Earlier I discussed three constitutional processes - the EU, the Afghani and the Iraqi. In each of the three cases, little of the obligatory, time consuming give-and-take was manifest. In the EU, the Franco-Deutsch plan was being forced on the others. In Afghanistan and Iraq, America has its non-negotiable agenda. The EU constitution failed and now so is the Afghani. If the US continues to try to dominate, the Iraqis have little chance of success. For more on the Afghani mess.
Afghanistan's Constitutional Council Adjourns in Disarray
The constitutional grand council adjourned in disarray today, leaving the entire process to draw up a new constitution badly damaged.
The crisis has revealed a bitter struggle between the leaders of the country, with President Hamid Karzai and his Pashtun kinsmen on one side, and on the other the Islamist jihadi leaders and ethnic minorities of the north, who are seeking to preserve some of their wartime power.
Officials in the American-backed government tried to break the deadlock by putting five amendments to the vote.
But the tactic backfired when a great number of the 502 delegates, mostly from the ethnic minorities of northern Afghanistan, refused to vote. In the end only 264 people cast votes, enough for a quorum, and the five amendments passed by a simple majority.
The president and his supporters got their way, but at great political cost.
Nearly half — 48 percent — of the delegates did not vote and the amendments in question were not even the most important ones.
"It is a technical win but a political loss," a Western diplomat said following the proceedings. "There is a very high degree of mistrust. It gets harder and harder to resolve."
As the boycotters sat out most of the afternoon, declining calls for prayer and for lunch, it became clear that the three week process to agree to a new constitution was threatened. "Things are harder to put back together than they were even this morning," the diplomat said.
Mustafa Etemadi, a member of the Shiite Hazara minority from Uruzgan province, said, "We did not go to vote because our people's desires were not respected." He said, "We want far-reaching democracy in this country, we want our parliament to have more authority."
He listed a series of the main demands held by the northern minorities. They are determined that the national anthem be in the two languages, Dari and Pashtu, rather than Pashtu alone, and that the Uzbeks be given language rights.
They also are insisting that parliamentary elections be held at the same time as presidential elections, to avoid presidential interference. Similarly, these minorities are calling for a constitution drafted on consensus rather than the rule of the Pashtuns, who are the largest ethnic group and traditional rulers of Afghanistan.
In interviews, delegates revealed genuine grievances among the minorities and a strong desire for a power-sharing agreement within the government.
"We want a strong parliament alongside the president, equal rights for men and women, democracy among all the ethnic groups, and recognition of all the languages of the nation," said Habiba, a teacher from Kabul and another boycotter. "The constitution is not for one tribe or one people, it belongs to all the people of the country," she said.
Already angry with government lobbying and interference, the boycotters rejected all overtures from government officials and faction leaders. Indeed the boycotters accused them of making deals at the expense of the people.
The vice president, Abdul Karim Khalili, a powerful Hazara faction leader, was shouted down, as was Yusuf Etebar, a Tajik member of the Karzai administration. The Uzbek strongman Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum won a hearing but ended by joining the boycott.
Government and officials of the convention, or loya jirga, blamed the disruption on four or five rabble-rousers, whom they accused of intimidating people into not voting.
The boycotters quickly selected Zalamy Yunisi, an experienced political representative from the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, to meet with the United Nations special representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, in a search for a way out of the impasse.
"I came with the ideas of my people, and when we vote we have to answer to our people," said Hasina, a woman engineer from the northern province of Jowzjan. "The main thing is the language, we want the right to use our Uzbek language."
Dr. Nadera Hayat Burhani, a Pashtun doctor from northern Afghanistan said she had joined the boycott to show solidarity. "I did not want to be divided from the people," she said.
from
nytimes.com
Let's hope something is learned from these failures. All three entities need constitutions. They will get them when a suitable compromise is reached - a compromise that not only all can live with, but in which they believe they have a stake.
JMO
lurqer |
