bet · GT01UU15 · 2006-03-16 00:00:00 — There should be no sanguine assessment about saying: "Well, if we can't agree on uniting we should part peacefully." a separation of could be conducted in a peaceful because the Kurdish people have developed their distinct identity, a distinct political and economic system over the last years. But it is exceedingly difficult for the rest of the country. Even the separation of will raise issues about Kurds who live throughout the country and who have developed local identities in addition to their Kurdish identities. The split-up of will cause ethnic cleansing in many areas where the communities intertwine. The split-up of will cause chaos in the region. A 'ah region, if it emerges in the south, will undoubtedly fall under Iranian influence. will pass no opportunity to try to spread its control over that region. Many people in that region will, object to that, not want to live under Iranian hegemony. This will lead to violence. 's neighbours to the west and the south will not sit idly as spreads its power over a significant part of and the Middle East oil resources. There will be intervention on their behalf. The consequences of breaking up are hard to fathom, and it is very important to understand that that option should not be entertained at any point. That doesn't mean that has to be united. A lot of the language from Iraqi politicians is linked to the past. There is this never-again-mentality. There is this fear of the bogey man of that has admittedly caused lots of pain and suffering to a lot of people in . But that bogey man is gone. The majority of Iraqis today don't want a weaker state. They want a stronger state. But if you speak to politicians you hear the exact opposite. The Iraqi politicians are still obsessed, because of their backgrounds and exile in opposition, coming from opressed minorities, about making sure that the Iraqi state never rises again, never becomes a threat again. But if you look throughout the region, throughout the world today, the biggest threat to human rights, to civil liberties, are not strong states but weak and disintegrating states. If the current constitution is implemented to the letter, to the spirit, it will lead to a further weakening of the Iraqi state. Then we will see more human rights violations, more violence rather than less. What is the way out of all this? I will try to be a bit optimistic and hope that the next election will bring a bit more diversity, that in the next elections more Iraqis will vote outside their ethnic and sectarian groups. There are some signs of that. There is splintering in the solid ethnic groups. has lost some parties, and even has lost some parties. All Iraqi liberals and nationals have united in one list which stands probably some chance in gaining a bit more votes. That holds the hope of the option of revising the constitution and toning down some of the decentralizing tendencies in it, and also holds hope that the legislation necessary to enforce the constitution will tone that down and will make it possible to run a central government in . The threat of insecurity comes mostly from the violence. It is the vicious circle of insurgency and counterinsurgency. It is very important to review and stop the counterinsurgency measures. The main victims of counterinsurgency measures are Iraqi civilians, and they are feeding directly into the gulfs of al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda will never defeat it without the support of Iraqis, including those in the west of the country and including those who are currently part of the national insurgence. What is needed is a political framework that brings in the national insurgents into the political process and unite them with the rest of in the fight against al-Qaeda and the work towards reconstructing . That cannot happen if the commitment to the maintenance of foreign troups in continues. National insurgents will not lay down their weapons without a of an end to the occupation. This is the compromise that will have to underpin all of this. On one hand a timetable and conditions, a roadmap if you like, of the withdrawal of Coalition troups. On the other hand a unification of all Iraqis in the fight against al-Qaeda and of course an opening up of a political process whereby everyone will have their fair share and an end to the violations of human rights. Most important in the end is the dissolution of all the militias and their integration in security forces. A compromise along these lines have been forged amazingly last month in , . It is very important to try to sustain the momentum from that. This is a small glimmer of hope in an otherwise very tense situation in . : Thank you very much, Yahia , for a very interesting lecture. Now we have the chance to ask the panel lots of questions, and I will let as many as possible ask their questions. Thair : I represent the Center. we can regard the whole political process in as a process of nation-building or state-building. We have seen some arguments against the Iraqiness of the Iraqis and some arguments from Yahia about most Iraqiness of the Iraqis. There are problems with the of the Iraqi nations. My feeling is that the political in is participating in creating a kind of double messages to the Iraqi people. On one hand, most of them are saying that they would like to participate in an inclusive, open and holistic , but practically, on the other hand, they are participating in mobilizing Iraqi people on the base of ethnic loyalties, identities, sectarian base and so on. This process is very clear, not only in the south. When the 'ah. : The question, please! Thair : The question is: Is this creation of a political system and Iraqi political parties based on social economic programmes or ideological programmes, something that is of concern to you or not? I mean: Do you agree that the continued mobilization on sectarian basis is a great source