Iraq’s Shia make themselves heard
Amal Hamdan
Iraq’s main Shia opposition party announced on Monday it would boycott a US-sponsored meeting of Iraqi organisations in Iraq to map out the post-war political map of the country.
The Iranian-based Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution (SAIRI), which draws its support from Iraq’s Shia majority, said Tuesday’s meeting to be held in the southern Iraq city Nasiriya would not benefit the Iraqi people.
Iraqi boys cheer a US Marine as his unit patrols Al-Sadr City, but the welcome might be short-lived
“We are not going to attend the Nassiriya meeting because it is not to the benefit of the Iraqi nation,” said Abdelaziz Hakim, a SAIRI leader based in Tehran told a news conference.
“What is most important in our view is independence,” he said. “We refuse to put ourselves under the thumb of the Americans or any other country.”
The Nasiriya meeting will be overseen by retired US General Jay Garner, billed to head a transitional administration charged with running Iraq in the post-war country.
Hakim said Tuesday’s meeting should pick up from where one held in London in December left off, when some 330 delegates representing six Iraqi opposition groups agreed a political blueprint for the country’s future.
“It is not correct to start from scratch. We have to continue the same process started in London and that has to be the basis,” he said.
Shia make up 60% of Iraq’s 26 million people and were severely oppressed and under represented in the Baath regime.
They have now broken their silence to demand political representation in any post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
“Under Saddam, we did not have the right to talk or move and the United States knew this full well. Why did it take them so long to act?,” asked Sayyed Ali Al-Shawki, a Shia cleric in Baghdad.
The Shia stronghold in Baghdad, known as Saddam City until US forces took over the capital last week and ended Hussein’s 24-year rule, has been renamed Al-Sadr city in honor of Mohammad Sadeq Al-Sadr, a senior Shia authority who was widely believed to have been killed by the Baath regime.
The shantytown of two million people has turned into a platform for an emerging political force.
“We thank the Americans if they came here to liberate us,” said Al-Shawki. “But if they are here to colonise us, we will regard them as enemies and fight them with all means,” he warned.
Shia clergymen have largely expressed willingness to cooperate with the United States, said Dr. Sami Baroudi, an associate professor in political science at the Lebanese American University (LAU).
Washington does not have concerns that ties between Shia Iran and Iraq will be strengthened because the US “is counting on the fact that there are enough Shia cooperating with them so that axis doesn’t develop.”
The Pentagon is pushing for Ahmad Chalabi, who describes himself as a secular Shia, to lead Iraq. But it is unlikely the country’s Shia population will accept him as their leader.
Asked at the Tehran news conference whether SAIRA risked being isolated at the start of efforts to rebuild Iraq, Hakim replied, “We want to participate in an Iraqi government, but based on the people’s votes.”
If Washington doesn’t allow the Shia community to choose their leaders it would be “a total mockery,” said Baroudi.
Washington has reached out to some Shia groups, who have not demanded the immediate withdrawal of US forces, unlike Lebanon’s Shia Hizbollah group, said Baroudi.
Shia in Lebanon were largely numerically under-represented in the power-structure until the end of the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.
But the situation of the Shia in the two countries cannot be compared because “everyone in Lebanon is a minority,” said Baroudi, pointing out that in Iraq they are clearly a majority of the population while they don’t make up even 50% of Lebanon.
“The mosaic of Lebanon makes it a bit more complicated,” he explained. In both countries the Shia community was denied rights but in Lebanon they were part of the system while in Iraq they weren’t recognised and their leaders and symbols destroyed.
“Their (Iraqi Shia) lot was worse than the Shia of Lebanon,” he added.
In the central Iraqi mainly Shia city of Najaf, an internal power struggle has emerged among the city’s clergies, leading to the death of Ayatollah Majid Al-Khoei. It is an over-simplification to say that Al-Khoei was killed because was pro-Western, said Baroudi, adding it was unfair since none of the clerics were under “US control.”
“There is a great deal of turmoil (in Najaf) and this will harm the United States,” said Baroudi. “It looks like a Pandora’s Box has been opened.”
Like other Shia clerics sounded out in Al-Sadr City, Al-Shawki called for a government grouping all of Iraq’s major communities, including Shia, Sunni, Kurdish and Christian.
Mosque preachers are demonstrating the authority they wield over the community, particularly in Al-Sadr City. Much of the looting that gripped Baghdad emerged from Al-Sadr City and violence was brought to an end by Shia leaders when they urged the faithful to return the booty.
“It is religious leaders, not the Americans, who control Iraq,” said Al-Shawki. -- Al Jazeera with agencies
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