Syria and the EP to Help Iraqi Refugees
Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad has called on the international community to assume responsibility to help the displaced Iraqis return to their homeland.
Mikdad discussed on Monday with members of a delegation from the European Parliament (EP) the situation of the Iraqis living in Syria and the latest developments in Iraq.
Heading the EP delegation, Rui Tavares, member of the European Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs said the EP is interested in working with Syria and the international community to help alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi refugees.
Tavares praised the great efforts Syria has been exerting to provide good living conditions for the displaced Iraqis.
EP Delegation Lauds Syria's Hosting of Displaced Iraqis
Members of the European Parliament delegation visiting Syria appreciated the big role and the burdens that Syria bears in holding the displaced Iraqis, stressing that Syria treated them in a brotherly manner.
Head of the delegation Rui Tavares said in a press statement that the delegation's talks in Syria were characterized by cooperation and transparency since Syria provided all facilitations to look into the situations of the displaced Iraqis in Syria, pointing out to what the EU could provide for them.
For his part, Member of the EP delegation Georgios Papanikolaou added that Syria provided all it can to the displaced Iraqis to alleviate their sufferings, expressing confidence that EU-Syrian relations will be more enhanced in the future.
www.isria.com


003 03-30-2010 Iraqi Christians Beg for Peace and Security
"We're waiting to see which direction and what guidelines the new government will follow. We hope that the government's plans call for peace and security." This is what Fides learned from Archbishop Avak Asadourian, Primate of the Armenian Orthodox Church of Iraq and Secretary General of the Iraqi Council of Christian Church Leaders, which brings together leaders of 14 Christian churches in the country.
Commenting on the results of the elections, the Archbishop sees some good signs: "Many citizens have participated in the vote. There was a high level of participation among Christians, as well. Now all we are waiting to see is which direction the government will take. We hope that the guiding principle of action will be to ensure peace and security to the nation, as this is the basis for genuine democracy and for rebuilding infrastructure and work."
On the sentiments among leaders and the Christian community, the Archbishop said, adding "The Christians have hopes for a stable and strong government. We are citizens of Iraq and we have been in this land, our home, for millennia. Politicians leading the country say they hope that Christians will remain in the country and continue to contribute. We ask them not to remain in good intentions, but to put them into practice through works," ensuring a peaceful life to Christian minorities, who are still under fierce attack. On direct commitment in politics, Archbishop Asadourian says: "There are now 5 Christians in Parliament and this is a step forward from the previous Parliament, where there was only one. But it's not enough. We encourage lay Christians to become involved in social life and engage in good politics, to support Christian values such as respect for human dignity and fundamental human freedoms."
The Council of Christian Church Leaders in Iraq was established on Feb. 10 in Baghdad as a coordinating body among the Christian leaders in Iraq. It includes 14 communities: the Chaldean Catholic Church, the Assyrian Church, the Assyrian Catholic Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Syro-Catholic Church, the Armenian-Orthodox Church, the Armenian Catholic Church, the Greek Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Latin Catholic Church, the Presbyterian Church, the Assyrian Evangelical Church, the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and the Coptic Orthodox Church.
www.speroforum.com


004 03-30-2010 Iraqi Refugees Find Hard Times
El Cajon, California -- Bomb blasts, torture and years of exile had all but ruined the Azeez family of Iraq. So the news sounded promising: Their refugee application had been approved. Abdul, his wife, Haifaa, and their four adult children were coming to America.
The family of Mandeans, a persecuted religious minority in Iraq, had left behind almost everything in their Baghdad home but planned to create a new life in El Cajon.
One year later, Abdul, 49, fiddles with worry beads as he paces in his two-bedroom town house. His three sons scour the streets competing for jobs with Mexican immigrants. Haifaa, 49, bends her brittle, bomb-shattered back to light rose-scented candles and prays.
Abdul, once a wealthy merchant who owned jewelry stores in Iraq, was counting on government support to resettle, but the eight months of payments have run out. The family members still lack work, as do many Iraqi refugees they encounter around town.
"Why are they bringing Iraqis here? There are no jobs," Azeez said.
Similar accounts of fading immigrant dreams are increasingly common in this San Diego suburb, where thousands of Iraqi refugees crowd apartment complexes, welfare lines and English-language schools, their appreciation for the United States tested by the specter of poverty.
Unlike previous waves of refugees from wars and other conflicts, the Iraqis' displacement has landed them in an economic desert. Gone are many of the jobs and generous government benefits that lifted earlier generations of immigrants up the economic ladder.
