bet · GT01UU15 · 2006-03-16 00:00:00 — But we don't think and don't believe that an armed resistance against the Iraqi people, against the Iraqi forces and even against the multinational forces, which are there today legally by a demand from the Iraqi Government, is the right thing to do. It is a lost war, and there will be many casualties among Iraqis, which is unnecessary. It is a waste to discuss the scheduling of withdrawal of troops. : I was wondering whether I should comment on this or not, but I feel it is important to think about those who are called nationalists and religious resistants, whether they will advocate democracy, human rights and gay rights in . I doubt it. I doubt it profoundly, and I even doubt whether Yahia sincerely believes that Iraqis will be defending more human rights, women's rights and in in the future, if they are incorporated in the process. They are demanding more islamization and more intolerance, rather than anything else. They are anti-Americans, but that doesn't mean automatically that they are pro-democracy and pro-human rights. There are difficulties, and the political elites, not so loved by Yahia now, will have a much harsher time in a near future if they are incorporated in the process. But despite that I think it is important that they are incorporated, because we have seen that when they are part of the process they might also be influenced by the discussion of a new chapter in the tragic history of this country. Yahia : I fully agree with that. I don't think these guys will be nice. I spoke to some of them myself and asked them: What would you do to an atheist like me? They said they will try to convince me to come back to the fold, and if they fail they will chop off my head. I have no illusions about these guys. All I am saying is, as you rightly said, that it is important to bring them to stop the violence and to stop the slide into civil war. They are not going to be better than some of the people who are in power today, who are long life friends of mine and who are people I called uncle for most of my childhood. We have serious problems here, and the current leadership is showing a clear lack of vision. I want to come back to the issue of legitimate violence, which was raised in one of the questions, and what I meant by legitimate violence. Legitimate violence in today is carried out by legitimate Iraqi armed forces, and army, when they are acting within the framework of human rights and within the framework of legality. One could also qualify some of the actions of Coalition forces when they are pursuing terrorists and in a way that is not harming civilian lives and infrastructure as legitimate. That is about it, really. Iraqis who are fighting and targeting solely American forces have a legitimate right to be doing what they are doing - insurgence. But I don't think that violence is being helpful. And as I mentioned in my introduction, their violence is creating the atmosphere for other violence, which is much more devastating. While it is a legitimate right it is not necessarily the right thing to do. On the occupation: I am not really hung up about the occupation. If comes tomorrow and occupies I will meet them with . My problem is the way the conduct themselves, the way they have been behaving themselves in , the way they have been affecting Iraqi institutions and the way they have been killing Iraqis, destroying Iraqi properties, violating human rights and so on and so on. That is my problem. My problem is with the Americans taking sides in an emerging civil strife, Americans promoting one side of politicians over the others without really understanding what is going on in , without really understanding the long term consequences. Finally on how could help: I think this was a more important question to be left for me alone to answer. I will just mention some of the issues. I think it is very important for to help on the issue of human rights, on the issue of transparency and accountability in government, on the issue of creating freedom of information in . I think there is always a notion of supporting civil society with donors coming in and throwing large amounts of money at NGO's and people who they like as opposed to people who they don't like. I think what is most important in is to create spaces, like the one we have here, but in for Iraqis to discuss these issues, for all the various positions to be voiced, so that we know more about what Iraqis feel. I think one big problem about today is that everything we hear on comes from this side or the other. It is either the loudest people or those sitting in the , or al-Zarqawi, who has his own cinematographic abilities which he is broadcasting to the world. But we are not hearing from a vast majority of Iraqis who may believe otherwise. It is very important in terms of international support to create spaces that will allow as many Iraqis as possible to express their positions, to have a dialogue. that will help to form better policies in the future. : In the beginning I want to speak a about resistance. many people think there is a resistance. I am thinking that there is no real resistance in . The armed resistance in now tries to kill ordinary people, children, women, youth. Those people are beeing killed. From the statistics which we have now we can see that only 2 000 armed Coalition or US army have been killed. than 10 000 Iraqi people have been killed. Can we call that resistance against Iraqi people? And what about abusing girls and kidnapping journalists and rich people? We cannot call that resistance. As my colleague said, nobody likes that his country is occupied by others. But we could not move alone. We went to different countries, and we spoke with everyone. All of us who were outside spoke with all the governments, and no one came and helped the Iraqi people. There was some light with the Americans. They came, and we said welcome, as we could not get rid of without help. But we can tell the American army or the Coalition army that we know we don't need them if we have a strong army, if we have a good and if we have no more terror. Now we have all the terror groups inside . We cannot move alone without any help from outside. We agree that violence creates more violence. Without violence it's not resistance. Violence creates more violence. How can you help the Iraqi people? I know that now is dangerous, especially for those who are coming from outside, with green eyes, so it is not easy. But there are places where it is different, for example in the south. organization can come to and help in the south. Also in it is quite good, so we can work there. From there we also can work towards the centre of , like in . Many international NGO's have offices in Sulaymaniyah, in or in , and they are working from there towards the other parts of . We really need experience of how to promote, how to reach and how to distribute human rights awareness - one of the things. Through civil society we can work. As Environment Minister I mean that we need to clean the polluted areas. The polluted areas need a lot of experience and new equipment to be cleaned. There is always a space in where you can help us: even with the education, how to change the education system, how to put human rights and environment in the curriculums in schools and universities. In those spaces where you have big experience you can be of big help for the Iraqi people. I cannot tell you that you can come inside and take a risk and work. No, but there is another way. Through civil society you have many Iraqi people in , and through education, through awareness and even through equipment you can help now. : I would like to thank the four excellent panelists to whom we have been listening today. It has certainly given me a lot more knowledge on the situation in . I think we have fulfilled what we wanted when we started this open hearing, that we should have more knowledge and have a nice discussion on the future of . I would like to thank our four panelists for a wonderful contribution to this discussion. Let us give them a final applause, from us and from the audience. Thank you very much. With this we end this hearing. Thank you very much for coming.