Basra, Iraq: The historic canals that earned Basra its nickname of the Venice of the Middle East are clogged with trash. In some neighbourhoods, the garbage is piled so high it blocks streets.
Residents say the debris is just the most visible sign of decades of neglect of Basra by the government. Now, a growing number of citizens are pushing for autonomy for this oil-rich southern province of nearly 3 million people.
The local politicians backing the project envisage a semi-autonomous state — not an independent nation. But their campaign presents a new challenge for Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi as he tries to prevent Iraq from splintering in the wake of Daesh’s gains last summer in the country’s north.
The effort comes as the region’s borders, drawn up by colonial powers with little consideration for the mix of sects and ethnicities on the ground, are fragmenting. That is testing the strong centralised governments that have dominated the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Proponents of the autonomy proposal hope the Basra region will gain powers similar to those of Iraqi Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region in Iraq’s north. They have even designed their own flag depicting a pair of hands cradling a drop of oil, underscoring the main grievance here — that Basra sees little benefit from the millions of barrels of oil that it pumps out of its fields.
“Basra only gets neglect and injustice, but at the same time they are stealing our resources,” Assad Al Idani, one of the campaign organisers, said of the central government as he addressed local residents at a Shiite meeting hall on a recent day.
“Basra is the cow and they are taking the milk, but leaving the cow to starve,” he told the crowd in the Hayy Al Ghadir neighbourhood, as his team gathered signatures for their campaign. “It’s our oil,” Al Idani said underlining his view.
The Iraqi constitution outlines a clear route for a province to become a semi-autonomous region.
The move requires a referendum, which must be held if a petition for autonomy either wins support from a third of the members of the provincial governing council or gets signatures from 10 per cent of the region’s registered voters — around 160,000, in the case of Basra.
More than 100,000 signatures have been collected since the fall, according to Mohammad Al Tai, a member of parliament from Basra who is backing the initiative. But the exact total is unclear, since a variety of groups are collecting names.
Al Tai argues that more autonomy would enable Basra to provide better services. At the moment, even minor development projects require authorisation from the central government, slowing them down and creating opportunities for officials to demand bribes before issuing approvals.
In Basra, multi-million-dollar projects routinely stall or run aground.
The foundation stone for Palm City, an ambitious commercial and industrial mega-project planned to include 100,000 housing units, was laid two years ago, but construction is yet to begin.
Emad Al Hassani, a spokesperson for the Basra governor, described the delay as a “mystery.”
“There are projects where money has been paid but nothing has been done,” he said. “We are trying to fight the corruption.”
A flagship Sports City stadium and commercial development was slated to be finished before the 2013 Gulf Cup football tournament. But it has just opened its doors.
Not everyone agrees that autonomy is the answer to the region’s problems. In an interview in his office on a rubbish-strewn street in this port city’s Al Shoula district, Dawai Karim, the head of the local governing council, questioned whether decentralising power would change the rampant corruption.
“There are too many thieves,” lamented Karim. “As long as we have corrupted parties, nothing will change.”
It takes multiple calls to local authorities before trash is collected, he said — they usually don’t come unless it’s blocking a road. In December, Basra’s governor told the local media that out of 8,000 municipal workers on the books in the province, only 2,500 actually existed. Others were “ghost workers” — with salaries paid to people using fake names, a common form of corruption in Iraq. The governorate recently signed a deal with a Kuwaiti company to pick up the garbage, but the service hasn’t started.
“Basra should be the best province in Iraq,” Karim said. “It has the ports, it has the oil, but there’s no sewage system and we can’t even collect the trash.”
It is not the first time Basra has made a bid for autonomy; an effort in 2010 failed to get as far as a referendum. Politicians who supported it complain that former prime minister Nouri Al Maliki, who fiercely defended the central government’s authority, obstructed their attempt. They see their chances as stronger under Al Abadi, who has said he is in favour of devolving more power to the provinces.
The prime minister believes decentralisation “will enhance Iraq’s national unity by giving people greater say on running their day-to-day decisions,” said Rafid Jaboori, spokesperson for Al Abadi.
However, if Basra were to become more autonomous, that would weaken the central government’s control over its resources at a time when it is struggling to balance its books due to plunging oil prices. The government’s budget depends overwhelmingly on crude oil exports, and Basra produces the largest share of them.
“The scheme could become quite threatening if the Basra federalists press for powers similar to those [Kurdistan] is demanding in oil questions,” said Reidar Visser, an independent Iraq analyst.
But that is exactly what Basra may want. Kurdistan gets 17 per cent of the national budget and negotiates its own contracts with oil companies.
Wael Abdul Atif, an Iraqi politician who has been pushing for an autonomous region for Basra since 2003, argues that this province should be allowed to award oil contracts itself and be given 10 per cent of the national budget.
During a trip to Basra in December, Al Abadi stressed that becoming a region with greater powers is a constitutional right — but one that needed further discussion.
Supporters of autonomy say they, too, want to proceed with caution.
“It’s not wise to put a date on when this could be achieved,” said Al Tai, the member of parliament. “There are many people who are against this, many parties against this.”
Still, the issue has the potential to present serious problems for Iraq’s government. Al Tai said that if a legitimate bid for a referendum is ignored, the campaign could resort to other tactics, like disrupting Iraq’s oil supply through strikes.
“Even if it means protests and using our strength, we will impose it,” said Shaikh Madlool Halfi, a local tribal leader, claiming his tribe had at least 30,000 armed men. “We will consider using them in good time.”
— Washington Post
