IRAQ AT A CROSSROADS

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Pedro Rojo Pérez
is to map out a timeline of the humanitarian catastrophe Iraq has lived through, taking as
our point of departure the most recent events, at the hands of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s army,
while also defining the deteriorating humanitarian situation that now weighs heavily on Iraq.
Human rights violations
Numerous reports in the media have described the details of Daesh’s systematic human
rights violations in Iraq and Syria: “including killings of civilians, abductions, rapes, slavery
and trafficking of women and children, forced recruitment of children, destruction of
places of religious or cultural significance, looting and the denial of fundamental freedoms,
among others. (…) Many of the violations and abuses perpetrated by ISIL may amount to
war crimes, crimes against humanity and possibly genocide,” informs a report by the UN
Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI). 5 Moreover, not only are these events very serious,
they also repeatedly affect people whose living conditions and human rights standards have
been deteriorating for 30 years. The fierce control and repression against any dissident
voice speaking out against the Saddam Hussein regime was replaced in the aftermath
of the occupation by a seemingly democratic process. This, however, was sectarian and
the share of power was distributed on the basis of the influence of each sect or religion,
prioritising denomination over the human being.
It is worth remembering that Islamic State returned to Iraq after gaining strength in
Syria6 through the power vacuum resulting from uprisings in the provinces of Anbar,
Nineveh, Salahuddin, Diyala and Kirkuk, with people tired of the human rights violations
systematically carried out against them by the Iraqi security forces. These new security
forces were created after the Iraqi national army and the security structures of the Baath
Regime were dismantled, in fulfilment of Order number 2 from May 2013 by the highest
authority of the occupation, Paul Bremer. Once more, political agreements were given
priority over the Iraqi citizens and new security forces were constructed, the cornerstone
of which were sectarian militias with links to the pro-Iranian parties that arrived with the
occupation. The systematic violations by these security forces, which put their efforts into
generally punishing the population and systematically punishing Sunni “rivals”, hindered
the creation of a true state, where all citizens feel represented and protected, regardless of
their origin or denomination, as reported by Amnesty International:
“The Iraqi central government authorities bear a significant part of responsibility for
the crimes committed by these militias. Militias have been armed, and/or allowed to be
armed, by the state; successive governments have all owed and encouraged militias to
operate outside any legal framework; and they have not been held accountable for the
crimes they have been perpetrating. The existence of these sectarian, unregulated and
unaccountable militias is both a cause and a result of the country’s growing insecurity and
instability. They preclude any possibility of establishing effective and accountable security
5 Report on the Protection of Civilians in the Armed Conflict in Iraq: 11 September-10 December 2014.
UNAMI/OHCHR [online]. Available in:
OHCHR_Sep_Dec_2014.pdf.
6 Rojo P (2014). Iraq: Revolution, Jihadism or Partition. Newsletter Al Fanar, 29 July 2014. Available in: