Democracy does not go with occupation By Linda S Heard

Democracy does not go with occupation

By Linda S Heard

November 19, 2004

Gulf News, 6/11/2004

January is the month when Iraqis and Palestinians are due to cast their ballots for new leaderships. Both Arab nations are being hyped as potentially being on the brink of a positive future but there is many a slip ... Pessimists some might say realists wonder whether either election will actually take place. The question is, can free and fair elections realistically be held in states occupied by foreign powers?

Putting aside the ideological factors for a moment, let's consider the practical stumbling blocks, including the essential requirement for voters to physically turn up at polling stations.

The precarious situation in Iraq is well known and, as things stand, it is doubtful voters will feel secure enough to queue up at voting booths. Suicide bombers, car bombs and details of their allegiances falling into the wrong hands would, surely, act as a deterrent.

Furthermore, the United Nations, responsible for monitoring the Iraq elections, has only a skeletal staff thereafter the attack on its offices when special UN envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello tragically lost his life.

Then there is the no small matter of the growing insurgency and the US-led counter attacks. About 200,000 residents of Fallujah fled their city and are currently staying in nearby towns or camping out in hastily set-up tent cities.

Those who remained because they had nowhere else to go or because they feared abandoning their life-long possessions have been subjected to days of constant shelling and bombardment. Many were prevented from reaching hospitals or clinics; others are subsisting on dates or flour, while some are seriously ill from drinking contaminated water.

By the time the exiled 200,000 feel safe enough to return, many will discover their homes have been rendered uninhabitable, their shop, office or factory partially or wholly demolished. Can such traumatised people be expected to hold elections amid the rubble?

And if "errant" cities such as Fallujah, Samarra, Baquba or even Mosul are excluded from the process a scenario formerly expounded by interim Iraqi premier Eyad Allawi and US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could the election results still be considered credible?

Allawi suggested the siege of Fallujah was "regrettably necessary" to pave the way to the January elections. Several of Iraq's top Sunni clerics hold a very different view. They have ordered their followers to boycott the ballot boxes as long as US aggression continues.

Popular influence

On the other hand, the Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a Shiite cleric with great popular influence, has called upon his people to cooperate with the voting process understandable in the context of Iraqi Shiites outnumbering Sunnis. Adding to the Sunni angst is a new ruling, which gives Iraqis living abroad an absentee vote.

The majority of exiled Iraqis happen to be Shiites as this group was systematically persecuted by Saddam's regime, especially after the 1991 Gulf War when they rose up against the former dictator on the say-so of the Americans, only to be dumped and left to their fate.

An article on the Debkafile website contains this worrying prediction: "It has been tacitly agreed that the first after-effect of a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad will be a separate Kurdish administration in Irbil, a stepping-stone to an independent Kurdish authority in northern Iraq ...

"Iraq will, thus, be effectively partitioned between the two, while the Sunni Muslims pressed between them will live under US military control until they are subdued."

If Iraqi elections are complicated, those to be held on January 9 in the West Bank and Gaza will be equally so.

After the mysterious demise of Yasser Arafat, the only leader most Palestinians have ever known, the Palestinian constitution has been enacted providing for the election of a new president within 60 days.

Until then, the Speaker of the House, Rawhi Fattuh, is caretaker president, whereas, in reality, former Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), the newly elected Chairman of the PLO, and the current Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei (Abu Alaa) are indisputably in charge.

Excluding the superficial chaos at President Arafat's highly emotive funeral held in his Ramallah compound, Palestinian National Authority officials have proved their commitment to an orderly transition by holding a series of meetings with heads of militant groups throughout the Palestinian territories.

However, unlike their larger than life former boss, who could move a crowd to tears or cheers, both Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qorei are devoid of personality being little more than members of the paunchy faithful old guard in drab suits.

It's no secret that Israel and the US are rooting for Abbas to fill Arafat's shoes. In the past, both Ariel Sharon and George W. Bush have indicated that he is someone with whom they can do business.

Such warm approval on their part turned out to be Abu Mazen's downfall in the eyes of his people who wonder whether he will truly have their interests at heart rather than those of Tel Aviv and Washington.

Marginalised

Indeed, a poll, which asked Palestinians who they wanted as their new leader showed Abbas and Qorei as marginalised with single digits.

The man most likely to succeed, Marwan Barghouti, is currently languishing in an Israeli prison serving out several life sentences.

Barghouti has expressed his intention to run for office and may be the only candidate who could unify the various militant factions and successfully challenge Hamas-fielded candidates.

The Israeli government has already indicated that Barghouti's appointment would signify a closing of the door on peace.

As is the case in Iraq, while foreign tanks and armoured personnel carriers strangle Palestinian towns ringed by checkpoints, and the skies are patrolled by F16s and attack helicopters, the logistics of holding an election are next to impossible.

In both Iraq and Palestine, the self-styled champion of democracy George W. Bush must intervene to facilitate a smooth election process.

He can no longer stand on the sidelines parroting pretty phrases in the name of promoting freedom.

Action is what is needed now. Without it, his credo will be illuminated as little more than a designed to please empty sham.

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.

editor@aljazeerah.info