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Clamor for direction elections growing louder { February 17 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/02/17/international0139EST0435.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/02/17/international0139EST0435.DTL
In the heart of Shiite country, clamor for direct elections growing louder
ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, February 17, 2004
©2004 Associated Press
(02-17) 22:39 PST SAMAWAH, Iraq (AP) --
Ali Khadim is tired of what he considers the decadence that he sees around him. Women should wear head scarves. Liquor stores should be closed. Only a government based on Islam, he says, can make that happen and, perhaps, restore order to Iraq.
"We must have a person who can represent the people," the 22-year-old metalworker said this week. "We must have a whole new Islamic government, an Islamic system, Islamic law. Our time has come."
His opinion appears to be gaining strength in areas of the country dominated by Shiite Muslims, long suppressed by secular or Sunni-dominated governments, including the regime of Saddam Hussein.
From dusty marketplaces to crowded mosques, the call for free and direct elections to choose Iraq's next government, as articulated by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, is getting stronger and louder across the country's southern half, the heartland of its Shiite majority.
Passed along by word of mouth across the dusty roads of the south, and debated in the tea shops and in mosques in tiny towns and big cities, the call resonates among Shiites hungry for a strong role in the future of Iraq.
After decades of persecution under Saddam, many Shiites are impatient.
"We need a Shiite to bring stability," said shopkeeper Ali Khadim, standing outside the small store where he sells rice, flour and other necessities.
"I don't have a car. I don't have a house," he said. "We are a big class. These elections are crucial to us. Without them, there will be no end to the chaos."
Iraq descended into uncertainty after the ouster of Saddam and his predominantly Sunni Muslim Baath party, which held rival tribes and religious groups together in a mix of terror and patronage.
Saddam was ruthless in his treatment of the Shiites -- who make up an estimated 60 percent of the country, mostly in the south -- and the minority Kurds, in the north. Both groups rose up after Iraq's defeat in the first Gulf War in 1991, only to be brutally crushed.
Anger toward Saddam and his supporters remains deep, along with the scars of his rule. Since the uprising, nearly a dozen mass graves have been found in this city of about 600,000, which lies some 230 miles southeast of Baghdad.
"I was imprisoned many times for not praising Saddam in my sermons," said Sheik Maad al-Waieli, a popular Shiite cleric in Samawah. "They tortured me to the point that I wanted to die."
But al-Waieli, while stressing that the demand for elections must be met, conceded it may be better to postpone them, perhaps by several months.
"We need time," he said. "There is an educated class here, but they are not well educated politically."
He also said that although Iraq's next leader need not necessarily be a Shiite, the "customs and traditions" of the Shiites must be respected.
"We are Muslims," he said. "The constitution should be Islamic."
That prospect has raised some concerns of a fundamentalist upsurge in Iraq, or the creation of an Islamic government like that of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer has hinted he would veto any attempt to make Islamic law the principal source of the Iraqi legal code under the interim constitution, which is supposed to take effect at the end of this month.
Iraq's small women's rights groups have expressed concern that women's legal guarantees in such areas as divorce, inheritance and child support could be at risk under a legal system based primarily on the tenets of Islam.
Al-Waieli said such fears are unfounded.
"Islam is open-minded," he said. "We should respect the rights of others. We are not the Taliban."
©2004 Associated Press
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