|
Iraq: The Making Of Federalist, Pacifist Constitution By Nduka Uzuakpundu
What name to identify
Iraq
with, amid the din of a rather amorphous, if still bloody, post-Saddam
war, is proving a bit of knotty. At the just ended constitutional
conference, in Baghdad, there were diverse names ranging from “The Islamic
Republic of Iraq,” “The Federal Republic of Iraq,” and “People’s Republic
of Iraq,” suggested by the various contending interests, within the
National Assembly, as the country tries to chart a new political and
constitutional path. The baseline of the agreement reached was
re-inventing Iraq as a secular
state, where faith would be de-emphasised. There was, at that level of
discussion, a certain reflection of the United States’ wish that the next
Iraqi constitution should make for a fairly well representative government
based on majority rule. There was, also, an under-current of how some of
the delegates – all whom were surely not gifted in constitutional affairs
– pondered on the implications of having a republican constitution for a
democratic Iraq. The prospect of organising and funding political
campaigns and nominating candidates for elective office under an entirely
Iraqi administration by year’s end has instilled some cautious confidence
of a promising dawn amongst Iraqi politicians. It would form the basis of
somewhat new political habits that Iraqi voters may not have taken part in
for more than three decades of military rule. But however wobbly they may
handle the crucial affair, sans violence and ballot-rigging, the
neo-conservative Republicans in Washington would be well pleased to offer
some corrective advice on how to tread the path of democracy. The low
religious profile at the conference was in recognition of Washington’s
distaste for how those who claim to be worshiping the Supreme Being from
the Crescent faith could have been associated with the bombings in the
U.S.
on September 11, 2001. Although the
conference has wound up – August 15 – inconclusively, it is pretty certain
that the neon-conservative Republicans in Washington would never allow
Islamic law to govern the legal and social behaviour of Iraqis. The
Constitution has 61 Articles. Its opening paragraph speaks of a secular
state with the “Law of Administration for the State of Iraq for the
Transitional Period” and that a “Gender-specific language shall apply
equally to male and female.” The constitution, which would be replaced by
a draft after a general referendum on October 15, was signed on March 8,
2004 by the Interim Governing Council. It came into effect on June 28,
2004 following the official transfer of power from the Coalition
Provisional Authority (led by the United States), to a sovereign Iraqi
government. “If the referendum rejects the draft permanent constitution,
the National Assembly shall be dissolved. Elections for a new National
Assembly shall be held no later than December 15, 2005. The new National
Assembly and new Iraqi Transitional Government shall then assume office no
later than December 31, 2005, and shall continue to operate under this
Law, except that the final deadlines for preparing a new draft may be
changed to make it possible to draft a permanent constitution within a
period not to exceed one year. The new National Assembly shall be
entrusted with writing another draft permanent constitution. The draft
permanent constitution shall be presented to the Iraqi people for approval
in a general referendum to be held no later than October 15, 2005. In the
period leading up to the referendum, the draft constitution shall be
published and widely distributed to encourage a public debate about it
among the people. The general referendum will be successful and the draft
constitution ratified if a majority of the voters in Iraq approve and if
two-thirds of the voters in three or more governorates do not reject it.
