Shi’ites demand autonomy as Iraq awaits charter

By Khaled Farhan

NAJAF, Iraq (Reuters) – With four days left until Iraq’s
leaders have promised a draft constitution, powerful Islamist
leaders made a dramatic bid on Thursday to have a big,
autonomous Shi’ite region across the oil-rich south.

The head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution
in Iraq (SCIRI) spelled out his demands to tens of thousands of
chanting supporters in the Shi’ite holy city of Najaf.

But minority Sunni and secular opponents, as well as rival
Shi’ite Islamists in the coalition national government, swiftly
poured cold water on an idea that fueled fears about sectarian
battles over oil and Iranian-style religious rule in the south.

Some saw it as a negotiating tactic ahead of a self-imposed
deadline on Monday to present the draft to parliament; a top
Shi’ite negotiator, who dismissed the demand made by SCIRI
chief Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, said 16 points were still in
dispute.

It was unclear whether the row — and continued arguments
over the extent of Islamic law — would delay delivery of a
text that Washington hopes can help quell the Sunni Arab
insurgency.

The crucial issue is the nature of federalism and the quest
for wording to satisfy Kurdish demands for continued autonomy
in the north, Shi’ite hopes for some new autonomy in the south,
and also address concerns among Sunni Arabs and others in the
center that they not be left with a rump Iraqi state deprived
of oil.

“If we can deal with that … we should finish in the next
few days so the draft will be ready on time,” Bahaa al-Araji, a
senior Shi’ite on the constitution drafting panel, told
Reuters.

“If there were Shi’ite and Sunni regions it would simply
entrench sectarianism and destroy the unity of Iraq.”

U.S. diplomats, active on the sidelines of talks on what is
a vital project for American interests, have clear reservations
about SCIRI’s traditional ties to Washington’s regional foe
Iran and make plain they will not stand for clerical rule in
Iraq.

SHI’ITE DEMANDS

Hakim, a striking figure in clerical robes whose long exile
in Tehran make him a figure of suspicion for many Sunni Arabs,
was backed up in his demands at the Najaf rally by the leader
of the Badr movement, formed in Iran as the armed wing of
SCIRI.

“They are trying to prevent the Shi’ites from enjoying
their own federalism,” Badr leader Hadi al-Amery told the
crowd, which had gathered to commemorate the assassination two
years ago by a car bomb in Najaf of Hakim’s brother, the former
SCIRI leader.

“What have we got from the central government but death?”
he said, recalling decades of oppression under Sunni-dominated
rule from Baghdad, most recently by Saddam Hussein.

“We think it necessary to form one whole region in the
south,” said Hakim, a major force in the coalition that came to
power in January’s election, secured by U.S. military force.

But Laith Kubba, spokesman for Prime Minister Ibrahim
Jaafari, an Islamist from rival Shi’ite party Dawa, said: “The
idea of a Shi’ite region … is unacceptable to us.”

“It’s a bad idea,” Kubba told Reuters.

CLERICAL BACKING?

Yet despite the initial cold shoulder, it may be
significant that Hakim made his announcement hours after
meeting Iraq’s top cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in
Najaf on Wednesday.

Though Sistani, who rarely appears in public, has typically
made no comment, his backing could be vital and some political
sources close to Islamist thinking say there is broader
support, well beyond SCIRI, for the autonomy project in years
to come.

Hakim again pressed for Islam to be “the main source” of
law in the new Iraq, a proposal that alarms some women and
minority groups who already accuse SCIRI of religious
vigilantism. They mostly prefer a reference to Islam as “a
source” of law.

If, as seems likely, the Islamists are unable to push their
policies through in the broader Iraq, it could be tempting to
enact them at least in an autonomous Shi’ite half of the
nation.

Hakim and Amery’s demands, by including central Iraq, went
beyond a project floated around the southern city of Basra to
merge three provinces into a new federal region.

The area from the holy cities of Kerbala and Najaf, south
of Baghdad, to Basra has a mostly Shi’ite population comprising
close to half of Iraq’s 26 million people.

“We hoped this day would never come,” said Saleh al-Mutlak,
a leading Sunni politician. “We believe that the Arabs, whether
Sunni or Shi’ite, are one. We totally reject any attempt to
stir up sectarian issues to divide Iraq.”

Other participants in talks on the constitution have said
that they expect rules on how federal regions can be formed to
be left vague in the draft and held over for later discussion.

That later discussion could well see more Shi’ite pressure
to create an autonomous southern region in the years to come,
with potentially great implications for control of the vast
oilfields around Basra on the Kuwaiti and Saudi borders.

(Additional reporting by Michael Georgy, Mussab
Al-Khairalla, Hiba Moussa, Andrew Hammond, Waleed Ibrahim and
Alastair Macdonald in Baghdad)