Group Hopes to Restore Iraq Marsh Culture

April 20, 2003 -- 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.

The Alwashes are working to restore what they call Iraq's Sherwood Forest. They've formed the "Eden Again" project, and next month will team up with scientists from around the world, who will look for ways to saturate the area so the Iraqis who fled can one day return.

The former wetlands are expected to take years to saturate, because the land covers thousands of miles.

But besides the cultural reasons for restoring the land, it also has historical significance.

"It's the birthplace of Abraham," says Suzie Alwash. "It is where [the ancient myth] The Epic of Gilgamesh was enacted. It's very important for a number of religions and for humanity."

Desertification

The area's lakes, once long and deep, have shrunk to smaller, shallower ponds. Landscapes that were once all green now have earth that is gray and dead, and plants that are tan and dying, smudging over most of the view. The flash of sunlight on water has been disappearing as duller, sun-dried ground appears.

A series of pictures taken from satellites orbiting over the marsh lands reveal the death of the landscape was no accident. Dark colors show large areas of wetland before Saddam began building his huge project to drain and control the Euphrates River. Then, as the Mother Of All Battles Canal siphoned water away from the Euphrates, the Tigris and the marshes, the wetlands on the Iraqi side of the border disappeared.

Two things may have driven Saddam's drain-the-marshes project.

First, oil is buried beneath the wetlands, and drying them out improves access for development.

Second, there were military issues — even before Saddam's repression of the uprisings that followed the 1991 Gulf War. During Iraq's 1980-88 war with neighboring Iran, the marshes were often targeted because they were an infiltration route and guerrilla battleground.

After the 1991 uprisings, to Saddam the Marsh Arabs who were living in the swamps were also suspected rebels. They were bombed, rounded up by troops, killed or simply forced to march out of the wetlands.

The Alwashes realize their project to restore the wetlands may not be a top priority in the rebuilding of Iraq. But through science and teamwork, they hope eventually to overcome the destructiveness of a tyrant and recreate a paradise.

ABCNEWS' Melissa MacBride in Fullerton, Calif., and Dave Marash in Hawizeh, Iran, contributed to this report.