of conflicts in ? Question from the floor: My question goes to Mr. You mentioned that somebody wanted to become the of the Middle East. I think that this is very wishful thinking. differs in three important ways from . Firstly, it has never been occupied by another country, except for a couple of years by the Americans after the Second World War, whereas has been more or less an apple of content between many major powers. Secondly, has practically no ethnic minorities, if you count only those above 1 per cent or so. Thirdly, the Japanese are extremely soft on religious conflicts. You can well be baptised a , married a Buddhist and buried a. (Inaudible part, not recorded) I think there are two interesting parallels to in Europe. One is , which, in spite of great differences in language and culture, has succeeded to keep together just by federalism, as the last speaker, and many of the others, wanted to be. But the other example is . Out of the Austrian Empire four new states have been created: the , , and . : The question, please! Question from the floor (continued): . and nit bits were given to , , and the . The question is: Would it be so totally impossible that finally disintegrated? I think that the card is held by the Turks. If the Turks are forced to give greater independence to its Kurds, the Kurds of might. : OK, thank you very much. We have more questions. : I would be grateful if the panel could elaborate a bit on the nature of the relationship between and , more generally, but also in the current situation. There is an ethnic dimension, historically basically antagonistic, there exists a religious affinity and in political terms the two countries have yet to conclude a formal peace agreement after the long war in the 1980's. How does the panel figure that this relationship will evolve, and what kind of influence is likely to yield in the future of ? : I think that we will make a short stop here and give the panel the chance to answer the questions. Who would like to start? The issue, perhaps? : The issue was brought to discussion by me. The parallel is used just to express an idea of optimism in economic and technological terms. You can also find so many other examples of diversity of the function. You can look at as a good source of inspiration. You can look at and as another source of inspiration. There are many examples you can take. You can also look at and as terrifying examples of the future of . My point is: has already collapsed. It collapsed with the removal of . We are in the process of recreating . The politicians are involved in recreating . was literally separated from until 2003. It is rejoining it. It is important that it is rejoining it, and it is perceived as a voluntary rejoining. Also, it is important that the system is not finished. It is still in the making. All the critics of those who say that is either going to collapse or has to be unitary and central show that there is something in between. would have a federal government, not a central government in the sense we know in the region and in the past. But it has to be a matter of perception of that they are delegating power. A federal government will by this share some of the responsibilities. There is never going to be an Iraqi people. That is a myth. We repeat it. We think that there is one. But if you ask anyone what language they speak, they will answer the question whether they are Iraqi or not. There is no Iraqi identity as such. There have been some sorts of mechanisms for creating citizenship and also by geographical necessity to stick the country together. But if you go to , no one will support that idea of being described as an Iraqi in the first instance. There are a lot of dimensions in this, but there is hope as well. What has amazed me in the last couple of years is the fact that those who are called, people coming back from a position, are not fighting each other. They had weapons, they had bad experience of persecution, but they are not killing each other. The violence is coming from the part of the people who were ruling until 's regime was removed. So it is the same kind of violence once again used, but this time it may be labelled as national and religious resistance. But it is the same kind of people who were practicing that violence. It gives me hope that the very people who used to be in the opposition are not fighting each other. They have a lot of weapons to fight each other with, but they are abstaining from it. The reason is: They are realists. They know that if that civil war is deepened, it will be very bloody, much bloodier than we have seen until now. And that gives me some optimism. : One speaker asked me about something going on at detention centres or in prisons. As a responsibility of the we have inspector teams. than 40 persons are on these teams. They are going to check what is going on at detention centres and in prisons, and how detainees and prisoners are treated. We have only 42 detention centres under Human Rights' control, and they are going there, but we get information from individuals that their children or brother are at other detention centres, that aren't among these 42. We could get permission from the Prime Minister that we have the right to go anywhere where we have an idea of there being some prisoners or detainees. We went together with the Coalition forces, and there was also a group from the and some local NGO's. Together we went to Al-Jadria. We could find some tortured people there, but they had not been tortured in Al-Jadria. They had been tortured in another place, and then they had come to Al-Jadria. In the last place there were 75 persons, and only 15 of them had been tortured. It is good that we have control now. We have the right to go everywhere where we suspect that people are being tortured or killed. It gives me hope that people everywhere - in magazines, on the radio and on television - now are speaking about human