Refugees like the Azeez family resort to selling off jewelry and family heirlooms to pay the rent. Others borrow or live off money sent from relatives in Iraq. Families double up in tiny apartments. A handful have given up and returned to the Middle East.
"They're on a natural high when people get here. They are grateful," said Michael McKay, head of the Catholic Charities office in San Diego. "But after a few months, it's kind of a crash. Things are tough."
A refugee existence came unexpectedly for many. Saddam Hussein's ouster and execution lifted hopes that Iraq -- flush with oil profits -- would join the ranks of modern Arab states, minting millionaires and sprouting gleaming skylines. Instead, sectarian violence broke out in 2006, fueling attacks against ethnic and religious groups, many of whose members fled to Syria or Jordan. The U.S. government, inundated with immigration requests, dramatically increased the number of Iraqi refugee admissions in 2008.
Since then U.S. communities with large Iraqi populations have been flooded with refugees. In El Cajon, where about one-quarter of the population of 96,000 has Iraqi ancestry, an estimated 7,000 Iraqis arrived last year. A similar surge is expected this year, straining resources and schools in the city believed to have the second-largest number of Iraqis in the country, most of them Chaldean Christians.
On Main Street, which is dotted with signs in Arabic and kebab eateries, cafes are jammed with retired or unemployed Iraqi men sipping strong black tea. Refugees using food stamps buy fresh koboz bread and dates at storefront markets and get in line for donated mattresses at St. Peter's Church. There are waiting lists for English classes, and some refugees have been referred to homeless shelters.
Nearly half of the kindergartners in the local school district are refugees.
Last month, hundreds of immigrants tried to squeeze into a three-room social services agency to meet with Iraqi government officials. Police had to disperse angry crowd members who had gathered to get their Iraqi government documents processed.
Joseph Ziauddin, president of the East County Refugee Center, spends his days shuttling car-less widows to work, finding people jobs and translating police calls. Every morning, he wakes to dozens of phone messages from people asking for assistance.
"It's overwhelming," said Ziauddin, who runs one of a handful of social service agencies for Iraqis in the city. "People are in need. They need help, and there's not enough."
The tales of trauma and struggle spill out from women in veils, middle-aged men playing dominoes and children who sleep in clothesline-strung bedrooms. The refugees have been interviewed extensively by U.S. authorities abroad who have determined that their fears of persecution back home are credible.
A white-haired man stands in a welfare line, jobless in a new country after having been kidnapped and losing his chicken farm in Iraq to Muslim militants. A burly man in a cafe who had worked as a security guard for foreign media left Baghdad after receiving an envelope with five bullets inside, meant for each member of his family.
Many refugees are doctors, engineers and other educated professionals who feel humiliated taking jobs as busboys or waiters or landscapers -- when they can even land such work.
An estimated 80% of the refugees are jobless, according to community leaders and social service agencies. Ziauddin, a former engineer who worked as a busboy when he first arrived in the U.S. 12 years go, encourages countrymen to start at the bottom if necessary.
"We have to humble ourselves and forget who we were there," Ziauddin said.
Jwan Sulaiman hasn't forgotten her privileged past but has come to terms with the future. An anesthesiologist in Baghdad, the petite mother of two left after militants killed her nephew and she narrowly avoided a car bomb.
Unable to work here as a doctor, she was jobless for a year before finding employment as an interpreter. Sulaiman, 48, lives in a one-bedroom apartment with her 15-year-old daughter.
The apartment could fit in the living room of her three-story house in Baghdad, but at least now she doesn't see body parts on her way to work, or wear a head scarf in public as many women are forced to in Iraq. The San Diego area is safe, and that in itself is a blessing, she said.
"If I can't go to heaven later on," she said, "I am living it now."
The Azeez family members aren't so willing to embrace their new country.
In Baghdad, Azeez owned a jewelry manufacturing plant and four stores. The family's six-bedroom home featured a large, country-club-like garden. They had servants and drivers, and vacationed at a popular lake resort nearby.
When sectarian tensions boiled over, Mandeans like the Azeezes were especially vulnerable. An ancient religion whose adherents consider John the Baptist their prophet, its members can't carry weapons. Because of their pacifist ways and relative wealth -- many Mandeans are goldsmiths or merchants -- they became easy targets.
