A rchive Date
[ 16-01-2004 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Iraq ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2004/01/15/314260-ap.html
Iraqi Shiite cleric threatens fatwa against U.S.-backed government
Fri, January 16, 2004
BAGHDAD (AP) - An aide to Iraq's foremost Shiite cleric said the spiritual leader might issue a religious edict rejecting a U.S.-backed government if his demands for direct elections are ignored.
The warning came Thursday as tens of thousands of Shiite Muslims rallied in Basra to protest against a U.S.-backed formula for choosing Iraq's new legislature. The turnout in Basra, 550 kilometres southeast of the capital Baghdad, estimated by British soldiers at up to 30,000, was the biggest protest organized by Shiite clerics against the power-transfer plan.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani and other clerics wield vast influence among Iraq's Shiites, believed to representa about 60 per cent of the country's 25 million people.
"The large crowd before you today are expressing their feeling that they don't want anything imposed on them," said cleric Ali al-Mussawi al-Safi, al-Sistani's representative in Basra.
"We want to affirm our rights. We want elections in all political domains."
The United States wants regional caucuses to choose a new legislature, which will then select an Iraqi administration. It said security is too poor and voter records too incomplete for fair elections.
Instead, the Nov. 15 agreement provides for members to be selected in 18 regional caucuses. The legislature would then choose a new, sovereign administration to take office by July 1.
The clerics want direct elections, fearing the caucuses may be rigged to keep Shiites out of power.
The Americans also are wary of elections because of who might win. With Iraq in turmoil, Islamic radicals or captive president Saddam Hussein's Baath Arab Socialist party might dominate a vote because they have the best organizations.
Protesters, virtually all of them male, chanted: "Yes, yes to elections! Yes, yes to al-Sistani!"
Later, they sat on the pavement listening to robed and turbaned clerics rail against the U.S. plan.
Faced with al-Sistani's objections, U.S. administrator Paul Bremer left Baghdad for Washington on Thursday for consultations with President George W. Bush and his senior national security advisers.
"If Bremer rejects the opinion of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, then he will issue a fatwa to deprive the elected council of its legitimacy," Mohammed Baqir al-Mehri, al-Sistani's representative in Kuwait, told Abu Dhabi television.
"Then the Iraqi people will not obey this council, which we call a council made of paper and a U.S.-elected council," he said.
Bremer and members of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council also plan to attend a meeting in New York City on Monday with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, which U.S. officials hope will help resolve the impasse with al-Sistani. Annan has written to the Governing Council saying holding a credible election before June 30 may be impossible.
U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States will do everything it can to hold to the deadline. He also announced the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Francis Ricciardone, will set up an office in Washington to oversee Iraq's transition to self-government.
At a news conference Thursday in Baghdad, Adnan Pachachi, the current Iraqi Governing Council president, said he has spoken with al-Sistani and believes he can be persuaded elections cannot be held right away.
However, Pachachi said: "We agreed that there is room for improvement, there are many, many ideas to make it more transparent and inclusive...whereby the Iraqi people, in a very obvious way, can manifest their desires."
If the deadlock cannot be overcome, however, sovereignty cannot be returned on schedule and the U.S. occupation would likely have to be extended for two years, he said. He did not explain his estimate; the process of setting up a government is supposed to last until the end of 2005.
Last June, al-Sistani issued a fatwa demanding the framers of the Iraqi constitution be elected, rather than appointed by the Americans or the Governing Council. That forced the Americans to speed the transfer of power to Iraqis, even before completion of a new constitution.
Al-Sistani also said any agreement governing the presence of U.S.-led coalition troops in Iraq beyond July 1, the designated day for the occupation's formal end, must be ratified by an elected legislature.
An interim constitution, being drafted by the Governing Council and scheduled to come into effect by the end of February, must also be approved by an elected chamber, he said.
Separately, a plane carrying Georgian Defence Minister David Tevzadze came under fire as it took off from Baghdad's airport Thursday evening to return to Georgia. No one was injured.
Tevzadze, who spent two days in Iraq with Georgia's 70-member contingent, said U.S. soldiers responded immediately and dispatched a helicopter. The shooting then stopped.
Georgia is expected to send 300 more troops to Iraq in February, reflecting the new Georgian government's determination to increase links with the West.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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