Extremists pushing Iraq to civil war-mediator ( 2003-10-13 20:35) (Agencies)
The US-led administration in Iraq must move swiftly to contain growing
Islamic extremism or risk the country descending into civil war, a senior
Anglican envoy mediating between rival Muslim parties said on Monday.
"The CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) underestimated the importance of
religious groups. Now they are realising how serious it is," said Canon Andrew
White, the Archbishop of Canterbury's special representative to the Middle East.
"They must quickly empower moderate clerics and engage (talk to) radicals or
all-out civil war could erupt in Iraq," he told Reuters in an interview.
White said moderate clerics believe a series of bombings that have rattled
postwar Iraq were carried out by hardline Sunni Muslims from Saudi Arabia as
well as radical Iraqi Shi'ites who are gaining widespread influence.
The CPA is faced with the daunting task of building relations with a complex
web of rival Iraqi clerics at a time when neighbouring countries are exploiting
the political vacuum after the fall of Saddam Hussein in April, White said.
"Iranian clerics are gaining a lot of influence on the ground and there are
huge sums of money flowing in from Iran and from Wahhabis (radical Sunnis) in
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates," said White.
The Anglican envoy, who has mediated in hotspots around the world like the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict and religiously tense northern Nigeria, began
meeting Iraqi clerics years ago when they were still persecuted by Saddam
Hussein.
Now he is encouraging the CPA to make sure those moderate clerics have a big
stake in the political future of Iraq, a country with a combustible mix of
Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds that was tightly controlled by Saddam.
INCLUDE SADDAM ALLIES?
On the weekend, White, a member of Iraq's US-appointed Governing Council and
a Western ambassador met top moderate Shi'ite Ayatollah Hussein al-Sadr.
The discussion focused on the strategy of bringing back clerics such as Abdul
Latif Humayim, a Sunni who had close ties to Saddam and has wide support among
Iraqis.
Sitting across from a photograph of a relative murdered by Saddam's henchmen,
Sadr said the ground had to be set first by gauging if clerics like Humayim had
changed their ways.
White said although suspicions are understandable, he believes figures once
linked to Saddam can play an important role in stabilising Iraq.
"Humayim is on the list of people wanted by the Americans. But you need to
work with people like him because they can sway opinion. You have to make
compromises and work with some of the bad guys," said White.
Iraq's Shi'ites, who make up 60 percent of the population, suffered
widespread persecution under Saddam, who jailed, tortured and killed them.
But White believes freedom can be dangerous.
Some Shi'ites have chosen a radical path. Young radical Moqtada al-Sadr, a
nephew of the elder Sadr, has called on Iraq's American occupiers to leave and
moderates believe his followers have carried out violent attacks.
Top moderate Shi'ite clerics have already been bombed or hacked to death.
But White believes the CPA must engage radicals through intermediaries with
credibility.
"The CPA is going to have serious problems unless they compromise. But it is
a very tricky game," he said.
"You have to engage the radicals but they cannot have too much influence. At
the same time the danger with the Shi'ites is that the persecuted will become
the persecutors."
