|
Those who voted in
favour of the constitution because they felt there
was no alternative were mistaken.
Kurdish leaders told us that the constitution they
drafted was the best they could present to the Iraqi
Kurdish voters. Not all of our demands were
satisfied, but for now nothing more could be done,
the leaders admitted.
We must build the Iraqi house from the beginning
with different rooms for different groups and
windows shining light into each room. But what is
the purpose of building a house when you know from
the start that you will need to make major
improvements? The constitution I voted against on
October 15 requires too many repairs.
Among its problems are the provisions that no law
can contradict Islam or democracy may prove
contradictory in itself. The issue as to who will
administer Kirkuk, a traditionally Kurdish city, is
delayed until 2007. Kurdish rights to
self-determination are not clear enough. And I worry
that the Kurdish language will be, in practice,
secondary to Arabic.
We demand as Kurds that Iraq be an open and
democratic country. The legislators who drafted the
constitution said they tried their best to achieve
this by including an article that states, "No law
that contradicts the principles of democracy may be
established."
If this point stood alone we would have said Amen.
But this is not compatible with the provision above,
which states, "No law that contradicts the
established provisions of Islam may be established."
A friend of mine cited a very simple example: If a
person in Najaf wanted to open a liquor store, would
he be allowed to do so? Thus the supporters of
democracy and those of Islam may collide.
The Kurds fought hard to make Kurdish an official
language in the constitution. And in Kurdish Iraq
today, official documents are published only in
Kurdish, and few young people speak or read Arabic.
Article 4, Item 1, names Kurdish an official
government language used side by side with Arabic.
But it comes with restrictions. A provision within
Article 4 states that Kurdish or Arabic may be used
in official speeches and writings. It does not
require both languages. Yet the article states
explicitly, "The federal institutions and agencies
in the Kurdistan region shall use both languages."
Is this equal?
Another point I cannot support is the constitution’s
stance on Kirkuk.
The document postpones normalising the city and
surrounding areas until December 31, 2007. The
original residents of this once-majority Kurdish
city should be able to return to Kirkuk immediately
and receive compensation in order to correct an
injustice.
The Arab settlers Saddam’s government sent to Kirkuk
need to return to their places of origin and be
compensated, as was promised under Article 58 of the
Transitional Administrative Law. This issue was
supposed to be resolved under the interim
government, but it remains postponed.
I doubt this will be resolved in 2007, because the
government refuses to make it a priority.
Another “great achievement” our leaders tout is that
the Kurdish peshmerga force is kept as is, even
though the peshmerga are never directly mentioned.
Article 117, Item 5, states that regional
governments can have their own internal security
forces. Kurdish leaders who helped draft the
constitution interpret "guards of the region" to
mean peshmerga. But there is undoubtedly a big
difference between the duties of the army and
internal security forces, which will be part of the
interior ministry or federal government.
The peshmerga forces historically were the only ones
to defend Kurdistan. We were besieged on all sides
by enemies, including the Iraqi army. We still
cannot trust the Iraqi army because they used
chemical weapons against us and tortured our people
in the past.
Iraqi leaders amended Article 1 to include the
sentence, “This constitution is a guarantee for the
unity of Iraq."
I believe in a unified Iraq if there is total
equality among all groups. But this constitution
does not ensure that.
Thus we require that self-determination be an
option. Our leaders claimed they achieved the right
to Kurdish self-determination, citing the last line
of the preamble, “The adherence to this constitution
preserves for Iraq its free union, its people, its
land and its sovereignty.”
Kurdish leaders interpret the declaration to mean
that if the Arab Iraqis do not adhere to the
constitution, we will have the right of
self-determination.
But if there is murkiness over whether or not the
preamble is to be abided by as part of the
constitution, the federal supreme court will have
the power to interpret and explain it.
For us, the Kurds, the concern is: How will the
federal supreme court be formed?
According to Item 2 of Article 89, this court will
consist of judges and experts in Islamic
jurisprudence and law. A law passed by a two-thirds
majority of national assembly members will decide
how many experts are chosen and the method of their
selection.
The Kurds are minorities in Iraq. Therefore, we will
not have as many representatives in parliament and
will not have the political weight of Iraq's Arab
majority.
If the Kurds demand the right to self-determination,
the federal supreme court may reject the demand with
the legal justification that the preamble is not
part of the constitution.
Under Article 62, a federation council will be
formed that includes representatives from
governorates, of which there are 18 in Iraq. The
governorates will not have individual
representatives if they are part of a federation.
The three Kurdish governorates currently make up the
only federation in Iraq. That means if it were
formed now, Kurdistan would have one representative
and the governorates one each, limiting the power of
the Kurdish federation.
The federation council’s main objective is to
protect the rights of the federations, not the
individual governorates.
There are those who believed that they needed to
vote in favour of the constitution, because there
was no alternative. But in my view, any alternative
would have been better than this.
Rebaz Mahmood is an IWPR trainee journalist in
Sulaimaniyah.
www.iwpr.net
Top |
® 