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http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20071227/94372640.html
 
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THE MARSH ARABS - HISTORY

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Bianca
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« on: August 14, 2007, 09:27:35 pm »

                   

Growing Hardship.  The marshes provided ample refuge for rebellious tribes increasingly at odds with outside authorities, from British colonial rulers to Saddam Hussein's Republican Guards. One day during Ochsenschlager's first year at the excavation site, the crew heard faraway drum sounds, a warning from a neighboring tribe of the approach of outsiders.

"The entire group of local men who worked for us dropped what they were doing, picked up their guns and cloaks and disappeared into the marshes," he said. Men who were drawn to cities for work often returned to the marshes after running into trouble with the government

Threats from outside were starting to take a toll by the time of Ochsenschlager's first encounter with the Ma'adan in 1968. The government was in the midst of a campaign to get rid of sheiks, eroding traditional leadership. Traders were increasingly demanding money for some commodities and refusing barter.

Dam and irrigation projects executed in the 1970s cut the annual flow of water in the Euphrates by more than one-third. That began the depletion of the marshes, reducing permanent wetlands and spring floods that had carried nutrient-laden sediments.

The coup de grace came after the 1991 Gulf War, when Shiite Muslims in the south rose up against Saddam. After their defeat, the regime's soldiers burned and bombed marsh villages, while its engineers completed massive dikes and canals to divert the entire flow of the Euphrates away from the marshes.

Satellites beamed ghastly images of the unfolding ecological catastrophe. By 2000, marshes that had covered nearly 4,000 square miles – comparable to Florida's Everglades – had almost disappeared.
« Last Edit: August 15, 2007, 09:46:59 pm by Bianca2001 » Report Spam   Logged

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