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Discrimination Repression of Arabs fuels
unrest in Iran
Oil-rich province hit by bombings
The Washington Times 03-15-2006
Unrest among ethnic Arabs in this remote capital of oil-rich Khuzestan
province bordering southern Iraq presents Iran with its most serious
domestic security threat since the 1979 Islamic revolution, just as
discussion in Washington about Iran's myriad internal ethnic and religious
divisions reaches fever pitch.
Two men found guilty of bombing a bank here in January, killing six
persons, were publicly hanged from a crane this month. Both were ethnic
Arabs, who are a slim majority in the province and have close ties to
Iraqi Arabs across the border. A day earlier, three other Iranian Arabs
reportedly were executed in a local prison. Three more face imminent
death, opposition groups say.
About 50 Arabs have been identified as being behind bombings that killed
21 persons after anti-government riots in April last year, officials say.
The rioters were furious at the leak of a letter attributed to former Vice
President Muhammad Ali Abtahi, which he denounced as a forgery, that
disclosed "official plans" to expel Arabs from the province, and replace
them with ethnic Persians.
At least 20 persons were reported killed and hundreds were injured in the
riots. Amnesty International said security forces summarily executed many
of those arrested, but Tehran dismissed the charge as false.
The scale of the riots probably would have escaped attention outside Iran
if Arabic Al Jazeera television had not managed to get a video crew into
Khuzestan. It subsequently was barred from reporting from the province.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has since canceled three trips to
Ahvaz at the last minute. The official reason each time was "bad weather,"
but it was more likely security threats. One of the worst bombings took
place just hours before the president was to address a rally.
Repression 'wrong policy'
"Geographically, the unrest in Khuzestan has turned into a very great
threat," said Ibrahim Yazdi, a former Iranian foreign minister who now
heads the opposition Freedom Movement in Iran.
"It is true that some of the ethnic Arabs there are in favor of
independence for Khuzestan, and in the [1991] Persian Gulf War many of
them went into the street in support of Saddam," he added. "But the way
the Iranian government is handling the current crisis, with further
repression, is the wrong policy to adopt."
The vast, arid plains in Khuzestan are punctuated by the flaring of gas
fires at dozens of oil drilling rigs, which provide Tehran with about 80
percent of its revenue from crude oil production.
Before the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the province was among Iran's most
developed. When Iraq invaded in 1980, hoping to take advantage of the
chaos after the 1979 revolution and seize the oil fields, Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein portrayed himself as the "liberator" of the Khuzistan
Arabs.
Although many Iranian Arabs in border towns openly backed Iraq, the
majority elsewhere did not, perhaps because they were mostly Shi'ite
Muslims, persecuted under Saddam's rule.
Saddam's rhetoric ultimately backfired. Rather than divide Iran, he helped
unify it.
Khuzestan devastated
Relentlessly bombed by Iraq for eight years, the main cities of Khuzestan
were decimated, and the province now ranks among Iran's poorest and least
developed. The capital, Ahvaz, lacks a decent hotel, and visitors to the
city center are greeted with the stench of an open sewer near the main
hospital.
Drug addiction is a major local problem. In the evenings, the riverbank is
dotted with groups of addicts, who discuss among themselves their progress
toward rehabilitation under the supervision of social workers.
Ethnic Arabs complain that, as a result of their divided loyalties during
the Iran-Iraq war, they are viewed more than ever by the clerical regime
in Tehran as a potential fifth column, and suffer from a policy of
discrimination.
In an impoverished Arab village about three miles from Ahvaz, a dozen
young men point to the oil pipelines that run among their homes, carrying
oil from the nearby drilling rigs to refineries near the Persian Gulf.
"We don't have any freedom here," said one, who works as an engineer at a
drilling rig. "We are standing on all of the country's wealth, and yet we
get no benefit from it," he complained, asking not to be identified for
fear of government reprisals.
The men said that only Farsi is taught in their village school, although
all the students are Arab, and that no Arabic-language newspapers are
allowed to be published in the province. They said they also suffer much
higher levels of unemployment and poverty than do Persians.
Arabs refused equality
"The government says we are traitors," said a man who said that, like most
members of his family, he is unemployed. "But we are Iranians. It is the
government in Tehran that is treacherous, because it refuses us equal
rights."
Major oil pipelines supplying crude oil to the Abadan refinery on the
shore of the Persian Gulf caught fire a few days after the two Arab men
were publicly hanged in Ahvaz, and Iranian officials said they could not
rule out sabotage.
