BASRA, Iraq, June 19, (Agencies): One demonstrator was killed and two wounded Saturday when Iraqi police opened fire to break up a frenzied protest against power rationing in the southern city of Basra, an army commander said.
Thousands had gathered to demand the dismissal of Electricity Minister Karim Wahid and provincial officials over the rationing, which sees residents receive power for just one hour in five in temperatures that hit 54 degrees Celsius (130 Fahrenheit) on Saturday, an AFP correspondent said.
As tempers flared in the scorching heat, young men among the demonstrators started hurling stones at the provincial council offices, smashing nearly every window, the correspondent said.
Police then opened fire on the protesters to disperse them.
“We don’t want oil or medicine, we want water and electricity,” read one placard brandished by the protesters in Iraq’s southern oil hub.
“The people of Basra ask the authorities to provide services for citizens,” read another.
Demonstrators said they did not believe the government’s explanation that years of UN sanctions against now executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime followed by the US-led invasion of 2003 and its violent aftermath meant there was insufficient generator capacity to provide more power.
“When the minister came to Basra, the electricity was not off all the time, which means there is nothing wrong with the electricity, but there is something wrong with the officials,” Muhammed Hassan Jassim, 35, told AFP.
“Everyone in Basra is suffering from the lack of electricity. The minister and the governor of Basra (Shiltagh Abboud) must be tried,” he added.
Sheikh Haider Ali Hassan, 55, said predominantly Shiite Basra had been penalised enough under Saddam’s Sunni-dominated regime and deserved better from the Shiite-led government that replaced it.
“The people of Basra suffered a lot under the previous regime,” he said.
“The electricity comes on for one hour in five and the temperature is more than 50 degrees in Basra — is that fair of the local or central government?”
He warned that Basra residents’ patience was wearing thin.
“This demonstration is peaceful, but if our demands aren’t met, we will take unexpected action,” he said, without elaborating.
There was a second, smaller demonstration on Saturday against power rationing in the capital Baghdad, which passed off without incident.
A statement issued by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office following the protests said he was implementing new measures to alleviate the country’s power problems, and that he had dispatched a delegation to Basra.
“The prime minister ordered that the fuel share given to private generator owners be increased by 33 percent, to allow the production of electricity to be increased,” the statement said.
He also “ordered to punish all officials in the ministry of electricity who did not respect their commitments and promises to increase power in Baghdad and Iraq’s other provinces to nine hours a day in June.”
In a statement on Saturday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked the people of Basra to remain calm and said he was sending a delegation of officials to Basra to address the city’s electricity problems.
Anger over the government’s failure to provide public services more than seven years after the US-led invasion has been high.
Iraqis have been plagued with severe electricity outages that worsen as summer temperatures soar above 120 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius). They have also been suffering from water shortages and poor water quality due to low levels and high sedimentation in the rivers.
On Friday, gunmen killed an employee of a local irrigation department and three of his family members as part of an apparent tribal dispute over water distribution west of Baghdad.
Irrigation department employees have increasingly been targeted in the area as rival tribal factions battle over the dwindling water resources.
Also on Saturday, officials said gunmen killed three anti-al-Qaeda fighters after opening fire at a checkpoint south of Baghdad manned by a local government-backed group known as an Awakening Council.
The Council is part of a movement that has been key to a sharp drop in violence in recent years.
Nobody claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack in Jibala, 40 miles (65 kms) south of Baghdad, but al-Qaeda and other insurgents frequently target Awakening Council members as revenge or to discourage others from joining.
Police and hospital officials also raised the death toll to 12 in Friday’s car bombing targeting an ethnic Turkomen provincial council member in the northern city of Tuz Khormato.
The violence highlights fears of growing unrest as the country remains deadlocked months after March’s inconclusive parliamentary elections have failed to produce a new government.
The putative winner of the contests, former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, announced Saturday that “international intelligence” services had told him that he was the target of an assassination plot.
He can now longer use a special airport for VIPs in central Baghdad because he was been told snipers are on a lookout to kill him.
While Allawi acknowledged that there has yet to be an actual attempt on his life, he was taking the latest warnings seriously.
Allawi’s Sunni-backed Iraqi bloc won slim victory in the elections, but his main conservative Shiite opponents have united into a larger coalition that has good chance of heading the new government.