Plans for Baghdad conference in turmoil

IRAQ: Despite Najaf fighting, Iraqi officials insist meeting will go ahead, writes Michael Jansen

Iraqi officials continued to insist yesterday that the three-day National Conference, due to open tomorrow, will convene in spite of the fighting in Najaf.

But since Baghdad was shut down by a general strike and multiple demonstrations protesting the US-led military campaign against Shia insurgents of the Mahdi Army, there was specu- lation that the conference could be postponed a second time. The gathering, the idea of former UN mediator, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, is supposed to usher in the process of installing democracy in Iraq.

The meeting is meant to bring together 1,000 provincial representatives, tribal figures, clerics, and politicians to select 100 members for an interim National Assembly.

This mini-parliament will oversee the drafting of a new constitution and preparations for elections by January 31st, 2005.

The assembly will have the powers to approve the budget, veto executive orders with a two-thirds vote, and appoint replacements to the cabinet if any minister dies, resigns, or is dismissed.

Just over half the delegates to the conference are to come from Iraq's 18 provinces, while the rest represent political parties and non-governmental associations.

Twenty-five per cent of the seats in both the national conference and the interim assembly are reserved for women. Nineteen places in the assembly have already been allocated to members of the Governing Council, appointed by the US chief administrator, Mr Paul Bremer in July 2003 and dissolved at the end of June this year.

Unless there is a conference there can be no assembly, and without an assembly the government is in breach of the Transitional Administrative Law which says that the conference should have been held no later than July 31st.

Dr Rajaa Kuuzai, who belonged to the disbanded Governing Council and to the 60- member preparatory committee, is a Shia obstetrician from the southern city of Diwaniya. She told The Irish Times last month that the process of choosing delegates had generated considerable confusion in the provinces. In her hometown "unknown people with no idea of how democracy works" had been chosen, she remarked.

Another source said that in the three Kurdish majority provinces in the north, the two main parties, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdish Democratic Party, did not permit members of other groups to attend the meetings at which delegates to the conference were chosen. The preparatory committee was notified and was compelled to intervene.

Elsewhere supporters of Mr Ahmad Chalabi, a influential but controversial political figure, are alleged to have rigged the selection process.

Leading figures summoned to a meeting at the exclusive Alwiya Club in Bahgdad were unable to make an informed choice because of disorganisation.

As a result, only days before the conference was originally due to begin, half the provinces had not nominated their slates.

Furthermore, key groups decided to boycott the conference, including the Association of Muslim Clerics, an influential Sunni opposition organisation; the rabble-rousing Shia cleric, Mr Muqtada al-Sadr; and the National Foundation Congress, a body comprised of Shias, Sunnis, leftists, dissident Ba'athists, and Iraqi nationalists who favour peaceful resistance to the US presence in Iraq.

Dr Wamid Nadmi, professor of political science at Baghdad University and a member of the Congress, said that Iraqis should not participate in activities which legitimise the occupation. The Congress will take part in elections in January.

The chaos and confusion prompted the UN team assisting the Iraqis with preparations to press for postponement for as much as one month. The Iraqi interim government, aware that its credibility could be seriously damaged if the conference fails to meet soon, agreed to a two-week delay to improve arrangements, extend representation, and persuade those boycotting to attend.

However, Mr Dhari Khamis al-Dhari, a tribal leader from Abu Ghraib who had expected to take part, said yesterday on the phone from Baghdad that the situation had not been remedied.

"It's a circus. I decided to have nothing to do with it." Mr al-Dhari, a German-educated engineer who recently resigned from the Baghdad city counci, is a descendant of one of the heroes of the 1920 tribal rebellion which has inspired the current insurgency.

Opposition groups have not been persuaded to attend. An informant close to Mr Allawi said the conference will be similar to a meeting held before the war in the Kurdish town of Irbil which brought together representatives of the exiled groups committed to the overthrow of the Ba'athist government.

If he is correct, the assembly, like the interim government and the former Governing Council, will be dominated by returned exiles, "outsiders," who are increasingly resented by 'insiders', Iraqis who remained in their country during the 35 years of Ba'athist rule. This resentment could fuel the Sunni and Shia rebellions in the centre and south of the country.