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BASRA, Iraq The historic canals that earned this city its nickname of the Venice of the Middle East are clogged with trash. In some neighborhoods, the garbage is piled so high it blocks streets.

Residents say the debris is just the most visible sign of decades of neglect of Basra by the government. Now, a growing number of citizens are pushing for autonomy for this oil-rich southern province of nearly 3 million people.

The local politicians backing the project envisage a semi-autonomous state not an independent nation. But their campaign presents a new challenge for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi as he tries to prevent Iraq from splintering in the wake of Islamic States gains last summer in the countrys north.

The effort comes as the regions borders, drawn up by colonial powers with little consideration for the mix of sects and ethnicities on the ground, are fragmenting. That is testing the strong centralized governments that have dominated the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Proponents hope the Basra region will gain powers similar to those of Iraqi Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region in Iraqs north. They have even designed their own flag depicting a pair of hands cradling a drop of oil, underscoring the main grievance here that Basra sees little benefit from the millions of barrels of oil that it pumps out of its fields.

Basra only gets neglect and injustice, but at the same time they are stealing our resources, Assad al-Idani, one of the campaign organizers, said of the central government as he addressed local residents at a Shiite meeting hall on a recent day.

Basra is the cow and they are taking the milk, but leaving the cow to starve, he told the crowd in the Hayy al-Ghadir neighborhood, as his team gathered signatures for their campaign. Its our oil.

The Iraqi constitution outlines a clear route for a province to become a semi-autonomous region.

The move requires a referendum, which must be held if a petition for autonomy either wins support from a third of the members of the provincial governing council or gets signatures from 10 percent of the regions registered voters around 160,000, in the case of Basra.

More than 100,000 signatures have been collected since the fall, according to Mohammed al-Tai, a member of parliament from Basra who is backing the initiative. But the exact total is unclear, since a variety of groups are collecting names.

Originally posted here:
As war rages in the north, southern Iraq makes a bid for autonomy