Iraqi Protesters Return to the Streets
Demonstrations resumed despite government offers of new jobs, more money for housing and a crackdown on corruption.
ByAlissa J. Rubin
BAGHDAD — Iraqi protesters took to the streets early Friday to resume antigovernment demonstrations that were suspended two weeks ago, after shootings by the security forces killed nearly 150 protesters nationwide, shocking the country and deepening disappointment with the government.
After an investigation, the government said this week that it would prosecute more than a dozen military and police commanders who ordered or oversaw the shootings, in which eight security force members were also killed. The commanders were removed from their jobs.
The government announced reforms, as well as the creation of new jobs and housing, but it seemed doubtful that would be enough to quell public anger over the country’s corruption, unemployment and lack of basic public services.
Early Friday morning, after protesters knocked down barriers and entered the Green Zone, security forces fired sound bombs and tear gas canisters in an attempt to push them back. The Green Zone houses many government offices, the prime minister’s residence, the Parliament and many embassies.
Even by Thursday evening, cellphone stores had boarded up their windows, money exchanges had closed and traffic was light. As protesters began to gather during the night in Tahrir Square, the site of some of the violence earlier this month, the security forces closed two of the bridges that lead into the Green Zone.
If, as many expect, the protests on Friday are bigger and angrier than those two weeks ago, Iraq will face an internal crisis as serious as anything it has seen since elected governments began in the post-Saddam Hussein era.
Shortly after midnight, Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mehdi addressed the nation, describing the reforms he said he was committed to seeing through, including job creation and housing projects for the poor, in an effort to respond to the criticism from millions of Iraqis.
Among his promises were the creation of a special court to deal with corruption, a more rigorous separation of the armed militias that work with the military from their political wings which are represented in Parliament, and a reduction in the salaries of senior officials.
Mr. Mehdi has promised changes before, and his litany of new promises raised the question of whether Iraqis would believe in his ability to fulfill them now when he had proved unable to get them to stick in the past. .
The difference is that this time, a sword of Damocles hangs over his head and that of the political elite: If the populace is not satisfied, the government could fall and Iraq could drift into chaos.
At 78 years old, Mr. Mehdi in some ways is a man with nothing to lose by pushing for the reforms, and he has long been a proponent of creating a more modern state.
“We are facing a crisis in the system that the politicians did not recognize,” he said in his address early Friday morning, “but the people realized it, which explains why they have formed a movement.”
However, winning back public trust could take years.
“Once people go to the streets with legitimate demands, it is too late — the trick is for the government not to adjust to the demands of the protesters, but to stop them from going to the streets ahead of time by understanding what they want,” said Abbas Kadhim, a senior fellow and the director of the Iraq Initiative at the Atlantic Council.
“Once the protests start, it is a force on the street,” Mr. Kadhim added, “and most of the time the biggest beneficiaries are not the protesters, it’s anybody who has the skill to manipulate them to their own ends.”
At least initially, it appeared on Friday that all sides would try to refrain from violence.
The Ministry of Communication said it had received no instructions to shut down the internet, so protesters and other people were able to contact each other on Friday morning. That is in contrast to early October, when the government cut access to the internet, and then restored it, but with restricted access to social media.
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