The Abadan refinery has a capacity of 450,000 barrels per day, about 30
percent of Iran's total refining capacity.
Pipelines in Khuzestan were bombed in September, temporarily disrupting
supply. In October, Tehran said it also foiled an attempt to bomb the
Abadan refinery with five Katyusha rockets.
"We know that certain Ahwazi Arab tribal leaders have been armed by the
regime to help guard oil installations. Consequently, they have in-depth
knowledge of the pipeline infrastructure," said Nasser Bani Assad, a
spokesman for the British Ahwazi Friendship Society, which lobbies on
behalf Iran's ethnic Arabs and uses the Arabic name for Ahvaz.
"If the current ethnic repression continues, it is possible that some
members of these tribes will attack the installations they were meant to
be guarding," he predicted.
Oil becomes target
Disruptions to oil supply in Ahvaz on a scale seen in Africa's Niger Delta
would have global economic and political implications.
As the latest attacks erupted, al Qaeda was shifting the focus of its
campaign in the Persian Gulf region to sabotaging oil facilities.
A major attack on the Abadan refinery, which represents more than a
quarter of Iran's refining capacity, or even on the export pipelines from
Ahvaz's massive oil fields, would severely disrupt both Iran's oil exports
and domestic fuel supplies, Mr. Assad said.
He said global oil prices would "shoot through the roof" if what he called
"the Ahwazi intifada" strikes Iran's oil industry with any degree of
success.
Iranian officials have blamed the rise in violence on exiled separatist
groups operating from Iraq, and are furious that Britain, Canada and the
United States allow opposition groups based there to operate freely.
Britain denies offering support to the Arab rebels.
At least 60 Arabic-language opposition radio and satellite television
stations are beamed into the province from around the globe.
"These groups incite terrorist acts and inflame the situation by spreading
false reports," said Khuzestan's deputy governor, Mohsen Farokhnejad.
"Why do these Western governments allow them to do this when they claim to
be fighting terrorism?" he asked. He dismissed accusations of
discrimination, pointing out that nine of the province's 17 members of
parliament are ethnic Arabs and that Arabs hold many senior government
positions both in the local government and in Tehran.
All the main overseas-based opposition groups have denounced the terrorist
attacks, but a liberal analyst based in Tehran who asked not to be
identified said the most popular group operating from Canada, the National
Liberation Movement of Ahwaz, which runs the satellite Ahwaz TV station,
does seem to advocate armed resistance.
A multinational empire
Slightly more than half of Iran's 69 million people are ethnic Persians.
The rest are Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen, Baluchis and Lors. That
makes Iran, in the eyes of many observers, not so much a nation state as a
multinational empire dominated by Persians, much as the Soviet Union once
was dominated by Russians.
The Islamic Majlis Center for Research, an Iranian government think tank,
has warned in a report that the country faces serious internal conflict
and unrest unless the government addresses the needs of its ethnic
minorities. The report cited two key challenges: poverty among non-Persian
ethnic groups living in border areas, and unemployment among youths.
In addition to Khuzestan, two remote Iranian provinces - Balochistan and
Kurdistan - have witnessed serious unrest among ethnic and religious
minorities.
About 2.1 million Iranian Balochis reside here and
have long resented the regime in Tehran, saying the government brutally
oppresses and neglects the Balochi population, 35 percent to 50 percent of
whom are unemployed and most of whom are Sunni.
The province of Kurdistan in the northeast, bordering Iraq, has been a
scene of sporadic anti-government demonstrations since June. At least 40
persons reportedly have died in clashes with the security forces, and more
than 700 have been arrested.
Iranian activists involved in a classified research project for the U.S.
Marines told the Financial Times last month that the Pentagon was
examining the depth and nature of grievances against the Islamic
government, and appeared to be studying whether Iran would be prone to a
violent fragmentation along the same kinds of fault lines that are
splitting Iraq.
The Bush administration, having mustered diplomatic support at the United
Nations to counter Iran's purported nuclear weapons program, asked
Congress last month for $75 million to promote democratic change in Iran.
"It would be a very grave mistake for the West to try and interfere in
Iran's ethnic tensions," said Nasser Hadian, who teaches political
philosophy at Tehran University. "It would unleash a wave of Iranian
nationalism, and a massive backlash against any minority group seen as
colluding with the West."
Copyright © 2006 News World Communications, Inc.
Source: The Washington Times
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