rights and about how people are treated at detention centres and in prisons. We are speaking! We are writing! We are free now to speak about everything! So it is like you said now - this is one of the steps towards a democracy. With , there were thousands and millions of people being killed, and never we had someone outside being able to even write a letter about what was going on inside. I remember I demonstrated in . We wrote a letter about Halabja: "Stoppa ." After that, only two or three newspapers wrote a article. But now, if anyone has been tortured in a prison there are thousands of letters and magazines writing about it everywhere. It means that there is a voice. It means that a step is taken towards democracy. It means that some day will be the country of our dreams. I am not saying that it is paradise now. It is not paradise. But we got a certain culture from . To change the mentality, education and knowledge is not easy. It is not like reconstruction or construction. Construction and reconstruction, and a factory or any other facility, is much easier than changing the mentality. There is another group that is now going in the field. They call themselves The Revenging People. They try to get revenge for the past, when their children were killed by . They try to kill the people that support him or speak about him in the government. There is also another group. It is, as I said, not paradise. But we are on our way towards a new country. We have a voice. We are speaking. As a woman, I can speak everywhere. My right is not in the constitution, and that article needs to be changed for the sake of the women. We have a group together. We are speaking. We are doing seminars. They are listening to us. The Islamic groups are listening to us too, even the 'ahs. We try to make them sign a change of article 39 in the constitution. This means that there is a movement. Therefore I am more optimistic than you concerning both security and economy. Bakthiyar : I would like to state first of all, that , which was created in 1921, ended in 2003. On 9th of , all our institutions shut down. We did not have solid institutions. We had a dictator, and when he was gone, the system collapsed. As other speakers stated, we are in a nation process or a rebuilding process based on creating democratic institutions, federal institutions, self-rule and shared rule, which are the principles of federal systems. In this process we are facing many obstacles and challenges. We need to learn from positive practices of other nations and other peoples' experiences, and I hope that would help us with assisting Iraqis in good governance. There is a lot of space where can come in into and help these people. It is of common interest to all of us that succeeds. A failure is not an option for anyone. There is a struggle between those who want democracy and those who want terrorism and dark ideas of the Middle Ages, fanatic ideas, to prevail and to succeed. We are combating terrorism today in also on behalf of the international community. If, God forbid, we fail, it will have a catastrophic, earthquake type of repercussion on regional and international peace and stability. It will be another type of in the area if fails. There are enemies to this enterprise, and we have to succeed. Those who will be the losers are mostly the Iraqis, who will lose more. We have lost a lot along these decades of experiences of wars, external and internal, and repression. Somebody asked about the relations between and , and I would like to comment on that. We have a border of 1 200 kilometres. We have a complex type of historical relationship as Arabs, on one hand, from wars of the Islamic era, called the Al-Qadisiyya wars during the 6th century, and as Kurds with a complex history with . The region was dominated by the Safavid and Qajar dynasties and then the modern . Wars occurred between Ottomans and the Safavids in 1514. There was a demarcation of borders in 1632. Thus, there has been a complex type of relationship. We share a common religion. We share also, to a great level, a common confession, 'ism. 'ah went from to . The centre of 'ah seminary is and Kerbala. It is the of 'ahs. It has a history of over 1 000 years. The centre of Iranian 'ah has a history of 150 years in Qom. We have six out of twelve imams. The twelfth has disappeared, but six out of the eleven are based in , and one is based in . They believe in Velayat-e Faqih, which is a kind of Islamic religious rule, a theocratic rule, based on Islamic jurisprudence where the supremacy of the rule goes to the spiritual leader. We in have a system of 'a, which is the point of reference. It is another type of spiritual leader, but does not necessarily believe in a theocratic rule, which is a difference between these two countries. has border problems and water problems with . has a legacy of problems because of 's brutal invasion of that country which caused over one million casualties from killed to wounded to disabled and the damage of the economy of both countries. had, at the start of the war, a reserve of , and at the end of the war we had debts of about . As a legacy, left us in a country with in debts and about to pay in recompensation, which came down, because it was calculated differently and with interest rates on all this money, to about . We have scores of planes that were left in , Iraqi planes that were taken to prior to the 1990-1991 war. There is also a matter of those conflict matters that exist, and then the Iranians are requesting about in recompensation from . The Iranians have had many Iraqi refugees and have supported them. has also political interest in and is afraid that a successful might become a permanent threat to their national security. There are temptations of undermining the democratic experience and the political process in . They have a theocratic regime, and we are moving towards democracy and a federal system. They also have