A "Pact of Honor" proposed by Muqtada al-Sadr has been agreed and signed by major political parties. This is big news, but I am diarising as there appears to be a blackout on reporting it in the Western media.
Think of this document as the Iraqi Declaration of Independence.
Ahmad Chalabi (embezzler, fraudster, counterfeiter, double agent, etc.) attended the conference on Thursday and signed the Pact of Honor in person alongside the leaders of almost all other major parties and interests.
The demands subscribed by the signing political representatives include:
- a timetable for rapid withdrawal of occupation forces;
- elimination of occupation military bases while rebuilding Iraqi military institutions and forces;
- removal of legal immunity for occupation troops for acts against civilians and breaches of human rights;
- categorical rejection of normalised relations with Israel;
- recognition of the legitimacy of resistance to occupation while deploring terrorism against civilians.
Although the Pact of Honor was published by the Sadrists at the end of November according to
Al-Hayat (Arabic language), this declaration of Iraqi independece appears to have attracted suspiciously little coverage in the western press. Admittedly, there are practically no real English-language journalists left in Iraq who aren't in the Green Zone, but it still seems a pretty glaring omission. The only reference I could find was on Indymedia
here.
The AP appears to have accorded the signing of this document by as worthy of four paragraphs and so far has appeared only in only India and Israel so far. The story does not yet appear in the American or British press.
A group of Shiite and Sunni parties signed a declaration Thursday condemning terrorism, urging a timetable for the end of the US military presence, and vowing never to normalize relations with Israel.
The parties to the "code of honor" included followers of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Chalabi, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Sunni Iraqi Consensus Front.
The code also declared that resistance is a legitimate right and condemned "terrorism, violence, murder and kidnappings."
The code is non-binding but it indicates what parties might choose to work together after the new parliament is elected next week.
Gilbert Achcar, via the invaluable Juan Cole provides Gilbert Achcar's report of the 14 point "Pact of Honor". Because he speculates on the news blackout of this development, I am copying more of the text here than I would normally so that there is a wider record.
This conference was actually held on Thursday, December 8, in al-Kadhimiya (North of Baghdad). Despite extensive search, I found it only reported in a relatively short article in today's Al-Hayat and in dispatches from the National Iraqi News Agency (NINA). There is legitimate ground to suspect that this media blackout has political significance; indeed most initiatives by the Sadrist current are hardly reported by the dominant media, even when they consist of important mass demonstrations (like those organized yesterday in Southern Iraq against British troops).
In the case of the recent conference, the vast array of forces that were represented and that signed the "Pact of Honor" is in itself already worthy of attention. Aside from the Sadrists, chiefly represented by their MPs, those represented and who signed the document included: SCIRI, al-Daawa (al-Jaafari's personal representative even apologized in his name for his absence due to his traveling outside of Iraq), and the Iraqi Concord Front (the major Sunni electoral alliance in the forthcoming election), to name but the most prominent of a long list of organizations, along with several tribal chiefs, unions and other social associations, members of the De-Ba'athification Committee and a few government officials. Ahmad Chalabi -- who definitely deserves to be called "The Transformer" -- attended in person and signed the document in the name of his group. It seems that the Association of Muslim Scholars did not attend, as its name is not mentioned in any of the two sources.
According to the reports, the "Pact of Honor" that was adopted consists of 14 points, among which the following demands and agreements are the most important (the sentences in quotation marks are translated from the document as quoted in the reports):
- "withdrawal of the occupiers and setting of an objective timetable for their withdrawal from Iraq"; "elimination of all the consequences of their presence, including any bases for them in the country, while working seriously for the building of [Iraqi] security institutions and military forces within a defined schedule";
- suppression of the legal immunity of occupation troops, a demand coming with the condemnation of their practices against civilians and their breach of human rights;
- categorical rejection of the establishment of any relations with Israel;
- "resistance is a legitimate right of all peoples, but terrorism does not represent legitimate resistance"; "we condemn terrorism and acts of violence, killing, abducting and expulsion aimed at innocent citizens for sectarian reasons";
- "to activate the de-Ba'athification law and to consider that the Ba'ath party is a terrorist organization for all the tyranny it brought on the oppressed sons of Iraq, and to speed up the trial of overthrown president Saddam Hussein and the pillars of his regime";
- "to postpone the implementation of the disputed principle of federalism and to respect the people's opinion about it."
The conference established a committee that is responsible for following up the implementation of the resolutions and reporting on it after six months.
If anything, the conference was a testimony to the increasing importance of the Sadrist current. As for the actual implementation of its resolutions, it will greatly depend on the pressure that the same current will be able to exert after the forthcoming election, if the United Iraqi Alliance -- of which the Sadrists are a major pillar on a par with SCIRI -- succeeds in getting a commanding position in the next National Assembly."
Why isn't it news that America has "won" the objectives of creating an independent Iraq capable of and dedicated to self-governance and its own internal and external security? Hmmm. . .
Update [2005-12-10 15:34:42 by LondonYank]: I posted this early this morning and went off to collect the dining room table I bought on eBay when the Kos servers were down during the blackout last weekend. I return to find this on the Recommended List!
Thanks to all who commented below and made for a very interesting discussion of the implications, and apologies for not being here to shepherd and give out mojo until now!