"Morning Star" -  24 June 2005

INTERVIEW:

 Iraqi communist MOHAMMED JASSEM AL- LABBAN sets out the party's current concerns as factions wrestle for control.

 Interview by JOHN FOSTER

OVER the next few months, Iraqis will face a key challenge, says Iraqi Communist Party politburo member Mohammed Jassem al-Labban. It is whether or not a future Iraq will possess the legal basis for democracy and civil rights.

Six months after the transitional national assembly elections on January 30 and with their country still occupied by coalition troops, a new permanent Iraqi constitution is being drafted. The document is currently due to be submitted to a referendum this October.

The big question is whether the constitution retains the democratic and federalist character of the transitional administrative law - the interim constitution - drawn up in 2004.

Very considerable pressure by hard line Islamic groups is being applied to ensure that the new constitution is subordinated to Islamic law as the "only" or "the principal source" of legislation. In this form, it would become an instrument of sectarian rule.

Al-Labban, who was previously a member of the Interim National Assembly, is in London to address a meeting of Iraqi democrats and progressives as part of the party's drive to build a broad coalition of support for a democratic constitution.

The Iraqi Communist Party holds a relatively central position in the process of drawing up the constitution. One of its elected assembly members, party general secretary Hamid Majeed Mousa, is on the three-member subcommittee charged with producing the principles for the first draft.

The second member represents the Kurdistan List and the third represents the Islamic Dawa party.

The draft has to be submitted to a 55-member drafting committee and it is here that the struggle begins.

It has been agreed that this committee must be expanded to reflect those forces not represented in the current assembly as a result of the limited and flawed character of the election in January.

The question is how it will be expanded.

Al-Labban characterises those supporting a democratic outcome as Arab and Kurdish nationalists, the Iraqi National Democratic Party, the Pan Arab Socialist Movement and the Iraqi Islamic Party, a mainly Sunni party that refused to take part in the elections after calling for their postponement due to security concerns.

In addition, there are the mass democratic forces within Iraqi society, including the trade unions and the women's movement and many moderate and enlightened Muslims, both Sunni and Shi'ite.

Powerful forces are now marshaled on the other side. They include the Dawa party of current  Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress - both belong to the Islamic Alliance bloc that is ultimately backed by the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani - as well as some fundamentalist Shi'ite groups including factions of the Sadr movement, surrounding cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

 

These forces have recently also declared their opposition to granting federalism to Iraqi Kurdistan the northern region that includes three provinces with a population of 5 million Kurds and other nationalities.

 

They have proposed adopting "administrative federalism" for all of Iraq as an alternative. The Iraqi Communist Party has long supported federalism for Iraqi Kurdistan on a political and national basis as a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem that has dogged the Iraqi state since it came into being after the First World War.

The party also supports administrative decentralisation as a basis for the relationship between the central government and provinces, giving the latter wider powers to run their own affairs.

There is every danger, says al-Labban, that, if the democratic and pro-federal forces do not carry the day, Iraq will move further towards sectarian strife and a possible break-up into tribal and religious fiefdoms.

Al-Labban describes the US as being active in the background and playing a subtle game. It is in negotiation with so-called "Sunni Arab" forces, including supporters of the collapsed Ba'athist regime, currently responsible for much of the violence, as a counterbalance to Shi'ite dominance.

The US is also closely involved with the current government. This government is characterised by the Iraqi Communist Party as promoting sectarianism and attempting to fasten sectarian control over what remains of the Iraqi state apparatus.

It is also characterised as lacking a clearly defined policy to tackle the country's grave and urgent social and economic problems, especially unemployment and rampant corruption.

Up to the present, the great bulk of state industries have remained unprivatised, including the oil industry that supplies more than 95 per cent of government revenue.

Major battles had been previously fought on the interim governing council to stop the US enforcing a radical programme of privatisation, above all in oil. Progressive forces had been able to rely on mass popular support and a balance of power that made the US and its immediate allies fearful of anything that might consolidate opposition and aggravate the already dire social and economic conditions.

Still, today, the existence of the national assembly and the long-standing Iraqi   commitment to national and public-sector institutions stands as an obstacle, despite World Bank and US pressure to end state subsidies to the 192 state enterprises.

However, continued and deepening sectarian and communal conflict could result in the type of political disintegration that would open up Iraq's resources to piecemeal external control. Political democracy is seen as the only guarantor of economic democracy.

Currently, the biggest threat to the operation and growth of democratic forces on the ground remains the level of violence from both Ba'athist and fundamentalist sources, with foreign Interview 2 of 3 support, says al-Labban.

He stresses that Iraqi communists want US and coalition forces to leave Iraq at the earliest feasible date and are demanding a road map by which specific times are laid down.

 

The critical factor is the development of internal Iraqi security forces with sole allegiance to the elected institutions and the homeland and ruling out the existence of "militias."

The party has strongly criticised the Iraqi Prime Minister's recent decision to seek an extension of the multinational force mandate at a recent session of the UN Security Council earlier this month, without first discussing this issue in the national assembly.

Iraqi communists have been strongly critical of the US decision to disband the rank and file of the old Iraqi army and police and the sustained and continuing failure to provide the newly created Iraqi forces with the equipment required to defend themselves and deal effectively with antipeople terrorist groups.

The new draft constitution is due for public consultation on August 15. Meanwhile, the US is pushing for an expansion of the drafting committee through conferences in three underrepresented provinces, a strategy likely to produce hand-picked delegates.

The communists and their allies are pushing for the direct representation of existing political forces - democratic, Arab nationalist and Islamic - in these provinces, instead of applying sectarian criteria.

A major concern is that the Islamic groups in government and their allies will push for a

Postponement of the October 15 referendum deadline, through hindering the constitution drafting process, in order to prolong its period in office and its ability to create a more permanent Islamist grip on the state machine.

Iraqi communists consider the developing battle over the constitution to have enormous potential for mobilising the democratic forces in Iraqi society and moving ahead end the occupation, achieve full national sovereignty and independence and build a unified democratic federal Iraq.

They are looking to progressives elsewhere for support, understanding and assistance.