Auctioning off Baghdad

                                          By Sandro Contenta
                                      Toronto Star Middle East Bureau

                    Ten years ago, oil-rich Iraq was considered an emerging success story, whose
                    hospitals and schools were the envy of the Middle East. But a decade of
                    U.N.-imposed sanctions has brought the country to its knees.

                    A growing chorus of protesters wants to lift sanctions, arguing they hurt the Iraqi
                    people rather than the Saddam Hussein regime. The Star's Middle East Bureau chief
                    Sandro Contenta recently spent two weeks investigating conditions in Iraq as part of
                    a comprehensive look at sanctions and its effect on that country.
 
 

                    BAGHDAD - A sandstorm is obliterating Baghdad as Hassam Abdul Razak and his
                    nephew sit in an auction house, their hopes riding on a battered washing machine.

                    The machine looks like its best cycles are a thing of the past. It's seven years old,
                    made in China. The lid is warped and the machine looks incapable of carrying a full
                    load, let alone the hopes of its owner.

                    But to Razak and his nephew Raied Mohammed Abdul Razak, the washing machine is
                    the key to their livelihood.

                    Like so many thousands of others, they're hoping to strike a deal at the auctioneers -
                    one of the few businesses booming in Iraq these days.

                    There were fewer than a handful of auction houses in Baghdad before August, 1990,
                    when the U.N. Security Council imposed an international trade embargo on Iraq days
                    after it invaded Kuwait.

                    But as one year of sanctions followed another, the economy collapsed, taking the
                    livelihood of Iraqis with it. Struggling Iraqis began selling personal belongings - from
                    furniture to family heirlooms - to make ends meet.

                    Today, Baghdad has more than 50 auction houses.

                    The minimum asking price of 80,000 Iraqi dinars (the equivalent of $60) the pair are
                    seeking equals the back rent they owe on their shop. Their business - a stationery
                    store - has gone under and they want to switch to selling fruit juices. But first, they
                    have to come up with the rent.

                    And time is running out. The washing machine had been on the block for a month,
                    without attracting a bid. The auctioneers say this will be the last day they will try to
                    sell it.

                    ``This is our last hope,'' says Razak, a 45-year-old father of four.

                    ``The embargo has made this kind of business flourish,'' says Nassar Rasheed, owner
                    of the Sabalkh Auction House, Baghdad's oldest.

                    Rasheed's auction house is a big warehouse crammed with bulky couches of all
                    colours, TVs, radios, large cooling fans, safes, lamps, carpets, paintings, hot water
                    tanks, stuffed animals - you name it.
 

                                Struggling Iraqis are selling everything
                                from furniture to family heirlooms to make
                                ends meet
 
 

                    It's all jammed together like one big kitsch collage, but each item tells the story of
                    better times.

                    Hassam Razak's face is long and his eyes droop as he waits for the auction to begin.
                    He lists the personal items he has sold in the past, and it adds up to pretty much
                    everything but the beds.

                    ``Selling my belongings is like selling one of my children, because each one
                    represents my life, my progress, my past, my memory,'' he says. ``When I started
                    selling it off, it was like something inside me collapsed.''

                    In the days when Razak's apartment was fully furnished, he had a good business. The
                    Casino Salam (the Peace Coffee Shop) employed five people and boasted billiard and
                    table tennis tables.

                    ``I was like a king,'' Razak recalls. He lost it all after the embargo, as rampant inflation
                    and unemployment ruined a once-prosperous country. Razak's nephew was also
                    fighting steady economic decline when he joined forces with his uncle to open the
                    ill-fated stationery shop.

                    ``We don't think about the future any more,'' says Raied Razak, 26, who has three
                    daughters. ``We just think about the next 24 hours and how we'll get food for the
                    family.''

                    The two men represent the collapse of Iraq's middle class, in which business people,
                    professionals and technicians have joined the ranks of the poor, or fled to another
                    country.

                    ``Every year for 10 years, I thought, `This year or next year, the embargo will be lifted,'
                    '' Hassam Razak says. ``I'm still hoping.''
 

                                The auctioneer coaxes the audience, but
                                the silence seems long and brutal
 
 

                    After losing his coffee shop, he and his family moved out of a three-bedroom
                    apartment and into a one-bedroom that costs about $18 a month. His family lives off
                    the monthly food basket distributed by the Iraqi government under the U.N.'s Oil For
                    Food program, which allows Iraq to sell oil and buy humanitarian goods with the
                    money.

                    The average monthly ration is made up of: 9 kilograms of flour, 2.5 kilograms of rice, 2
                    kilograms of sugar, 150 grams of tea, 0.41 kilograms of pulses (a legume), 100 grams of
                    salt, 1 kilogram of cooking oil, 3.6 kilograms of powdered baby milk, 250 grams of
                    soap, 350 grams of detergent, 800 grams of weaning cereal and 153 grams of cheese
                    and milk.

                    ``We rarely eat meat,'' an embarrassed Razak says. He had nothing left to sell to get
                    the rent money for the fruit juice stand, so Raied put up his wife's washing machine.

                    On this, the last day of bidding, 200 Iraqis are gathered at the auction. To increase the
                    chances of a sale, the auctioneer lowers the minimum price without permission,
                    opening the bidding at 50,000 Iraqi dinars, or about $37.

                    He coaxes the audience, but the silence in return seems long and brutal. Once again,
                    the washing machine doesn't even get a bid.

                    ``There's an Arab proverb that says, `The eye sees the goal, but the hand cannot
                    reach it,' '' Razak says.

                    ``If things continue this way, I fear my son will suffer the same fate,'' he adds, looking
                    at 16-year-old Ali.

                    They don't even have money to get the washing machine back home. A reporter gives
                    them a pack of dinars, enough for the transportation.

                    The Razaks are grateful, but they don't smile and they don't stir. They sit looking
                    outside, at the sandstorm that obliterates Baghdad.