Kurds and other groups and the country remains a dogmatic Empire, so is afraid of these concepts, the concepts of democracy, of human rights and of a federal system. Yahia : I agree with the comment about mixed messages being sent by Iraqi elites on the matter of rebuilding . I would go further and say that most Iraqi ruling elites are only paying lip service to the issue of nation and indeed are pursuing something else. Their political mobilization method, the main tools of political mobilization, are ethnic and sectarian, and that applies to all the people who are now in power in . That is how they choose to represent themselves in politics, and that is how they choose to identify themselves. We heard that from the panel today. The people who went to negotiate the constitution from the Kurdish regional government were interested in pursuing the interests of the Kurds, of the people living in . That was their main priority. The main priority was not or making work. The main priority was to defend Kurdish interests. People who were negotiating for the SCIRI and Dawa parties played with the idea of running the show under their control, but then realized that their interests in terms of staying in power as political parties, their political mobilization tools, are also better served by pursuing sectarian interests. So, everything you hear from these people about and Iraqi nationalism, or a lot of it, is actually lip service. Indeed, they view the maintenance of as a nation only through the prism of it being an enabling mechanism for them to stay in power or for the interest of their community. Now, this is not saying that all Iraqi elites think like that. I am speaking specifically about elites who are currently in power. , some time down the road, we will have different people coming to power, who will pursue other agendas. As I said, a lot of this could be explained by the fact that the elites who are currently in power are mostly dissidents and mostly former exiles. These are people who have a very particular position and feeling about . This also colours the position towards . Many of those who are in power in in today - I am not talking about the Kurdish leaders but specifically about the 'ah leaders - had left before the war. Many of them do not actually understand what the war did to the Iraqi society. Many of them were expelled by as pro-Iranian spies, which was definitely not justified in any way, but this is the perception they left with. They were accused of being pro-Iranian, and many of them spent time in , whereas the war has left very deep scars in the rest of the society, and I would say, has caused irreparable damage to the way Iraqis feel about the Iranians. The hatred of in runs very deep. That war went on for eight years, and it was a mixture of World War One and the Nazi Blitz on . For eight years, there were daily Iranian bombing raids on Iraqi cities. A million Iraqis sat in trenches for eight years, fighting. That left deep scars, that very few of the people currently running the show in today understand. Another important element to keep in mind about the relationship between and is that is not coherent. is not one actor. There are theocrats in , but there are reformers, and there are people acting to form a position of national interests, and each of these groups have their fingers in and are supporting various groups. Some are supporting , some are supporting SCIRI and some are supporting al-Qaeda. I think that a lot of the al-Qaeda infiltration that happens in actually doesn't come from but comes from . 's role in is very complex, and the feelings of Iraqis towards are also very complex and could not be reduced for example to saying that the 'ahs in are close to . 'ahs in fought in the war and not only because they were forced to. But at some point they felt that it was their national duty. It is a very complex relationship. There is a monument of the war in which is currently in the , and it has Iranian built into the pavement, where cars go over them. I find that extremely offensive. I left before the war started, and I find that extremely offensive. But I never saw the kind of feeling of outrage. These are of soldiers who have fallen in the war, and nobody felt that kind of outrage. Everybody felt that it was a deserved monument over the war. : wants to say a last thing before we go to the next round of questions. : I just want to make a very short remark on the role of the Kurds in this reconstruction process. They have paid a high price, not because they love politically, but because they fear the worst scenarios, and that is the only realism in their behaviour. Otherwise you will not be able to understand what they are doing in and why they are paying that high price. It is the fear of the worst scenarios that forces the Kurds to be a politically force in - nothing else. Sermin Özürküt (v): Yahia has mentioned a very interesting and important point. He said that Iraqi politicians' mentality is connected to the past, not to the future. That was interesting to hear. Because they are coming from ethnical minorities, they can not just think about a strong state which can at the same time defend the rights of its citizens without having some thought about ethnicity or religiosity. That was interesting. I would like to connect that to , because the same thing has happened there. As far as we can see in the mass media and by the speeches of the politicians there is a resemblance here. For example: The people in are divided into three groups: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. Shiites and Sunnis are religious groups, but the Kurds is an ethnical group. It was the same thing in the Yugoslavian war, where there were Serbs, Croats and . Finally, we have very well understood that should be under attack. It ended so. My question is this: You have talked about legitimate violence. Violence is violence, wherever it comes from.