By QUBAD TALABANI
August 22, 2005; Page A10
As we continue our work to
complete the draft permanent constitution for
Iraq by today's deadline, the Kurds remain
determined to prevent any attempt to abandon the
goal of a federal, secular democracy in Iraq. We
are, however, faced with a coalescence of
different forces that seek to set up a political
structure that is far from federal, and far from
democratic.
We are steadfast in our belief
that the extension for drafting the permanent
constitution can enable us to agree on a text
that will protect the rights of Iraqi citizens
as individuals and recognize the fundamental
diversity of Iraq within a federation. However,
while meeting the new deadline is a priority, we
should not do so by selling out the rights of
individuals across the country, and certainly
not by discarding the sacrifices of the many
Kurds and Iraqi democrats in the struggle for
freedom.
In this constitution, the Kurds
firmly believe that four core principles cannot
be surrendered: federalism, equal rights for
women, freedom of individual conscience, and
justice for the victims of Baathism.
Federalism is the absolute
minimum the people of Iraqi Kurdistan will
accept. It has been greatly overlooked that
Kurds voted overwhelmingly for independence in a
referendum held on Jan. 30, 2005, the same day
as Iraqi parliamentary elections. The Kurds are,
however, willing to live in a federal Iraq in
which political and economic powers rest with
federal regions and the national government
retains jurisdiction over foreign and national
defense policy. Certainly, none should expect
Kurds to reverse the progress that we have made
in setting up functioning institutions such as
the Kurdistan Regional Government and the
elected Kurdistan National Assembly.
Federalism is the guarantee of
a democratic Iraq, the key mechanism to prevent
the emergence of another dictatorship. Such a
federal system requires checks and balances and
a dispersal of political authority and the
management of the country's resources away from
Baghdad. President Bush demonstrated that he
understood the viability and necessity of
federalism when on March 6, 2003, he said, "Iraq
will provide a place where people can see that
the Shia and the Sunni and the Kurds can get
along in a federation. Iraq will serve as a
catalyst for change, positive change."
By definition, a democracy is a
voluntary union of its people. By accepting that
Iraq is a voluntary union expressed in a federal
state, we reject the notion of resurrecting the
centralized, unitary state that bred
dictatorship. A unitary Iraqi state, even one
with nominal federalism, will simply return us
to the old order.
Similarly, equal rights for
women should be a given in any democracy. Sadly,
that is not the case in Iraq. Despite the best
efforts of the U.S., the Kurds and the Iraqi
left, certain groups want to relegate women to
second-class citizenship. The imposition of an
undefined Shariah law in Iraq would place an
unelected clergy in charge of Iraqi society, a
recipe for disaster and a betrayal of civil
liberties.
As the justification for the
discriminatory provisions that some want to
apply to Iraqi women is supposedly religion, it
is vital that we have individual freedom of
conscience. After all, self-determination is
individual as well as communal. In a secular
Iraq, religion and the individual would be
respected. Religion would not be open to
political abuse and the Islamic traditions of
most Iraqis would be given their due. The
traditions of other religions would be equally
respected, and Iraqis would be free to affirm
whatever beliefs they wish.
Democracy cannot exist without
justice. Justice demands that Saddam Hussein and
leading Baathists be put on trial for their
crimes of genocide. We cannot, however, put
Saddam in the dock while leaving his racist
handiwork intact, especially in Kirkuk. Saddam
forcibly evicted Kurds by the hundreds of
thousands from their land and homes for no other
reason but that they were Kurds, and he replaced
them with Arabs.
There is much talk of the
history of Kirkuk, but the issue here is not
about history; it is about human rights. For us,
justice demands that the issue of Kirkuk be
resolved in line with those basic rights. To
postpone the fair resolution of this issue is
unacceptable as it only serves to legitimize
ethnic cleansing.
The danger is that some U.S.
officials, desperate to meet the final deadline,
will ask us to concede on core principles. Some
will also seek to vilify the Kurds for
"overreaching" and for being supposedly
"inflexible." This would be an injustice to
Iraq's Kurds, who have fought steadfastly to
defend values of the kind Americans and other
citizens of the free world take for granted.
So while concessions are
required to break the impasse, the Kurds know
that many of these concessions were already made
during the talks on Iraq's current interim
constitution, the Transitional Administrative
Law (TAL). Indeed, the new charter could be
agreed by today if the parties that publicly
pledged to democracy, federalism and human
rights in pre-war opposition conferences, in the
TAL negotiations, and in the coalition
government agreement, simply made good on their
promises.
Iraq can easily revert to a
failed state. Such a brutal repetition of
history can be avoided if its politicians choose
the path of democracy, which is the best tribute
to the sacrifices of Americans, Iraqi democrats
and Kurds. While some may have abandoned their
struggle for democracy in Iraq, the U.S. should
not. We the Kurds certainly have not.
Mr. Talabani is the
representative of the Kurdistan Regional
Government in the U.S. He is the son of Iraq's
president, Jalal Talabani.
