Handpicking Iraq's interim leadership to reflect its ethnic and religious makeup seemed like the right thing to do six months ago. But communal tensions are on the rise, deepening the country's ethnic and religious fault lines and casting doubt on prospects for installing a peacefully elected government next year.
While Iraqis revel in their newfound freedoms to speak, worship, publish and broadcast as they please, their future as a unified state is being tested by rivalries among Sunni Muslims, Shiites and Kurds jockeying for power after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Cobbled together by colonial Britain less than a century ago, Iraq has struggled for years with ethnic and religious rivalries.
The prospect of national dismem-berment may seem remote, but that possibility has been enough for Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey to warn publicly against steps which might lead to the division of this nation of 25 million. Clashes between majority Shiites and minority Sunnis are not uncommon. On Dec. 9, a Sunni mosque was bombed in Baghdad, killing three people. On Friday, a car bomb killed five people outside a Shiite mosque in Baqouba, a mixed Sunni-Shiite city in a mostly Sunni region.
Attacks on the offices of Kurdish political parties also are increasing, as is squabbling among members of the Governing Council -- the Iraqi interim administration of 13 Shiites, five Sunni Arabs, five Kurds, one ethnic Turk and one Christian -- over whether to adopt a federal system in which the Kurds would retain the substantial self-rule they have enjoyed in their northern provinces since the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
Iraqi politicians routinely explain away their differences as part of the country's newfound democracy and assure Iraqis that only dialogue, rather than violence, would be used to settle differences.
They accuse hard-liners and the media, especially Arab satellite news channels such as Al-Jazeera, of fomenting strife.
"There is no such thing as a 'representative' of Sunni Arabs," said Samir Shakir Mahmoud, a Sunni, when asked about his role on the Governing Council.
"I consider myself an Iraqi citizen first ... and I try to serve Iraqis, all Iraqis -- Sunnis, Shiites, Arabs, Kurds and others," he said in a newspaper interview this week.
But for Sunnis, the prospect of minority status in a future, Shiite-dominated government is unsettling, given their long ascendancy under the British and then under Saddam. Many Sunnis accuse the Americans of fanning sectarianism as part of a divide-and-rule policy. They complain that the Americans are paying excessive attention to the views of senior Shiite clerics on the political process, which is designed to hand over sovereignty to Iraqis by July 1 and put a democratically elected government in place by the end of 2005.
On the other hand, when it comes to resisting Kurdish autonomy demands, Sunni and Shiite Arabs on the council are united.
The patchwork face of post-Saddam Iraq is on vivid display. Iraqi TV broadcasts of the five daily Muslim calls for prayer include both the Sunni and Shiite versions. The Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday in November was observed on three different days to accommodate all faiths, and the Governing Council runs three religious affairs departments -- one for Shiites, one for Sunnis and one for non-Muslims.
Fair enough, an ecumenical-minded outsider might conclude. Wrong, argue many Iraqis, mostly Sunnis but also some secular-minded Shiites, who see the seeds of secession in the new Iraq.
"The sectarian and religious approach to politics in Iraq is very dangerous," warned Fahmi Howei-di, a prominent Islamic writer from Egypt who closely monitors religious issues in the Arab world.
"It has created a divide that will be difficult to mend or reverse in the future," Howeidi said.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS