|
City without diplomats...almost
24/04/2003 10:28 - (SA)
Baghdad - Apart from the Russians, dug in at their fortress-like Baghdad embassy, the total absence of diplomats in Iraq is emblematic of the US occupation and a lack of state authority in the devastated country.
"There is nothing to say and we have no comment on our presence here," says a Russian diplomat beneath a blue, white and red flag at the embassy entrance, two weeks after Baghdad's fall to US forces.
Based in the Al-Mansur district of downtown Baghdad, the tall ochre-coloured building is surrounded by a high wall.
Russia's decision to maintain a diplomatic presence in Baghdad during the war was not without consequences.
The suburb surrounding the embassy was bombed during the fearsome air raids on the capital, sparking an outcry from Moscow, which asked the United States to assure the protection of the building.
And Russian ambassador Vladimir Titorenko was lightly wounded when his convoy came under fire as he fled embattled Baghdad shortly before US troops captured the capital on April 9.
Who fired the shots in the attack in which four other people were wounded, including one seriously, has not been conclusively determined.
Just down the road from the Russian embassy, an armed guard looks out from the gates of Bahrain's representation here. Inside, a Tunisian employee and two Iraqi guards take turns to keep watch round the clock and thwart looters.
Hussein Gharsalli came to Iraq from Tunisia to teach French at the University of Mosul in the north before being employed by the diplomatic mission of the tiny Gulf monarchy.
He begins ticking off the list of Baghdad's 51 embassies.
"They broke into the Chinese one, the German one was pillaged, same with the Pakistani, the Sudanese and the Slovakian," he said.
"We will guard the premises waiting for their return of our diplomats, who I don't expect to see soon while there is no state authority," he said.
The Jordanian ambassador to Baghdad said in an interview published in Amman that he would not return to Iraq until the establishment of a "legal" Iraqi authority and the end of the military occupation of the country.
Fakhri Abu Taleb said that current conditions in Iraq were "inadequate due to the absence of a legal Iraqi authority".
In the Karrada district, armed guards are perched on the balcony of the German embassy, which was sacked at the same time as Baghdad's French cultural center.
They ignore questions, referring journalists to the German diplomats now in Amman.
But at the French embassy, based at the Romanian mission, one of the guards, Nuri Sabah, proudly says that he has been successful until now in fending off looters.
No country among those that were represented in Baghdad has announced an imminent return of its diplomats to Iraq.
But US state department spokesperson Richard Boucher said last month that Washington had earmarked nearly $36m for the construction of a new and heavily fortified embassy in the capital.
|
