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.