The Washington Post - 05.03.2020

A16 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAy, MARCH 5 , 2020

The World

JAPAN

Ban partially lifted for

town near disaster site

Japan’s g overnment on
Wednesday opened part o f the
last town t hat had been off-limits
because of radiation s ince the
Fukushima n uclear disaster nine
years a go, in a symbolic move
showing t he r egion’s r ecovery
ahead o f the 2020 To kyo
Olympics.
All 7,000 people in the t own o f
Futaba w ere forced to evacuate
when three reactors at a nearby
nuclear p lant melted down after
being d amaged by a 9.0-
magnitude earthquake and
tsunami on March 1 1, 2011.
The partial lifting of t he e ntry
ban comes weeks before t he
Olympic torch procession starts
in another town in Fukushima

prefecture. The torch c ould also

pass through Futaba, about two

miles from the wrecked n uclear

plant.

Unrestricted access, h owever,

is being allowed only in a 2.4-

square-kilometer area ( less than a

square mile) near t he main

Futaba t rain station, which will

reopen later t his month. Access to

the v ast majority o f Futaba i s

allowed only for t hose who

receive permission for a day visit.

Because key infrastructure is

still being r ebuilt, residents will

not b e able to return to live there

until 2 022.

The three reactor meltdowns a t

the Fukushima Daiichi n uclear

plant s pewed massive amounts o f

radiation that c ontaminated the

surrounding a rea and, a t its peak,

forced m ore than 160,000 people

to flee.

The nuclear plant i s being

decommissioned in a process that

will take decades.

— A ssociated Press

GERMANY

Left-wing governor

back after AfD scandal

A left-wing governor returned

to office in the eastern German

state of Thuringia on Wednesday,

a month after state lawmakers

voted him out of the job with far-

right support and shook up

politics at t he national level.

Bodo Ramelow of the Left p arty

won 42 votes in the 90-seat

legislature, enough to be elected

by a simple majority. No candidate

stood against him, although

20 lawmakers abstained, and

23 voted against him.

In e arly February, t he Thuringia

legislature unexpectedly elected

center-right lawmaker Thomas

Kemmerich as governor.

Kemmerich received enough votes

only because the far-right

Alternative for Germany, o r AfD,

abandoned the candidate it had

fielded to throw its support

behind him.

Kemmerich also won the votes

of lawmakers from his small party

and from Chancellor Angela

Merkel’s c onservative Christian

Democratic Union. Regional CDU

lawmakers ignored the wishes of

their national leadership to back

Kemmerich, at t he risk of making

common cause with AfD.

The fallout was dramatic.

National CDU leader Annegret

Kramp-Karrenbauer, who took

over from Merkel in late 2018,

announced the following week

that she would not run to be

Germany’s next chancellor and

would step down as party l eader.

Her successor is to be chosen in

late April. Kemmerich announced

his resignation three days after he

was elected.

— Associated Press

Saudi-led coalition says it foiled

attack on tanker off Yemen: The

Saudi-led c oalition f ighting in

Yemen said it had f oiled an attack

on an oil tanker o ff Yemen’s coast

on the Arabian Sea, t he official

Saudi Press Agency reported. T he

tanker w as sailing 90 nautical

miles south of Yemen’s N ishtun

port toward the Gulf of Aden

when it was targeted b y four

boats, a coalition spokesman said

in a statement carried by the SPA.

He d id not say who was behind

the a ttack. The Sunni coalition

has i n the past accused Yemen’s

Iranian-aligned Houthi r ebels,

whom it has been battling for five

years, of trying to attack vessels

off the c oast of Yemen with

unmanned boats l aden with

explosives.

Uganda jails filmmaker doing

documentary on Museveni foe:

A Ugandan court sent an

independent filmmaker to jail

after he was accused of singing

subversive songs while producing

a documentary about a pop star

seeking t o unseat the long-serving

president, his attorney said. The

jailing of Moses Bwayo is part of

what government critics view as

an escalating clampdown on

independent media and the

opposition ahead of a presidential

election next year. Bwayo was

arrested a s he filmed a

documentary about B obi Wine,

who wants to wrest power from

Yoweri Museveni, who has ruled

for more than three decades.

— From news services

DIGEST

BY LOUISA LOVELUCK

AND MUSTAFA SALIM

baghdad — When Iraq’s anti-
government protests began last
year, it was supporters of re-
nowned Shiite Muslim cleric
M oqtada al-Sadr who added heft.
They came in the thousands,
manning front lines during
clashes with riot police and pro-
viding security for the demon-
strators as they settled in for the
long haul.
Now, it might be Sadr who
extinguishes their fight.
A flurry of statements from the
cleric in recent months has frac-
tured the movement, prompting
accusations of betrayal. He has
pulled his supporters away from
protest camps and then sent
them back to battle those who
remained.
Threats made by his militia-
men have sent political activists
into hiding. Sadr’s followers have
attacked his critics with knives.
“They’re insulting Sadr, and
we can’t allow it,” cried one of his
supporters, Saeed Alaa al-Yassiri,
on a recent day in Baghdad’s
central Ta hrir Square as his
group pushed demonstrators
back with sticks and knives.
“They’re serving American agen-
das now. This square needs to be
cleaned.”
Sadr is a storied figure in Iraq,
with a history of agitation against
U.S. troops and fierce loyalty
from tens of thousands of pious
and working-class acolytes.
B ut he is also something of a
shape-shifter; in the years since
the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, the

cleric has positioned himself var-

iously as a sectarian militia lead-

er, a revolutionary figure and a

nationalist who can unify the

country. His reliance on Iranian

support has also waxed and

waned, depending at t imes, it has

seemed, on the optics for his

political base.