If the permanent constitution is approved in the referendum, elections for
a permanent government shall be held no later than
December 15, 2005
and the new government shall assume office no later than December 31,
2005.” All that was part of an indirect input by the influential
neo-conservatives in Washington chipped, allegedly, in – via a memo – by
U.S. envoy, Zalmay Khalizad. While a great deal would still be added to
Iraq’s
administrative laws – in the interest of fair representation of women in
decision-making bodies, for instance – what the Bush administration has
emphasised, tacitly, is the necessity of a pacifist constitution for the
country – in reminiscence of General Douglas MacArthur after the defeat of
Japan in 1945. Crafting a new
constitution for Iraq became that imperative in order to slough the
authoritarian traits of the Ba’athist years – in preference for a more
humane, multi-party and democratic society, under a constitutional
administration. For once, in well over three decades of the Ba’athist
regime, headed by ex-president Saddam Hussein, the Shiite – who constitute
more than 60 percent of Iraq’s 27 million population – found themselves in
a compelling majority speaking naturally freely and stridently about how
post-war Iraq of their dream should be shaped and governed. They were the
ones – who occupy the South – one of the tugging, oil-rich extremes of the
country – who advocated a federalist structure in protest against a rather
too strong centre, as was maintained during the Saddam regime. As the
Shiite delegates to the constitutional conference made their case, it was
almost compellingly palpable that they saw themselves – in a truly
democratic Iraq – as the rightful heir to the palace in a tranquil,
post-occupation era. They were backed by the Kurd – who occupy the
northern third of the country – the other oil-rich extreme – who pressed
their case for region autonomy. This is a position that they’ve
long-enjoyed before the invasion and occupation of Iraq by the United
States-led Coalition Forces in 2003. Their visible role in flushing out
the Ba’athists was well exploited – sometimes irrationally – to air an
opinion that was for ‘an immediate excision of Kurdistan’ from Iraq! For
the Sunni, who were Saddam’s brethren, there was a profound feeling of a
helpless loss that, while their foremost son was still under American
custody, they were – from a position of weakness – taking an active part
in what was, indeed, a process that, for certain, would break their
notorious monopoly of power. It is the same process under which Saddam
would be tried for alleged war crimes. The resolve by the Bush
administration, just before the end of the constitutional conference,
never to pull out American troops – in spite of the Sunni-led insurgency,
which has felled nearly 2,000 Marines – underscored the extent of
hollowness of whatever was left of their relevance in both municipal and
Gulf politics. Their coming to the constitutional conference could be seen
as President George W. Bush’s latter-day, if opportunistic, conversion to
Lincoln’s democratic pronouncement to extend “charity to all” and “malice
to none” in a bid to spread the gospel of freedom and democracy in an
environment that has, since 1968, been – with Washington’s seasonal
connivance – under the boot heels of military dictatorship. Besides, the Bush administration feels that in spite of the slippery ground upon which lies the credit of the Sunni, they should be allowed to contribute to the historical, constitution-making process. Until the inauguration of the constitutional conference, it was very strongly suspected that their linkage with the insurgency in the west and north of Baghdad, which has given Iraq a semblance of ‘a Vietnam in the making,’ would compel their exclusion. Part of that thinking was informed by the protest in far away Texas, Bush’s home state, where a certain woman – Cindy Sheenan – has been leading an anti-war protest, after the death of her son – Casey Sheehan – last year in Iraq. The tempo of that protest is beginning to sharpen the divide at home: how popular is America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq?; especially now that – to the making of a peculiar press for Sheenan and handful of associates – there has appeared – near Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas – an opposite, if an organised, crop of Americans, who feel that there is nothing wrong with the illegal campaign in Iraq. The Shiite have suffered a great deal under the Ba’athists, who’re predominantly Sunni. For their fundamentalist approach to Islam – and suspected romance with the Mullahs in next door Iran – they once constituted the largest tenants in Saddam’s prison. The coming of the U.S.-led Coalition Forces, for them, has offered a welcome relief from the calculated tyranny of the Ba’athists, who had hidden behind the shield of military rule to press religious persecution against them for belonging to a sect that is locked in a regional rivalry against the Sunni. Still, the fall of the Ba’athists has provided them with a new insight into what a representative, federalist Iraq could mean in terms of development – backed by the demographic and political power, and an impending fresh national financial allocation from the country’s oil resources. They are aware that after the Persian Gulf War with Iran – 1980 -1988 – their region is in need of reconstruction. With federalism, they may have a firm control of a leading amount of the oil wealth that flows from the South. That, too, applies to the Kurd in the North, who’re more interested in secession after being gassed by the Ba’athists in the ’80s for advocating a break-up of the country. But there is a long-standing policy by Washington to pacify the South by keeping the Shiite off the orbit of the neighbouring Mullahs, for fear of augmenting a regime that once threatened an exportation of its revolution – after the fall of the pro-American Shah in 1979 – to other parts of the Middle East; with those crowns that were considered too cosy with Washington as its targets. Even so, maters have not now been helped with Tehran’s nuclear ambition – an ambition that unsettles the Bush administration: it, like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Union, fears that such weapons of mass destruction could stray into the hands of terrorist organisations, like the al-Qaeda. Whatever the ambitions of their Kurdish counterparts, truth is that they would held in a firm leash: a prohibition of their seasonal, if potentially disruptive, nationalist campaigns; so that they do not rattle Turkey – a strategic member at the south-eastern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) – which has a sizeable Kurdish population. *Nduka Uzuakpundu is journalist on the Foreign Affairs Desk of a Lagos-based newspaper -- VANGUARD. |