BAGHDAD, 5 November 2004 — Iraqis living abroad will be allowed to vote in the planned January elections after months of debate over the thorny issue, a spokesman for the organizers of the landmark poll said yesterday.
“The board of the Electoral Commission has decided to allow the participation of Iraqis living abroad in the election process,” said Farid Ayar. “They hope that this decision will contribute to giving more freedom and transparency to the election process through the participation of some of our brightest intellectuals,” he said. Millions of Iraq’s most well-educated citizens fled the country during the oppressive reign of toppled President Saddam Hussein. Many have returned to the country since the collapse of his regime after last year’s US-led invasion, but more than three million Iraqis remain overseas.
There has been much debate over whether or not they should be allowed to take part in the election due largely to logistical factors. The electoral commission, with help from UN experts, has had to create an electoral register from scratch using ration cards that most families living inside the country own as a leftover from a UN oil-for-food program.
US artillery shelled Fallujah yesterday after overnight air and tank attacks killed five people in Iraq’s most rebellious city, braced for an all-out offensive now the US presidential election is over.
Underlining a rapid deterioration in security in Iraq, one of the few remaining international aid groups said it was quitting the country because of the “extreme risk” to aid workers. “It has become impossible ... to guarantee an acceptable level of security for our staff, be they foreign or Iraqi,” Medecins sans Frontieres General Director Gorik Ooms said in Belgium.
Another major aid group, Care International, also ceased its operations last month after the British-Iraqi woman running them was kidnapped. Iraqi’s government and its US backers are battling to capture rebel-held cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi and pacify the country to prepare for elections due in January. But they face a mounting insurgency and kidnappings aimed at driving out US-led forces and foreign workers.
Three soldiers from Britain’s Black Watch regiment have been killed in attack only days after being redeployed to an insurgent-hit region of Iraq near Baghdad, a government minister in London said yesterday.
“I very much regret that I can confirm to the House (of Commons) that in an attack on British forces in the Black Watch area of operations, we have suffered a number of casualties, including three fatalities,” Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram told Parliament. “The process of informing their next of kin is under way.”
Meanwhile, according to a leading human rights group, US-led forces compromised the case against Saddam Hussein and former Iraqi leaders by failing to safeguard official documents and secure mass grave sites.
In a report yesterday, Human Rights Watch said the failure of coalition forces to act during last year’s invasion meant crucial evidence for the trials of Saddam and other officials has probably been lost or seriously tainted.
“Given what’s at stake here, the extent of this negligence is alarming,” said HRW Middle East and North Africa division director Sarah Leah Whitson in Amman.
