Uproar in Basra as sheikh goes public

For several days, he was known here as "the secret sheikh", revealed only as a high-ranking tribal leader tapped by the British military to begin restoring some semblance of a government to this large southern city.

Thursday, Sheikh Muzahim Mustafa Kanan Tameemi went public, meeting with a council of about 30 local leaders designated to start running the city. Tameemi, a former brigadier general in the army of Saddam Hussain and a onetime member of Saddam's ruling Baath Party, was considered sufficiently anti-Saddam by British officials for the post.

But the announcement was greeted by political tumult. A rival tribe nearly rioted, throwing stones at Tameemi's home in the Basra suburb of Zubair.

In a poor slum neighbourhood of the city, there was a protest march of Shiites sympathetic to Iran. It all suggested how difficult it will be to find prominent Iraqis to incorporate into a new administration to replace the fallen Baath Party.

As looters continued to run free in Basra on Thursday, rampaging through a bank in the city centre in full view of British troops, the postwar challenge of governing Iraq was underscored again.

A doctor surveying the political protest outside Tameemi's house said, "We are seeing the future of Iraq right here, and it is not good."

The controversy that erupted over Tameemi's appointment reflected the historical enmity between the majority Shiites and the Sunni minority that dominated Saddam's government, and rivalry among tribes whose power has grown in recent years under Saddam.

Tameemi on Thursday took the first steps toward setting up a new order in Basra, a city of 1.3 million, when the council met at the home of a local timber merchant.

The council named new heads of the police, traffic police and civil defence departments, and said it had ordered the police to report back to work yesterday – for now, without the guns that the British military here has refused to allow them to carry.

An imposing man with a neatly trimmed beard, Tameemi, 50, would not discuss his past in detail, other than to confirm he had been a general in the Iraqi army and had at one time belonged to the Baath Party. He is a Shiite but also the leader of a large, mostly Sunni tribe with members in neighbouring Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as well as in Iraq.

As Tameemi and the council met, his house in nearby Zubair became the site of a raucous display of the challenges facing his endeavour.

Tameemi's cousin, Sheikh Mansour Abdul Razaq Kanan, was at the house in Zubair, describing the democratic future he desired for Iraq. A new Iraqi government must be run by local leaders, he said, not the opposition figures now rushing back to the country after decades in exile.

On the wall of a reception room crowded with well-wishers was a photograph of Tameemi's brother. He was killed in 1994, according to relatives, after secret police took him away.

His body later turned up with a bullet wound in the head, and even men from rival tribes said they considered him "a martyr" who died because of Saddam.

Pointing to the picture, Kanan said it was proof that Tameemi was an opponent of the Saddam government. "Everybody knows he was opposed to the regime in Iraq," he said.

At just this moment, shouts erupted outside the house. At first, it appeared that a crowd had gathered to express support for Tameemi.

"Yes! Yes! Yes for Freedom!" came the chant.

Inside the house, Kanan said happily: "This is the first time people have been able to express their views about Saddam Hussain."

It was proof, he said, that "people aren't afraid of the Baath Party anymore".

But it quickly became apparent that this was not a friendly crowd. Stones started smashing into the side of the house, a window broke, and a new chant was heard. "No, no Baath Party, Yes, Yes Freedom."

The demonstrators were accusing Tameemi and his tribe of being collaborators with Saddam's government. Indoors, Tameemi's supporters identified the protesters as members of the rival Al Sadoon tribe – and accused them of being Baathists themselves. Several men retreated to a nearby room and grabbed weapons they hid under their clothes.

The protesters appeared to have been well-organised, with a loudspeaker and pre-prepared banners.

"The Iraqi people need the good man in the suitable location," said one banner in English. Another one, in Arabic, admonished, "No to any opportunities that will lead to a repetition of the Baath Party."

Eventually, a local religious leader arrived to quiet the crowd. "This is a house of a martyr," shouted Sayed Naim Al Musawi. "This house is against the Baath Party."

It didn't work, and the several hundred men who had gathered continued to chant slogans against Tameemi by name.

Musawi said the protesters had suffered so much under Saddam that they were "ready to sacrifice even ourselves in order not to have this happen again".

Musawi, who said he had been jailed for 11 years under Saddam, said the crowd outside could not accept a tribal leader imposed on them by the British who had a past in Saddam's government.

"We don't want them to tell us what to do," he said of the British. "It's insulting to educated people that anyone from coalition forces would declare one of the sheikhs of a tribe to be controlling our people."

Sitting on a chair in Tameemi's besieged house, Musawi said that the British military had been fooled into believing Tameemi was a Saddam opponent.

"The British thought that this person is a tribal leader and he isn't. The Baath Party created the tribal law," he said.

"People want someone who was not a member of the Baath Party, who was no relation to the previous government. They want someone who has loyalty to the people of Iraq and not to the Baath Party."

He claimed Iraqis were clamouring for an end to the tribal system, saying it had been manipulated and distorted by the Baath Party as a way to win over the tribes.

"The tribal law is all created by the Baath Party, and we don't want it," he said.

And then another cry went up.

"The British are coming," said one of Tameemi's supporters.

A group of British soldiers quickly moved into position, wielding rifles and trying to figure out what was happening. Maj Tom Valling asked Musawi again to quiet the crowd.

"Tell them this demonstration cannot make any difference,'' he urged. Their views, he said, would be aired at a meeting of civic leaders today.

Outside, Musawi proclaimed victory – even if the British had not exactly rescinded Tameemi's appointment. "They'll choose someone who has got no relation to the previous regime," he promised the crowd. Tameemi, he said, "is a tribal leader, and I told them you don't want him.

There will be no more tribal law in Iraq!"

At that, the energy drained out of the protest and the men dispersed.

© Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service