? A: We have to find land to build on. Saddam had a policy of changing the demographics of our country and Arabisation. So instead of moving just one family, you might have to move three families for everyone to end up where they used to live before. We will take some land, say it belongs to the state and distribute it to the people who were displaced. Some people have lands to give. We have a duty to assign priority to those who have no land; those from families who are martyrs and others. We are working on lists of people who registered to create a policy of reconstruction. We also have to work with the Ministry of Finance since they will pay for this project. We must help these people. Q: Where will you build? A: We have to start projects all over. In the north, some people live in tents in villages that were destroyed. In Dahuk, also in the north, people are fighting with each other about who owns some land. Some Islamic organisations are trying to build right now on land that doesn't belong to them because there is no law. This is a problem for us. People who live there would like to come back to work. They have nothing. There needs to be a big movement in reconstruction. We think we can start in the north first since security is better there. (Northern Iraq was virtually separated from the rest of the country by a no-fly zone after the 1991 Gulf war.) At Faish Habour on the Syrian/Iraqi border all of the areas are Chaldean Christian but Arabs were moved there by force. People want to move. There is no solution for these people. Kurds asked them to move out. Kurds said they would give the Arabs US $10,000 per house but this should be our job. We are discussing it with the Kurdish authorities. We want to do this the legal way, not through clashes. Q: What is your budget? A: This is also a problem, but next year we will be able to say the exact amount we receive. The economy is progressing and donor countries want to help us. We will pay for the housing, but where will the money come from? Along with the planning department, we have asked for donors to finance thousands of projects. We are working [constantly] to figure this out. Q: How are you working with the United Nations now as they usually play a big role in these issues? A: The non-presence of the United Nations is a very big problem for us (international UN workers are outside of Iraq for security reasons.) They are not able to do everything from Amman, Jordan, that they would be able to do here. Sometimes we do missions that are not our missions, they would usually be UN missions. We need to do them because no one else can. We are opening offices all over the country to help as the UN isn't here. I opened offices just the other day in Karbala and in Nasriyah (in southern Iraq). We will organise people in these offices and build databases to see exactly where all the people are living who need to move. In Nasriyah we have many responsibilities for the people who just left Latifiyah [central Iraq]. Q: What is happening to the displaced people staying at the Kirkuk stadium in northern Iraq? A: People are still there; we went to see them this week with the directors of water, electricity and education from that governorate. They are trying to make sure everybody knows that they are still stuck living outside in tents. Also, the problem is not worse but there is a politicisation of the ethnic groups in Kirkuk. US (troops) responsible say there are clashes between different ethnic groups. But they are not big clashes. It is not like civil war. Q: We have heard that because of the fighting in Latifiyah some families fled to Nasriyah. What is happening there? A: That situation is a very special one because it happened after Fallujah. Most of the insurgents fighting in Latifiyah don't have any background or foundation, so it is hard to know what they are fighting for or when these people in Nasriyah will be able to go back. Formerly, insurgents were Saddam Fedeyeen [an elite special unit under the former regime] and Republican Guards [Saddam's special guards]. The interior ministry and the defense ministry are coordinating with multinational forces to figure out how to get these people home. Iraqis have always lived together, so we shouldn't even think of civil war. We have five to seven different Islamic traditions here; nine to 12 different Christian churches. We had problems with massacres, where Saddam would kill a group of people, but there was not ethnic hate. It was a regime that practiced violence against certain groups of people. Q: So what do you think will happen in various places where insurgents are currently fighting? A: I think this will be the last act of violent experience. Now that Fallujah has fallen, that is enough. Baathists were in power all of this time - 35 years. I was in Baiji [recently], where the petrol and electricity plants are located. You have to see the situation. It made me cry that Iraqi people sabotaged these plants, the refinery. This is a rich country, not just in oil but also agriculturally. It is in criminal hands. Saddamists now are trying to connect to extremists from outside. But it is impossible for them. This is the new Iraq.