The 'Iraqi people' have their
say By Charles Recknagel
BAGHDAD - At times, it seems that everyone at
the Iraqi National Conference feels they are speaking
for the whole country. So many people jump up to voice
their opinions that journalists covering the event have
no chance even to get the speakers' names.
One
unidentified delegate declared that Iraq had no need for
"special courts" to arraign suspected insurgents who are
arrested by security forces: "We represent the Iraqi
people. All the spectrum of the Iraqi people are
represented in the conference. We do not want a special
court. Why do we need special courts? We have a criminal
code, so what is the need for the special courts, which
were formed by the Americans?"
The subject of
special courts - like a host of other concerns being
raised - does not appear on the convention's official
agenda. That is limited to creating the first "people's"
council to advise the interim government. Specifically,
the conference is to elect 81 members of a 100-person
interim National Council that will be empowered to veto
government decrees by a two-thirds majority. The other
19 seats are reserved for members of the former
US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. But even as the
some 1,300 delegates at the conference debate how to
elect the majority of the council's 100 members,
everybody seems to see the meeting as a chance to advise
the advisory council about what to tell the government,
even before the advisory council is formed.
Indeed, there has been intense debate over what
to do about rebel Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his
rebellion in the city of Najaf. A delegation from the
conference flew to Najaf on Tuesday to try to broker an
end to the fighting that has pitted US and Iraqi
security forces against Muqtada's militia since August
5, but the cleric refused to meet them. As a result, on
Wednesday heavy fighting continued across Najaf as US
troops traded fire with militiamen in the old city, a
no-man's land of alleys and rooftops offering cover for
snipers.
The Baghdad conference was due to
announce the members of the council later on Wednesday,
but its start was set back. It has already run over the
three days it was due to last.
The free-ranging
discussion, suggestions, and proposals that have taken
place amply demonstrate the extent to which ordinary
Iraqis are interested in participatory politics after
decades of exclusion from the halls of power. Such
public discussion of government policies was unheard of
in the Saddam Hussein era. Indeed, even in the
post-Saddam era, this week's gathering is the first in
which citizens have been able to voice their opinions in
an official forum.
But amid all the claims by
delegates to be speaking for the country, two questions
remain. Just how representative of the Iraqi population
are these delegates, and how did they get to Baghdad?
The questions have been the subject of much debate, both
before and during the conference.
During the
opening speech on August 14, interim President Ghazi
Ajil al-Yawir acknowledged criticism that the delegates
were not directly elected by the people. But he said the
conference organizers had tried to create a selection
process that was broadly inclusive and that - given
Iraq's security situation - there were no practical
alternatives. "We admit this conference does not take
the place of direct elections and has come instead of
it," he said. "But we also would like to ask, after all
this, what practical suggestions did they [the critics]
offer us?"
Delegates to the conference were
originally going to be selected through an arcane
procedure proposed by the US-led Coalition Provisional
Authority. But that plan met with stern resistance from
many Iraqis. So instead of people from various
governorates, or administrative regions, choosing the
delegates, the country's political and religious groups,
tribes, civil associations and national personalities
nominated their candidates. Still, many political
independents accuse Iraq's main parties of dominating
the selection process.
One independent Shi'ite
leader, Sheikh Fatih Kashif al-Ghitta, said ahead of the
conference that "the parties will eat the entire cake.
The parties got what they wanted - they got to control
the governing council and the National Conference, and
they are going to control the new parliament."
Such complaints prompted political advisers from
the United Nations to ask organizers to invite 300
additional people at the last minute. Many of these
additional delegates were from religious and ethnic
groups deemed to be underrepresented.
Amid all
the debate over representation, the conference had to be
postponed from its original time frame of late July to
this week. Conference organizers say now that the final
1,300 delegates do represent all of Iraq's regions and
all of its main political parties and religious groups.
Some groups are clearly missing, however.
One is
the movement of Muqtada. Another is the Muslim Clerics
Association, a Sunni group that Washington suspects of
ties to insurgents in Fallujah in the Sunni triangle.
Still another missing figure is Ahmad Chalabi of the
Iraqi National Congress, a former close ally of
Washington now under an Iraqi arrest warrant for
allegedly counterfeiting money.
Observers like
former Iraqi Governing Council member Adnan Pachachi say
there are other missing groups. He said the most
important of these are nationalist groups that are
boycotting the interim government phase of Iraq's
transition process.
"Some have declined, yes.
The nationalist element - there is a group that has just
been formed called the Constituent Conference [that is
not attending, for example]. But they are all going to,
they said, take part in the [January] elections, which
gives you an idea how far more important the elections
are," Pachachi said.
The January election is to
choose a transitional national assembly. This will
select a transitional government to lead the country to
direct elections of a representative government by the
end of 2005. For many observers, the question of how
representative this week's national conference is will
only be answered when the names of the 100-member
advisory council are announced.
The rules for
forming the advisory council call for it to represent
Iraq along tribal, geographical, political party,
religious and social lines. Of the 81 members the
conference is to elect, 10 are to be drawn from Iraq's
tribes, 10 from among civil society activists, 21 from
Iraq's governorates, 21 from political parties and 11
from religious minorities. Another eight spots are
reserved for leading Iraqi personalities.
But
some observers say they will judge the inclusiveness of
the process by the extent to which the advisory council
differs from the party makeup of the interim government
itself.
Ismail Zayer is editor in chief of
Iraq's New Sabah newspaper and one of the conference
delegates. "[The] big five parties [have] decided who is
whom and who will be a member of that parliament," he
said. "And this is not democratic. They are saying we
need a parliament that can work in harmony with the
government. We would like to have the government under
the control of the parliament, not the other way
around."
It is still unclear whether
participants will choose the members of the advisory
council on Wednesday or whether the conference will have
to go into overtime. Under the rules, the delegates must
first finish work on draft papers presented to four
working committees and send recommendations to the full
floor.
Copyright (c) 2004, RFE/RL Inc.
Reprinted with the permission of Radio
Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut
Ave NW, Washington DC 20036
