Longing to Be Heard – Armenian Directory & News

Christianity Today
April 2005

Longing to Be Heard

It’s dangerous and lonely to be an Iraqi Christian~Wat home or in exile.

by Dale Gavlak | posted 03/21/2005 09:00 a.m.

Nearly 40,000 Iraqi Christian refugees in Jordan and Syria are unlikely to
return home any time soon, despite the recent national elections. Lack of
safety is their biggest concern. “We voted, but we don’t know whether
elections will change the situation. If security is restored, then we may
return to Iraq. But if there is no improvement, we won’t go back,”
18-year-old Boutros Chamoun told Christianity Today after Sunday mass at the
Church of St. Terese of Little Jesus in the famed Old City sector of
Damascus, Syria.

Chamoun fled with his widowed mother and his three siblings to Syria after
militants blew up the laundry they ran in Baghdad. Among their clients were
U.S. soldiers. The teenager’s dark eyes looked anxious as he spoke about the
future. “I don’t think anyone ruling Iraq will consider the interests of
Christians in or out of the country.”

He’s not alone in his grim assessment. Record numbers of Christians have
fled Iraq, prompting worries that their 2,000-year-old presence is being
seriously eroded. About 400,000 Iraqi refugees are now in Syria, according
to reliable estimates. Only 4,000 are registered with the United Nations. Of
the estimated 40,000 Christians who have left Iraq, the greatest number fled
after a series of church bombings last August, according to church leaders
in Syria and Jordan.

Today there are some 750,000 Christians in Iraq~Wabout 3 percent of the
nation’s 26 million people. Before the war, the Christian community numbered
1 million. In 1987, there were 1.4 million Christians.

Most of Iraq’s Christians are Chaldean Eastern Rite Catholics (though
autonomous from Rome, they recognize papal primacy). Other Christian
denominations in Iraq include Roman and Syrian Catholics, Assyrians,
Presbyterians, Anglicans, evangelicals, and Greek, Syrian, and Armenian
Orthodox.

Yohanna, an Iraqi university professor, escaped to Damascus with his family
because as a Christian and a professional he was a tempting double target.
“I don’t expect the newly elected politicians in Iraq’s first free elections
in half a century to help our tiny minority, because to do so would weaken
their own position,” he explained.

“It breaks our hearts to leave our country. But circumstances have overcome
us and we were forced to leave,” he said, shaking his head in grief.
“Although I aided my Muslim colleagues, they identified me as a crusader
because of the American presence.”

Asylum at Risk
Less than 150 miles south of Damascus, Iraqi Christian refugees in Amman,
Jordan, dream of a fresh start outside Iraq. But that may be thwarted by
politics. Chaldean Catholic worshipers in the drab working-class district of
Hashimi Shamali told Christianity Today some of their own religious leaders
inside Iraq are telling foreign embassies to refuse requests for political
asylum from Iraqi Christians. The motive is unclear, but refugees speculate
these religious leaders want to maintain the strongest possible Christian
influence inside Iraq.

“They are trying to imprison us,” one Christian refugee complained, “but
they won’t help ensure our safety.” Boulos, a businessman from Baghdad, said
he and his extended family fled to Amman only after terrorists targeted a
relative. “Insurgents kidnapped my 18-year-old nephew, Girguis, in Baghdad.
They beat him very badly and cut him with knives all over his body,” Boulos
said, the horror plainly written across his face.

“While he was in captivity, they showed him tapes of insurgents killing
Christians. They warned him, ‘If you go to church again, we will cut off
your head!’ We had no other choice but to leave Iraq.”

Boulos told CT some Sunni Muslim preachers are telling their followers not
to buy homes that Christians are selling, because “soon they will leave them
to us for free.”

The Baghdad businessman, during my interview, repeated an oft-used phrase:
“Sunday comes after Saturday.” To Iraqi Christians, it means they may face
the same fate as the 100,000 Iraqi Jews forced out of the country in 1951.

Iraq’s top Shiite Muslim cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, has
condemned the assaults on churches as “hideous crimes.” But few if any
Muslim leaders have criticized the killings of Christians who work for the
U.S. military or sell alcoholic beverages in Iraq.

Abduction and Rape
Militant Muslims are not targeting just Christians. Iraqi Mandaeans (an
ancient sect that reveres John the Baptist) argue that their plight is also
precarious because Muslims do not put Mandaeans on a par with Jews and
Christians as “People of the Book” (the Bible). Mandaeans, who have historic
ties to Judaism, estimate their community numbers around 15,000 people.

Militants target Mandaeans with few consequences. “They normally focus on
kidnapping Mandaean girls,” said 23-year-old Shayma, herself a victim of
abduction and rape in Baghdad last May. Shayma, a Baghdad Mandaean, said
gunmen abducted her on May 24 last year as she walked to the grocery store
in her Zayoona neighborhood. They took her to a rural area where they
repeatedly raped and tortured her for eight days. The kidnappers demanded
that her family pay a ransom of $10,000 for her release.

“When they tortured me, they shouted, ‘You are infidels! Your lives,
belongings, and possessions are all permitted for us to take,'” Shayma said
weeping.

“I felt like my life was over,” she said. “I would stay awake wondering if I
would ever see my family again in this life.” Although her father paid the
ransom, her abductors continued to torment her. When she was released, they
told her, “We will come again to kill your brothers and blow up your house.”
She and her family fled in fear to Jordan and hope to win religious asylum
in Australia.

Staying the Course
In stark contrast, several Christian congregations in Iraq are growing,
especially ones that worship in buildings without traditional steeples and
crosses.

One new fellowship has outgrown its meeting place in Baghdad and aspires to
plant a satellite ministry in a nearby suburb. Some Pentecostal Christians
report five-fold church growth, topping several hundred new worshipers since
the end of the war. An Iraqi Christian family returned to Baghdad from
Jordan six months ago to start a Bible study with women from a Catholic
church that was targeted in the August bombings.

Most Iraqi Christians believe their concerns are overlooked in the global
war against terror. A Baghdad native named Barbara, now approaching 70,
asked during my interview, “Is there any country that will provide sanctuary
to the Iraqi Christians?

“It seems like Christians in the West have forgotten the Christians in Iraq.
It’s necessary for them to help us. We don’t want financial aid. We want
them to save our lives.” Last year, Iraqi leaders approved an interim
constitution, including article 53D, which recognizes Chaldo-Assyrian
Christians and guarantees creation of a region that Chaldo-Assyrians would
govern themselves. In late November, 11 humanitarian groups appealed to the
interim government to implement article 53D for creation of an autonomous
safe haven north of Mosul in an area known as the Nineveh Plain.

A young seminarian named Shan, who now lives in Amman, said he hopes the
elections will help deal a blow to the insurgency. “Perhaps the resistance
will be weakened because the Iraqis have been empowered by voting in a new
government.” Six Christians will serve in the new National Assembly.

“For me,” he said, “it doesn’t matter whether a Christian or a Muslim is at
Iraq’s helm. What matters is whether the Christian voice there is being
heard.”

Dale Gavlak, a journalist based in Amman, Jordan, has covered the Middle
East for 15 years.

–Boundary_(ID_ScwQEw3HhllleVUViw80Cw)–