Shiite Islamist leaders hammered home demands for an autonomous federal state for their people across oil-rich southern Iraq yesterday, four days before a deadline for agreeing a new constitution.
Minority Sunni Arab leaders, as well as a spokesman for the Shiite-led coalition government, rejected the idea and it was unclear whether the split would hold up delivery of a draft text that Washington hopes can help quell the Sunni insurgency.
At an impassioned mass rally in Najaf, heartland of Shiite Islam, the leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution (SCIRI) Abdul Aziz al-Hakim turned up the pressure on his opponents as the head of his party's military wing derided the central government in Baghdad.
"Regarding federalism, we think that it is necessary to form one entire region in the south," said Hakim, leader of SCIRI, and a powerful force in the coalition that came to power in January's poll.
Shiites account for about 60 percent of Iraq's people and the issue of autonomy raises major concerns for the country's ability to hold together and for the division of its oil wealth.
Representatives of the Sunni Arab minority, dominant under former president Saddam Hussein, and some other minorities and secular Shiites wary of religious rule have been opposing the idea of drafting a constitution that would allow southern Shiites the kind of autonomy now enjoyed de facto by Kurds in the north.
"Federalism has to be in all of Iraq. They are trying to prevent the Shiites from enjoying their own federalism," said Hadi al-Amery, head of the Badr movement, a militia organisation formed by SCIRI when it was in Iranian exile.
"We have to persist in forming one region in the south or else we will regret it. What have we got from the central government except death?," Amery said, recalling the decades of oppression many southern Shiites have suffered at the hands of successive colonial and post-colonial rules in Baghdad.
Opponents accuse SCIRI and the Badr movement of fomenting religious vigilantism, charges they deny.
Hakim's rousing calls were greeted with wild enthusiasm by tens of thousands of supporters crying "Yes, yes to Islam!", "Yes, yes to Hakim!" among other slogans. The meeting was called to commemorate the assassination two years ago by a huge car bomb in Najaf of Hakim's brother, the former SCIRI leader.
In Baghdad, Laith Kubba, the spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite Islamist from SCIRI rival Dawa, said: "The idea of a Shiite region ... is unacceptable to us."
Other participants in talks on the constitution have said that they expect precise rules on how federal regions like that of the Kurds can be formed to be left out of the draft presented next week, leaving the issue unresolved until later.
In other news, Saddam's trial could begin within the next two months, a source close to the Iraqi Special Tribunal that will try the former dictator said yesterday on charges of crimes against humanity.
"My best guess is that the trial could begin 45 days from the day the defence looks at the evidence," said a source close to the tribunal.
On Monday Saddam's family announced it sacked all members of his foreign defence team and would deal only with Khalil Dulaimi, his Iraqi lawyer.
In other developments, the government is investigating allegations by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that weapons have been smuggled into Iraq from Iran, Kubba said.
He said weapons with Iranian markings have previously been found inside Iraq but he said the allegation was being "discussed carefully because we all know that during complex wars sometimes one party tries to create sedition."
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS