Christians flee genocide as fear sweeps Iraq
from: The UK Telegraph 08/01/2005
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
By Jack Fairweather at St Matthew's Monastery near Mosul
One of the most ancient monasteries in the world, St Matthew's,
stands on a barren mountainside in northern Iraq, its last
inhabitant a crusty old Syrian Orthodox priest. Nestled between
sandstone crags with views of the hills around ancient Nineveh,
now called Mosul, it looks like the final redoubt of the
Christian world.
Seven thousand monks used to worship here; now there is just one,
Father Ada Qadr al-Kars.
This thinning of the ranks has taken centuries, he said, but in the
valleys Iraq's Christian community, targeted with especial ferocity
by Islamic extremists for the past year, is disappearing rapidly.
Churches have been bombed, priests kidnapped and Christian
neighbourhoods subjected to random shootings, the terrorists'
revenge for the community's shared religion with the "Christian"
invaders.
According to Church leaders, some 300,000 Christians - roughly a
quarter of the population - have fled their homes since the US-led
invasion.
It is too early to speak of a humanitarian crisis, with many from the
community, one of Iraq's more affluent, able to leave the country in
civilised fashion or find shelter in the Kurdish-controlled north.
But in the minds of Church leaders there is little doubt as to the
nature of the exodus.
"It's genocide. You can see it with your own eyes," said Bishop
Putres Harbori, head of the Christian community in Dohuk, near the
Turkish border, where 350 families have found sanctuary.
Many fear that Iraq's ancient Christian community is leaving for
ever, some nostalgic for better times under Saddam Hussein. Life was
good when the Ba'athists were in charge, said Paula Sliwa, 71, one of
60,000 Christians to flee Mosul in recent months.
He belongs to the Assyrian Church, one of several sects in the city
tracing their history to Job preaching to the ungodly. He, his wife
and five children used to live with 100 other families near the
Shaleeka Cunta church on the western bank of the Euphrates.
Iraq's small Christian community has a history of collaboration with
the powers-that-be in Baghdad, first with the British in the 1920s,
then with Saddam's regime, which boasted the Christian Tariq Aziz as
one of its most powerful leaders. Christians often worked in the
luxury business, selling alcohol and running beauty parlours.
"I have a large house and two cars," said Mr Sliwa, formerly a well
paid government official. "We never had any trouble." But the
Christian community in Mosul has been shaken by a wave of vicious
attacks, including five car bombs detonated outside churches, killing
more than 20, in one month.
Anti-Christian graffiti was daubed on church walls and inflammatory
CDs sold in the market. Regular gun attacks began in Christian areas
of the city, with several priests kidnapped and told that, as
Christians, they were on the side of the American invaders.
"We were used to living in hell," said Mr Sliwa. Then a neighbour
told him that his two sons had been killed by the latest attack. "My
son's car was 300 metres away. They were slumped in their seats,
covered in blood," he said. "The terrorists had shot at any car in
the neighbourhood, knowing they would kill Christians."
Mr Sliwa and the rest of his family fled to Angkawr, one of a number
of Christian communities in the Kurdish-protected north. That evening
his house in Mosul was broken into and ransacked.
Stories like his are common in Angkawr, where 150 families shelter
from the oppression and fear that forced them to flee homes in Mosul,
Baghdad and Basra.
They say a new breed of al-Qa'eda-inspired terrorists, rather than
the former Ba'athists, are behind the attacks. Iraqi police are
powerless to protect the community, say families, and US forces
rarely intervene, not wanting to be seen to be siding with Christians
and thereby exposing the troops to more violence.
For their part, Christian leaders in Iraq oscillate between calling
the attacks "ethnic cleansing" and stressing that Christians are
suffering along with others in Iraq.
Angkawr, a town of 35,000 people, is defended by guards and concrete
barriers. Residents, along with the refugees, want to leave the
country as fast as possible, with Syria, Jordan, Europe and America
the popular destinations.
Saed Alexis, a local business leader, said: "There is not a person
who wouldn't leave Iraq if they could. In five years there will be
no one left."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/
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