BAGHDAD, Oct 8: The campaign for Iraq’s draft constitution suffered a blow on Saturday when Sunni groups urged voters in the Oct 15 referendum to reject the charter, which they warned would lead to the country’s break-up.
“This constitution bears in it the germs of Iraq’s division, the loss of its Arab identity and the plundering of its national wealth,” 21 Sunni organizations said in a joint statement.
“As a result, we call for all Iraqis to reject this constitution by all legitimate means,” said the groups, which included the influential Committee of Muslim Scholars and Iraq’s main religious party.
Many Sunnis oppose the draft because of federal provisions they fear will weaken the country and lead to an unfair distribution of oil wealth.
The document will have to be rewritten if more than two-thirds of voters in at least three of Iraq’s 18 provinces vote ‘No’, something Sunnis might be able to achieve.
Across Iraq, copies were being distributed ahead of the poll, which will pave the way for general elections in December.
Iraqi and US officials believe that if more Sunnis get involved in the political process, it would help isolate hardcore elements within the ongoing resistance.
In the northern Kurdish province of Arbil, local official Nuzad Barzani said Kurdish-language versions of the constitution were being released through all available channels.
“We have asked newspapers, radios and television stations close to Kurdish political parties to publish the document” as part of an information campaign designed to reach those in remote areas, he said.
In the Baghdad neighbourhood of Karradah, an Iraqi official said it was being handed out along with food rations.
“Men ask for the constitution before the sugar. Women want sugar and rice first,” Ibrahim Hassan Bahadli noted.
Roughly 15.7 million voters are eligible to vote in the referendum out of Iraq’s total population of 26 million.
SUICIDE BOMBING: A suicide car bomber killed seven people, including a woman, her two children and a policeman in an evening attack in western Baghdad on Saturday.
Ten policemen and six civilians were wounded in the blast, which coincided with Iftar.
The attack followed at least three others in the capital and in northern Iraq that killed three people, including a seven-year-old child who was hit by shrapnel from a mortar round.
Two US soldiers died from wounds suffered during a firefight on Friday in the western town of Haqlaniyah, the military said in a statement.
Their deaths brought to 1,949 the number of US military personnel killed in Iraq since the invasion of March 2003.—AFP