Sport rings out violence in Iraq

Dripping with sweat, Bakr Sallih lunges towards his opponent and delivers a cracking punch to the jaw. “Easy,'' chides his coach. “I want wisdom. I don't want force.''

Less than a year ago, the lean 17-year-old was running the streets of Adhamiya with a Kalashnikov, defending the Sunni enclave from attacks from the surrounding Shiite districts in east Baghdad.

But that was then, he says. Now his fights are confined to the boxing ring at the Adhamiya Sports Club. “I want to dedicate my power to work and sport,'' Sallih said.

His coach, Iraqi boxing legend Farouk Chanchoun, smiled approvingly.

Once a place where Olympic dreams were made, the club was nearly destroyed in the sectarian bloodshed that exploded in Baghdad two years ago.

As the violence ebbs, Chanchoun and other neighbourhood athletes hope one of the city's oldest and most respected athletics institutions can help lure its sports-mad youth off the streets and provide a more constructive outlet for their energies.

“The first thing I want is reconciliation,'' Chanchoun said. “I don't want the law of the jungle to prevail.''

But the reality of lingering fear and corrupt bureaucracies has a habit of intruding on dreams.

Few people from outside Adhamiya dare visit the club in what was an insurgent bastion.

And the Sunni trainers complain they have been abandoned by the country's Shiite-led government, which owns the club.

Fight against frustrations

It is an often-heard frustration in Sunni parts of Baghdad, where residents who once fought American and Iraqi forces are now cooperating with them against extremists.

The US military, which paid to refurbish the club, believes it is places such as these that can help restore a sense of belonging among Sunnis — and help determine whether the fragile truce holds.

The club is on a main square in what was a well-to-do neighbourhood of retired military officers, educators and other professionals.

In its heyday, its athletes came from across Baghdad to compete in football, basketball, volleyball and swimming.

But it is best-known for producing champion boxers and wrestlers.

This is where Chanchoun, who made it to the light-welterweight quarterfinals at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, learnt to trade punches when he was 7.

His biggest fan, he said, was his mother, a diminutive woman in enveloping black robes who never missed a fight.

“It used to be one of the best sports clubs in Iraq,'' said bodybuilder Ahmad Rashid, an enormous man whose photographs adorn the mirrored weight room he runs at the club. “Many of our players used to bring back medals.''

Saddam Hussain promoted sport as a way to bring glory to Iraq.

Failure was not an option. When Saddam's son Uday took charge of the National Olympics Committee in 1984, he terrorised athletes who did not perform to expectations at international tournaments.

Rather than fight in Saddam's wars, Chanchoun fulfilled his service requirement by joining the police sports club, where he remained as a boxer and coach for 30 years.

His career ended when US-led forces toppled Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime in 2003, ushering in a government led by Shiites and Kurds, who suffered under the late dictator.

Forced to retire, Chanchoun returned to Adhamiya, where he reunited with athletes.

For a while they managed to keep the club going. But as the capital was engulfed in violence, a detachment of Iraqi soldiers moved into the complex.

The mostly Shiite soldiers turned the boxing hall into a barracks and used the ring for firewood.

Early this year, the Iraqi soldiers returned the club to the neighbourhood in a deal negotiated by the US military.

The military hired local crews to repair the worst of the damage.

On a recent afternoon, six boys under the age of 12 practised on a new set of punching bags as two pairs of teens in red gloves pounded each other in the ring.

“I love boxing,'' said Mohammad Said, 10. “It gives me strength and confidence.''

The coaches involve themselves in every detail of their young charges' lives, from what they eat to how they are doing at school.

“I don't only train their bodies; I also train their minds,'' Rashid said.

When they couldn't practise at the boxing ring, Chanchoun continued to work with a few of his best students at home in his yard.

Sallih visited him as much as he could but often the fighting got in the way.

Each time word went out over the mosque loudspeakers that the neighbourhood was under attack by militiamen, Sallih was in the streets with his peers.

“But I never killed anyone,'' he said . “If I had, I could never forgive myself.''