The UN must not endorse Iraq's US-backed interim constitution because it could lead to the break-up of the occupied country, Iraq's most influential Shiite Muslim cleric said.
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani said he will boycott a UN team expected to visit Iraq shortly to advise on forming an interim government unless the UN says it will not back the interim constitution.
"The [Shiite] religious establishment fears the occupation authorities will work to include this law in a new UN resolution to give it international legitimacy," Sistani said in a letter sent last week to Lakhdar Brahimi, a senior adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who had led a mission to Iraq.
A transcript of Sistani's letter was made available to reporters yesterday.
"We warn that any such step will not be acceptable to the majority of Iraqis and will have dangerous consequences," said the 73-year-old cleric, who has been assuming a larger role in politics although he does not favor a theocracy in Iraq.
Annan said last week he would send a team to Iraq as soon as possible to help form an interim government in response to an invitation from the US-installed Iraqi Governing Council.
Sistani had criticised Brahimi and Annan for a report they wrote, which agreed with US authorities that general elections needed months of preparation and were not feasible considering a lack of security.
The Shiites wanted elections before June 30, the date Washington set to hand back sovereignty to an unelected Iraqi government.
The report angered Sistani and millions of his followers eager to take power after political dominance over Iraq by Sunni Arabs.
Under the interim constitution, which was passed earlier this month, elections are due by next year.
Sistani said the interim constitution was unworkable because it establishes a three-person presidential council composed of a Sunni Muslim, a Kurd and a Shiite Muslim who would be required to take unanimous decisions.
"This builds a basis for sectarianism. Consensus would not be reached unless there is pressure from a foreign power, or a deadlock would be reached that destabilises the country and could lead to break-up," Sistani said.
Shiites form a majority in Iraq but are a minority among Muslims worldwide.
The interim constitution, which was passed earlier this month, limits the power of Shi'ites by giving Sunni and Kurdish provinces a de facto veto over national legislation.
Sistani's followers said he allowed his supporters on the Iraqi Governing Council to endorse the constitution to preserve national unity as Iraq remained under US-led occupation and lacked stability.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed
Kemal Ozdemir looked up at the bare peaks of Mount Cilo in Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast. “There were glaciers 10 years ago,” he recalled under a cloudless sky. A mountain guide for 15 years, Ozdemir then turned toward the torrent carrying dozens of blocks of ice below a slope covered with grass and rocks — a sign of glacier loss being exacerbated by global warming. “You can see that there are quite a few pieces of glacier in the water right now ... the reason why the waterfalls flow lushly actually shows us how fast the ice is melting,” he said.
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS