Protests erupt in many Shiite areas as their religious leader, the
31-year-old firebrand Muqtada Sadr, seeks to increase pressure on the
US-led coalition and scupper the temporary constitution. Shiite
stone-throwers clash with troops in the British-administered port city
of Basra seeking to evict a Sadrist group, Tha'r Allah (God's
Revenge), from a former government building. British troops in riot gear opened fire, with two soldiers and four Iraqis wounded. The Shiite
unrest followed protests in central Baghdad. A thousand black-shirted of
young Sadrists marched through central Baghdad burning US flags after US
forces padlocked the door of their newspaper, Al Hawza Al Natiqa, saying
it had been banned for two months for inciting violence. A statement
from the Sadrist newspaper said: "If the coalition forces are going
to keep on presenting us with such messages...they can just dream about
any sort of end to terrorism". At the same time, Sadr's
3,000-strong Jaysh Al Mahdi (the Army of the Mahdi - the hidden Imam of
the Jaafari Shhites) is being mobilised and heavily armed to spearhead a
nationwide Islamic uprising against the US-led forces. Sadr's aides
are warning that the Shiites would also rally the country's Sunnis
on their side in a war to drive the US-led forces out of Iraq. The
unrest followed a poster campaign and petition drive by supporters of
the Shiite's reclusive but paramount religious authority, Ayatollah
Ali Al Sistani, who is also seeking to overturn the temporary
constitution, which was signed on Mar 8. The elderly theologian's
face now adorns posters plastered across the country denouncing the
document. (Signed by CPA chief Paul Bremer and his appointees in the
IGC, the temporary constitution includes a bill of rights and was hailed
as the most progressive in the region. But Sistani fears the IGC has
enacted a permanent constitution by the back-door. In addition to the
poster campaign, during Friday prayers on Mar 26. imams at thousands of
Shiite mosques across central and southern Iraq began distributing a
petition addressed to the UN and Bremer, demanding the law be revoked.
"It is illegal because the administrators who have drafted the law
lack legitimacy among ordinary Iraqis", says the petition. Shiite
officials at Baghdad's Baratha mosque, who represents Sistani in
Baghdad, said tens of thousands had signed the petition. Underlying the
protest is Shiite trepidation that the occupying authorities may be
seeking to dilute the majority rule that Shiites feel is their
democratic birthright. Among Baghdad political classes, there is growing
talk that Bremer could hand over power to a Shiite PM and a Sunni
president. Sistani's representatives have said that if the law is
not reversed their ayatollah will boycott talks with the UN team under,
who arrived in Iraq this week to help oversee the handover from direct
rule by the occupation authorities. Previous objections by Sistani have
already twice scuppered Bremer's plans for political transition.
The Shiite theologians have concentrated their vitriol on Article 61 of
the temporary constitution which provides for 2/3rd of voters in any
three of Iraq's 18 provinces to veto a future constitution. The
clause was inserted by Iraq's Kurdish minority, fearful that the
Arab majority would annul their current autonomy).
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