Iraqi exiles torn between fear and hope for homeland
Iraqi exiles torn between fear and hope for homeland
Catherine Hours, Agence France-Presse, Paris
Iraqi exiles living in France are torn between hope for the future in a post-Saddam Iraq and a sickening fear of what will happen to their country and relatives as the U.S. led assault unfolds.
"Like so many I am caught between two stools," said Falih Mahdi, a 55 year-old lawyer who has lived in Paris since 1978.
"Saddam is a nightmare. He is a wretch who wages war against his own people. But at the same time the United States do not inspire me with confidence. What is it they want? I find the idea of democracy coming to Iraq tomorrow hard to imagine," he said.
Like the rest of France's 5,000-strong Iraqi community, Mahdi has spent the last two days staring at the television and anxiously contacting family-members in Iraq for news. The prevailing mood is apprehension.
"My feelings are all mixed up: anger, sadness, anxiety for our families over there. The Iraqi regime will take the population hostage, then the Americans will bombard everything," said Wathab al-Sadi, a 58 year-old economist.
A prominent opposition figure -- he heads the Iraqi Forum in France -- al-Sadi nonetheless joined a demonstration Thursday evening in Paris against the US and British invasion.
"An overwhelming majority of Iraqis in France would welcome the overthrow of the regime, but they also think the Americans have exceeded this objective and want above all to occupy the country. Today Iraq in its totality is under threat," he said.
Members of the Iraqi Kurdish community in France speak more positively about the invasion, describing it as a long overdue opportunity to escape completely from the shadow of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
"It is a chance which will not occur again. I condemn war from the humanitarian point of view, but this one is welcome," said Kamuran Jikikan, who as legal services director at the Kurdish Institute in Paris advises Kurdish asylum-seekers fleeing northern Iraq.
"I find it hard to understand the French position," said Temo Ezzedain, a musician and translator who has lived in France for 28 years. "War is never pleasurable -- and I can see why people protest against it -- but we reason as Kurds. In 1991 France protected us. Now we are forgotten."
Following the Allied victory in the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi Kurds rose in revolt against Saddam, but they were crushed when no military assistance came and an international aid effort was launched to help hundreds of thousands of refugees.
"Saying Bush and Saddam are equivalent is ridiculous. The reason for the suffering of my people is Saddam Hussein. I wish we could have won our freedom by ourselves, but we couldn't. So I hope this war is quick, and the Americans and British help us build our democracy," said Ismail Kamandar Fattah, a 51-year-old Kurdish writer.
Speaking to Le Monde newspaper, Iraqi film-maker Saad Salman, who has lived in France for 25 years, said he had stayed up all night at the start of hostilities.
"I tried to call my father in Baghdad but I could not get a line. For years I have had only one desire, which is that he stay alive long enough to see the downfall of Saddam. So I turned on the television, and thought of him and his suffering," he said.