Dec 4, 2006
Iraq's Vatican ambassador acknowledges rising toll,
seeks more help
ROME (CNS) -- The Iraqi ambassador to the Vatican acknowledged the
increasing violence in his country, but issued a plea for
international support to help stabilize the country.
"We are very much concerned" about the increasing numbers of
civilian deaths, said Albert Yelda in a Nov. 30 interview with
Catholic News Service. But
implementing democratization and stability "is a long process" and
"we need multinational forces" to help "because they are doing an
excellent job."
Yelda admitted ethnic cleansing is taking place in Iraq. "Christians
are fearing for their lives like other minorities trapped in this
policy of ethnic cleansing," he said.
The "elements of instability" are people who "lost their influence"
and "lost ground" when Saddam Hussein was overthrown in the U.S.-led
2003 invasion, Yelda said. Saddam's "regime of mass graves is still
at work (though now it is) maybe behind religious dimensions,"
meaning that violence, killings and threats now are based on
religious divisions rather than the personal whims of a dictator.
It is "very important for us" that a program of national
reconciliation be carried forward and that all factions and parties
"become part of the political process," Yelda said. But "a
democratic, federal and secular government" will take "a lot of time
and a lot of different people's ideas," he added.
"During the 35 years of the Saddam regime, 4 million Iraqis fled"
Iraq, he said. "Now because of war and instability we can see
assassinations and forces of darkness working 24 hours a day,
working to destabilize and do as much damage" as possible in an
effort to try "to get back power."
"The presence of a military force is not the cause" of the violence
in Iraq, Yelda said. "Certainly no Iraqi would like to see their
country occupied by a foreign power and I believe many mistakes
happened when Iraq was liberated," he added. "But we can always
criticize about these mistakes and not achieve anything."
Two U.S.-based Chaldean Catholic bishops took a dimmer view of the
Iraqi situation.
"The situation is by all means very bad. It is a civil war or we are
about to start civil war," said Bishop
Ibrahim N. Ibrahim of the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Thomas
the Apostle, based in Southfield, Mich., a Detroit suburb. "The
whole country is in trouble. The whole country -- Muslim, Christian,
Kurds. Everybody is really in trouble."
Bishop Ibrahim confirmed that Iraqi Christians are leaving their
neighborhoods and towns for Kurdistan -- Iraq's northern provinces
-- or the Nineveh plain. "They cannot go outside the country. They
have not the means to travel to their neighbor's country," he said.
The bishop told CNS in a Nov. 30 telephone interview that the U.S.
government bears "the main responsibility for the deterioration of
the situation."
"They are in charge of the security. They should be in charge of
building. They should be in charge of reform," he said. Under
international law, Bishop Ibrahim added, "the occupying country has
the responsibility for the (occupied) country. ... The Iraqis now
are unable to take a decision for themselves, or even if they are
able, they are not free to make their own decisions.
"It's very tragic, very painful," said
Bishop Sarhad Y. Jammo of the Chaldean Eparchy of St.
Peter the Apostle, based in El Cajon, Calif.
Iraqi Christians "have no means to survive, even in Baghdad or other
cities. They cannot go to work, they cannot go to school. They are
threatened in their own neighborhoods, their own houses," Bishop
Jammo told CNS Nov. 30. "They are kidnapped, they are killed, they
are kidnapped for ransom, they are kidnapped for torture, they are
kidnapped to impose on them Islam. Sometimes they threaten them with
killing, with execution, unless they accept Islam, or they have to
pay to their neighbors sometimes taxes for being Christian."
While "I don't think any observer would have objected to changing
the regime," Bishop Jammo said, "I haven't seen any success after
the collapse of the regime. I haven't seen anything really a success
story. I don't know if the planning was totally inadequate, or badly
designed."
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By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
IRAQ-YELDA Nov-30-2006
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