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The five men checked in
shortly after noon on a quiet Saturday in Fargo's
Hector International Airport. For the second time in
a week, they had a plane to catch for the future of
Iraq.
"This is historic in our life," Hussein Weled said,
waiting for his flight to Chicago.
He and his friends, all members of the North Dakota
Kurdistan Democratic Party, planned to vote today in
the Iraqi elections.
To their knowledge, they were the only ones from
Fargo participating in the event, although Weled
estimated there may be 250 eligible voters in the
area.
"All the Kurds, they wanted to be there, but they
can't," said Yassin Barwari, who came to the United
States in 1977.
To cast a ballot, eligible voters in the United
States had to register by Tuesday in one of five
cities: Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, Washington,
D.C., or Nashville, Tenn.
For Barwari's group, that meant two round-trip
tickets, though they had contemplated driving if
they hadn't found cheap airfare. Add to that the
expense of hotel rooms and meals and the trouble of
scrambling to plan the trips around their jobs.
"But it's worth it -- every single penny to spend
against this regime, Saddam's regime and his
loyalists," said Barwari, 47.
In 1988, to draw attention to Saddam Hussein's
chemical attacks that killed thousands of Kurds in
Iraq, Barwari spent 21 days on a hunger strike in
Washington, D.C., he said.
Now, Barwari said, "I hope our vote will count for
the future of Kurdish people and Kurdistan and all
of those who suffered at the hands of the
dictatorship of Saddam."
About 280,000 people outside Iraq registered
worldwide, according to the International
Organization for Migration, which is running the
vote outside Iraq. The United States, home to an
estimated 240,000 eligible voters, took 26,000
registrations, according to the IOM.
The long distances between voting sites drastically
hurt turnout, Barwari said.
"Everybody's disappointed they cannot participate
because it's not convenient," he said. "Everybody
wants to vote."
At the Chicago site, which took 6,300 registrations,
the North Dakotans are among those traveling the
farthest, said Kathleen Houlihan, a voter education
officer. One of the most compelling stories she's
heard is of a woman who drove from Nebraska twice to
register because she lost her card.
The lag time between the registration and voting
period follows an international standard, designed
to let registrants see the full list of voters so
they can challenge the eligibility of others.
Cass County Auditor Mike Montplaisir, months removed
from running his county's elections in November,
contrasted the effort of Barwari and his friends to
what he sometimes sees from local voters.
"It shows how committed these people are to having a
voice in their government," he said. "Sometimes we
kind of take it for granted and we gruff a little
bit if we have to stand 15, 20 minutes in a line."
Barwari, a U.S. citizen, plans to be home Monday in
time for his afternoon shift at Phoenix
International. Soon after his return he also hopes
to call friends and family in Iraq to talk about the
election.
The vote will select members for a 275-seat
Transitional National Assembly, which will choose a
president and draft the country's constitution. A
national referendum must ratify the constitution, a
step that could come within the year.
Eligible voters must be at least 18, an Iraqi
citizen, entitled to reclaim citizenship or born to
an Iraqi father.
On the ballot will be a list of 111 certified
political groups, or parties, vying for seats on the
assembly. For Barwari and his friends, the choice is
easy: list No. 130, the Kurdish ticket.
In Iraq, potential voters braced this past week
against news of car bombs and death threats. Today's
vote may not go smoothly, Barwari said, but it will
be Iraq's first step toward a democracy.
At least his people hope and pray it is, he said.
"We don't know," Barwari said, shrugging his
shoulders. "We can't tell the future."
Readers can reach Forum reporter Dave Forster at
(701) 241-5538
http://www.in-forum.com
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