Azeez's daughter was snatched on her way to school in 2005, the abductors forcing him to pay a $25,000 ransom. A few months later, hooded gunmen broke into the house and tortured Azeez with a hot poker.
The family fled to Syria and opened a small market. After two years, U.S. officials approved their refugee application. It was a lifeline. Muslims had burned down their home in Iraq.
In El Cajon, their modest town house is furnished with donated mattresses, blankets and secondhand tables.
When Azeez isn't home pacing in his socks and flip-flops, he's calling on social service agencies for medical attention for his wife. Back in Iraq, her spine was injured when a bomb exploded at a marketplace where she had gone shopping.
She has trouble walking now and needs surgery to repair the brace in her back, which was implanted by doctors in Jordan. "Not happy. Everyday sit in home," Haifaa Azeez said in broken English.
During the family's first eight months in the United States, each member received the $450 in monthly government support distributed to all refugees. The family's only government support now is $750 in food stamps. By selling off pieces of gold they were able to take from Abdul's business, they barely make their $1,150 rent.
The job hunt is bleak. On a recent day, Rami, their youngest son, looked for work at an upscale shopping center. Employees at various stores directed him to long lines at customer service departments.
Each of Rami's finished applications reads the same.
Position? "Anything."
Available start date? "Any time."
Full or part time? "All of the time."
"They say they'll call back, but they never do," said Rami, who is in his early 20s.
In bleak moments, family members wonder why they came to the United States. They had options, including Sweden and Australia. They've considered returning to Syria, where at least they understand the language and there is a small Mandean community.
For now, the family worships alone on Sundays. Haifaa covers her head with a veil while she reads from their holy book. She prays for good health and acceptance in her adopted home.
"I will love this country," she said, "when my children get jobs and we get a normal life."
By Richard Marosi
Los Angeles Times


005 03-30-2010 Iraq: The Exodus Continues
What's wrong with this picture? Eight years after the U.S.-led invasion, with the phased American military withdrawal already underway and following elections this month that the Obama administration hopes will mark the closing chapter of U.S. involvement in Iraq, there are still more Iraqi refugees leaving their country than returning to it. According to the latest report from the U.N. High Commission on Refugees, released last week, 24,000 Iraqi refugees sought asylum in the industrialized nations in 2009. But that's not counting those who crossed into Syria or Jordan, who have in the past tended to be more numerous but are not covered in the U.N. surveys. According to a Brookings Institution ongoing Iraq watch, there are now 1.2 million Iraqi refugees in Syria, and around 450,000 in Jordan.
But the number of Iraqi returnees -- a standard gauge of whether the refugee population believes official assurances that life is returning to normal -- was low last year, and remains so now. The U.N. says 20,000 Iraqis returned last year from across the border in Syria. But only 2,000 made the reverse trip from Sweden, one of the major host countries in the West.
So who still feels threatened enough to want to leave? Iraq's smaller, non-Muslim religious and ethnic minorities represent a disproportionately high percentage of registered refugees. Since 2003, the country's Chaldean Catholics, Assyrian Orthodox, Yazidis, Sabean Mandaeans, and Turkmen have been decimated. Iraq's Christian community, for example -- one of the oldest in the world -- has been the target of continuous violence from Islamic extremists, mainly Shiites. Iraqi Christians have been killed, abducted, beaten, threatened, and forced to convert; several of their churches have been bombed and their properties destroyed. A Christian minority numbering 1.4 million prior to the invasion has been reduced to less than 500,000.
One motive is comeuppance: Under the regime of Saddam Hussein, Christians were largely left alone and, as a result, prospered -- so now it's payback time. They are identified with Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister and a Chaldean Catholic, the largest subgroup among them. But the other reason is a clear determination by elements of the Shiite majority to destroy the traditional multi-faith fabric of Iraqi society in favor of an all-Islamic state. The smaller minorities do not have militias or tribal structures with which to defend themselves, and the Iraqi authorities have provided little protection. And Christians actually declined additional U.S. protection to avoid reinforcing rumors that they were collaborating with "the invader." Iraq's minorities have been largely marginalized by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Shiite government, although they will have a total of eight seats in the new 352-member parliament.
Many refugees could see some hope in Ayad Allawi's surprising success in this month's parliamentary elections. Allawi is said to be a non-sectarian politician without a fundamentalist bone in his body. But whether his paper-thin plurality will be enough to make him prime minister, and what he will do if it does, are both questions better contemplated from the safety of Stockholm or Damascus.
By Roland Flamini