Saturday, November 04, 2006
Dulaymi accuses Maliki's government of double standards
Politics
During an interview with Al-Jazeera television on November 2, Adnan al-Dulaymi, the head of the Sunni-led Iraqi Accordance Front, accused Prime Minister al-Maliki's governmentof of pursuing double standards and not defending the Sunni Arab population, while steadfastly protecting the Shi'a. He said the government silently watches as death squads are allowed to commit the most heinous crimes against the Sunni people. "We hear daily about a new crisis and a new tragedy that befalls our Sunni brethren throughout Iraq. The Iraqi government behaves as if it were not a government for all Iraqis; it behaves as if it were a government for a single party," he said.
COMMENT: Maliki has been side-stepping the issue of cracking down on the militias because he relies on their political allies (al-Sadr and SCIRI) for support, but the sectarian strife is also a tit-for-tat war with retribution killings by Sunnis. There is little support from the security forces as they are also infiltrated by the militias. Significantly though, Dulaymi's public statement illustrates the ever widening chasm in the government which will only help fuel public sectarian resentment. COMMENT ENDS.
