By Lin Noueihed
Reuters, 09 November 2004.
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An influential group of Sunni Muslim clerics on Tuesday urged Iraqis to boycott the first democratic election in decades in protest at a U.S.-led offensive against the rebel-held city of Falluja.
The call by Iraq's Muslim Clerics' Association, which has helped negotiate cease-fires in Falluja in the past, could appeal to Sunnis at the forefront of a revolt against the U.S. presence in Iraq and undermine the credibility of the election due on Jan. 27.
"The clerics call on the honorable people of Iraq to boycott the coming election that they want to hold on the remains of the dead and the blood of the wounded from Iraqi cities like Falluja and others," said Harith al-Dhari, its top official.
"(The election) intends to achieve the aims of the occupying authority in Iraq and the authorities cooperating with them."
U.S. forces backed by Iraqi troops pushed into the heart of Falluja on Tuesday, taking a grip on Iraq's most rebellious city after a day of street-to-street combat with insurgents.
Iraq's government has vowed to retake all rebel-held areas ahead of the poll as relentless bombings and kidnappings raise fears Iraqis in Falluja and other parts of the central Sunni heartland would be unable to vote.
The election was not designed to express the people's will, but to serve the interests of the interim government and its U.S. allies, Dhari told a press conference.
"The interim government of (prime minister) Iyad Allawi bears full legal and historical responsibility for the war of annihilation Falluja is exposed to today at the hands of the occupation forces and militias of some parties in the interim government," he said.
Allawi has urged locals to hand over foreign Islamists and Saddam Hussein loyalists he says are entrenched in Falluja.
The call for a boycott of the election for a 275-seat parliament to draft a constitution is not limited to the Arab Sunni community, which makes up 20 percent of Iraq's 25 million people.
But it would likely be welcomed among Sunnis who have felt increasingly marginalised since the ouster of fellow-Sunni Saddam Hussein, who favored them at the expense of the 60 percent of Iraqis who are Shi'ite.
Shi'ite clerics have called for broad participation in elections they hope will finally give them a proportionate say in the political future of their country.
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Citation: Lin Noueihed. "Iraq's Sunni Clerics Call for Election Boycott," Reuters, 09 November 2004.
Original URL: http://news.orb6.com/stories/nm/20041109/iraq_elections_boycott_dc.php
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