Group Hopes to Restore Iraq Marsh Culture
April 20 -- The wetlands that overlapped the southern Iran-Iraq border may have been the location of the Bible's lush Garden of Eden, but over the last decade Saddam Hussein is blamed for turning much of it to desert.
With Saddam gone, an international group led by a California couple, one a native of Iraq's marshes, hopes to begin restoring things as they once were.
Just 20 years ago, 450,000 people lived at what some believe was the site of the biblical Garden of Eden. The Madan civilization, also known as the "Marsh Arabs," traced their roots back 5,000 years to the Sumerians.
Today, an estimated 10,000 residents remain in the marshes — but tens of thousands are believed to want to return.
"There are 70,000 refugees staying in Iran, waiting to come back," said Azzam Alwash, a native of southern Iraq who now lives with his wife Suzie in Fullerton, Calif. "When they come back, they want to have their marshes back."
Ancient Culture Ravaged
Many Marsh Arabs were driven off after the 1991 Gulf War when a vengeful Saddam, angered by U.S.-encouraged uprisings, began draining the marshes and killing members of the population.
Some of the Iraqis who rebelled against Saddam took refuge in the marshes after the uprisings failed. "Saddam could not follow them up with the tanks and armored weapons, so instead he set about drying the marshes," Alwash told ABCNEWS affiliate KABC-TV in Los Angeles. "He deprived them of a way of life and the ability to live in our forest."
Human rights groups have called the assault on the marshes and its people genocide, and have said it could be among the charges if Saddam is ever prosecuted for war crimes (see sidebar, at bottom).
Before Saddam drained the wetlands, the Madan lifestyle flourished. Residents would pole past reed banks and islands in long carved boats, fishing, farming rice or harvesting dates for food and trade. Villages with humble homes and bigger arched bamboo meeting halls dotted the marshes that extended over an area roughly half the size of Ohio.
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