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In the
Kurdish north, people want to see their rights and
interests safeguarded in the final document.
Kurds are hoping that the constitution now being
drafted by the Iraqi parliament will put the
oppression of the Saddam Hussein years firmly in the
past, and create a stable country in which their
rights are observed.
Iraqi president Jalal Talabani said on July 19 that
progress had been made on drafting the constitution,
and he believed it could be ready by the end of the
month, ahead of the August 15 deadline.
But Talabani, who is a Kurd, noted that some "Arab
brothers" still have reservations about a few of the
ideas that have come up, a reference to Sunni Arab
objections to a federal structure for Iraq, which is
supported by Kurds and Shias.
As well as federalism, the constitution has to deal
with such contentious issues as the role of Islam in
the state.
More immediate obstacles to the constitutional
process include the high risk for those involved in
drafting the document.
Mijbil Issa, one of 15 Sunnis recently nominated to
the parliamentary drafting committee, was killed in
a drive-by shooting in Baghdad on July 19, along
with two bodyguards.
Although the Kurdish Alliance list came second in
January's National Assembly election, many ordinary
Kurds interviewed by IWPR still harbour suspicions
that the Arabs want to dominate in Iraq.
"We hope that the constitution will safeguard the
rights of all spectrums of Iraqi society," said
Sabah Rafiq, who runs a travel agency in the
northern city of Kirkuk. "We don't want the
tragedies we witnessed - which the Arabs and
Turkoman say we exaggerated - to be repeated."
Mohammed Rashid Mohammed, a teacher from Khanaqeen,
200 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, said the
constitution should put the Kurds on a par with the
Arabs in terms of rights.
"It should be clearly declared that Arabs and Kurds
together make up Iraq,"
he said. "The Kurdish language should be one of the
official languages of the country."
Many Kurds believe the best framework in which their
rights can be guaranteed is a federal Iraq. The
structure they would like to see would grant formal
powers to Iraqi Kurdistan, the region that now
includes three northern provinces and has its own
elected assembly.
Professor Kawan Othman of Sulaimaniyah university
says federalism would make Iraqi Kurdistan more
stable and thus prompt economic growth there."
But some want to go further than federalism, hoping
that Kurdistan will one day become fully
independent. "Whatever the constitution is like, it
will be rejected by the Kurds since they are taking
steps toward building an independent state," said
Kawe Abdul-Rahman, a barber in Sulaimaniyah.
For others in this part of Iraq, the concern is that
the constitution will reflect calls by some Shia
politicians for Islam to become the foundation for
Iraqi legislation.
Nadir Ali, who is imam or prayer leader at a
Sulaimaniyah mosques, told IWPR, "I'd support a
secular state that guarantees my rights rather than
an Islamic state that practices censorship."
Some Kurds were pessimistic about whether the new
document would mean anything at all to them.
"I don't expect the constitution to achieve
anything," said a traffic policeman. "This is Iraq
you're talking about."
Ferhad Murasil is an IWPR trainee coordinator.
www.iwpr.net
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