But Iraq’s youth movement has

emerged as a challenge to his

long-standing image as a man

who can command the country’s

streets. As the largest spontane-

ous uprising in the country’s

history, the protest movement

has already felled one govern-

ment and rejected a prime

m inister-designate that Sadr had

backed. The candidate, Moham-

med Ta wfiq Allawi, stepped aside

Sunday.

More than 500 demonstrators

have been k illed by Iraq’s security

forces and Iran-backed militias

since October, human rights and

security officials say. T he violence

has turned what started as anti-

corruption protests into a revolt

against the entire political sys-

tem, with growing anger and

mockery directed at Iran’s lead-

ing role — and now at the cleric

himself.

“ In t his sense, it is the nature of

Iraq’s protest politics that has

changed, not Sadr himself,” said

Ben Robin-D’Cruz, a researcher

on Iraqi politics at the University

of Edinburgh.

Sadr’s f ollowers joined the pro-

tests on day one. Young men from

Sadr City — a poor and sprawling

district of Baghdad named for his

father, a slain ayatollah, where he

has long enjoyed popular support

member of Sadr’s militia and

another person she knew. The

chat included photographs of

mostly women protesters, among

them Reem. “We have informa-

tion about 40 people from the

protests,” t he message read below

it. “We should take care of them.”

Political experts say Sadr has

long sought to balance the needs

of Iraq’s streets and the Iran-

backed militia structure of which

he is a part. But as tensions

escalate between Iran and the

United States, especially in the

wake of President Trump’s deci-

sion to kill Iranian military com-

mander Qasem Soleimani and

Iraq’s most influential militia

leader, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis,

Sadr’s room for maneuver has

diminished.

Sadr decided it was time to

trade in his backing for the pro-

test movement for a central role

in the coalition of Iranian-backed

militias, Robin-D’Cruz said.

“For Sadr, reform means a

gradual movement towards put-

ting the country on track rather

than the radical reform that the

protesters are taking about,

which is basically the fall of the

entire political class and system,”

said Abbas Kadhim, director of

the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initia-

tive.

Many of Sadr’s supporters

have followed his instructions,

withdrawing from the protests.

But others have questioned him,

in some cases for their first time.

“It was hard to understand why

he would do this to us,” said a

young man in Ta hrir Square,

speaking on the condition of

anonymity because of the sensi-

tivity of his situation. “He gave

the order to leave, but some of us

will stay. This is a fight for Iraq,

not for politicians.”

Some protesters say they have

received threats, urging them to

depart, and some have acqui-

esced. Others have dismantled

tents they had lived in for months

and then melted into the crowds.

Sajad Jiyad, director of the

Baghdad-based Bayan Center re-

search organization, said Sadr’s

shifting position will make it

harder for him to claim he’s a bove

Iraq’s political cut and thrust.

“It’s now apparent to everybody

that he is part of the same politi-

cal elite,” J iyad said. “It reinforces

the idea of this being the political

elite on the one side, the average

protester on the other.”

In Tahrir Square last week,

Reem described the cleric’s r ever-

sal as the start of a “major

change.” Many protesters had de-

parted, worried about escalating

violence and heightened faction-

alism.

Her tent had once been a hub

for some of the city’s most well-

known activists. But most had

left for Turkey, following threats

from Iran-backed militias and

individuals associated with Sadr.

“They could deal with threats

to themselves, but not to their

families,” Reem said. “This was

about kidnapping, killing.” But

she would be staying, she insist-

ed.

“I leave here in victory or a

coffin. No other way,” she said.

[email protected]

[email protected]

In Iraq, a storied figure fractures a movement

By pulling his support and redirecting his followers, Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr could doom the country’s anti-government protests

— turned up spontaneously and

repeatedly clashed with Iraq’s

riot police.

The protesters say they are fed

up with the endemic corruption

and lack of political freedoms

that grew out of a political system

forged in the wake of the U.S.-led

invasion. Despite initial support

for their demands, Sadr called for

a separate march with the sup-

port of Iran-backed militias in

late January and then tweeted —

apparently from Iran — that he

would “try not to interfere in the

[protests], either negatively or

positively.”

He ordered his supporters to

leave Iraq’s protest camps days

later, and then he sent them

marching b ack, this time in oppo-

sition to the young crowds they

once camped alongside.

“It’s not the riot police attack-

ing us anymore, it’s them,” said

Walid Fadhil, 27, watching warily

on a recent day as the violence

unfolded.

Dozens of people have been

killed or wounded in the latest

clashes.

“It’s changed everything,” said

Reem, a 28-year-old protester in

Baghdad’s Tahrir Square, waving

her hand toward the tents that

have emptied out in recent

weeks.

On her cellphone was an im-

age, apparently showing an omi-

nous, online chat between a

PHOTOS BY EMILIENNE MALFATTO FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

TOP: Followers of Moqtada al-Sadr take part in a “million-strong”

march in Baghdad in January supported by Iran-backed militias.

I t was held apart from the anti-government protests. ABOVE:

Baghdad’s Sadr City is named for Sadr’s father, a slain ayatollah.