Truest statement of the week II

What Maliki chooses to ignore and what Ban Ki-moon has singled out is precisely what the protest movement has been demanding all along: looking at the root causes of the problems. In Iraq's case, they are sectarianism, corruption, lack of basic services, violations of human rights, increasing unemployment and organized gangs and militias flourishing under a kleptocratic government.
The Maliki government has been harvesting over $100bn a year for some time now, from the nation's oil wealth. That amounts to about $20,000 a year per average Iraqi household of 7 people, except that Iraqis are left deprived of basic commodities. The wealth is squandered or stolen, a situation illustrated by Transparency International as: "Massive embezzlement, procurement scams, money laundering, oil smuggling and widespread bureaucratic bribery have led the country to the bottom of international corruption rankings, fuelled political violence and hampered effective state building and service delivery."



-- Haifa Zangana, "The real forces behind the violence in Iraq" (MWC News).