BAGHDAD, 22 January 2005 — An Iraqi elder statesman has urged his own Shiite community to allow the Sunni minority a share in Iraq’s leadership and warned them against monopolizing power. Justice Minister Malek Dohan Al-Hassan, who was elected head of the Lawyers Union after Saddam Hussein was toppled, said yesterday Shiites must seek to protect minority rights, especially those of Sunnis expected to stay away from Jan. 30 polls.
And Shiite parties must stop staffing the government with their followers, he said. “Elections are now certain,” Hassan, who heads a secular list contesting the election, told Reuters in an interview. “But I ask the Shiites to look around them. You are in an Arab Sunni region. Who will come to your aide if you monopolize power? Look at the example of Saddam and what happens when political power is not used for the common good.”
Many of Iraq’s neighbors are predominantly Arab Sunni. Sunni parties fear the elections will consolidate their loss of power since Saddam’s overthrow. They have called for a boycott, saying the vote cannot be free and fair while an insurgency rages and US troops remain in Iraq.
Arab Sunnis dominated Iraqi politics after the country was carved out from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s. But they now fear being marginalized by a vote that is widely expected to cement Shiite and Kurdish power.
Hassan, who was jailed for two years when Saddam’s Baath Party came to power in 1968, said even if the elections went ahead and Sunnis did not participate, a national convention would be needed to try to reach a consensus among rivals.
“Iraq cannot be ruled without a consensus,” he said. “The Sunni groups - and I truly despise using this term because Iraq is truly a mixed nation - have not been frank either. Their argument about the illegitimacy of elections under occupation does not hold. Look at Japan and Germany after World War II.”
Hassan, who is almost 80, was among the first Iraqi politicians to call for the elections to be postponed until a solution to the Sunni problem was found. He says Iraq’s major parties, including Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s group, agreed on a postponement then backed down after US President George Bush declared last month that elections must be held on time.
“I agree we need an elected, legitimate government to deal with the occupier and negotiate a timetable for withdrawal, but we are not dealing with dates set by God. It was amazing to see Bush deciding for the Iraqis,” he said. “Who set these dates and in whose interest?”
Hassan was equally damning about Sunni insurgents who attack civilians as well as military and security targets to drive out American forces and topple the US-backed government. “We cannot call this resistance when they blow up civilians,” he said.
UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi appointed Hassan to the interim government in June. The French-educated lawyer was a minister in the 1960s before the Baath Party took over. Hassan practiced law through the long years of Baath rule, banned from leaving Iraq.
Meanwhile, disillusioned by politics and displaced by fighting between US and rebel forces, Iraqis are reluctant to vote in Fallujah where polling stations remain a secret with the threat of violence so severe.
Arabic pamphlets distributed by US Marines in the Sunni Muslim insurgent bastion, along with desperately needed water, food and blankets, have done little to win trust and optimism.
“Despite the violence and demands for the elections to be delayed, preparations for organizing the vote on the appointed day are going well,” the pamphlets say.
A week ago all 18 districts of Fallujah were reopened for the first time since last November’s crushing US-led assault to rid the city of thousands of insurgents. Nevertheless, the Marines believe that only 140,000 residents — or half of the population — have returned to what remains of their homes.
Much of the city was destroyed during weeks of fierce fighting. Basic services such as water and electricity remain cut off. There is a curfew.
“Everything indicates that the elections will happen on the anointed day and that turnout will be strong among all Iraqi communities. Nearly 103,000 police and soldiers will protect polling stations in the country,” the pamphlet said.
But people at the Al-Sumud (resistance) sports club on the edge of town, who are ferreting for supplies, are indifferent, if not hostile to elections. “No one represents us in these elections,” charges 55-year-old Taha Abdul Aziz. “We have been forced to leave our city, our homes have been destroyed and we are on the streets. No one is protecting us and no official has lifted a finger to help us,” he adds.
Last month, the US-backed Iraqi government announced that families returning to Fallujah would be given $100 and could qualify for compensation worth up to $10,000 for damage suffered to their homes.
