Iraqi government "looking to bring in former Baathists" (Roundup)

Mar 14, 2009, 13:02 GMT

Baghdad - The Iraqi government is seeking to bring former members of the ousted Baath Party into the process of national reconciliation, an Iraqi newspaper reported Saturday.

In remarks published in Baghdad's al-Sabbah daily, Minister of State for National Dialogue Akram al-Hakim urged former members of the Iraqi Baath Party to sign off on the government's draft plan for national reconciliation.

He also called on them to help identify those responsible for abuses under ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's regime, regardless of their party affiliation.

Former Baathists should 'move quickly to sort out the criminals who committed heinous crimes against the Iraqi people, regardless of their political party or rank in the previous government,' al-Hakim said.

The Iraqi government has lately been trying to bring into a 'national reconciliation' process former members of the Baath Party, who accounted for approximately 10 per cent of the population before the party was banned after US-led forces toppled Saddam Hussein's government in 2003.

Vice-President Adil Abdel-Mahdi last week met with Mohammed Rashad al-Sheikh Radi, formerly a senior member of the Baath Party, in the first public meeting between a senior figure from the new government and a senior member of the former ruling party.

'We need the goodwill and integration of all parties if we're going to successfully reconcile the country and build a national consensus,' Abdel-Mahdi said at the time.

Abdel-Mahdi, a Shiite Muslim, is a member of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, which was based in Iraq's old rival, Iran, during Saddam Hussein's rule. He spent most of the years of Baath rule in exile in France.

The attempts to include low-ranking members of the Baath Party in the national reconciliation process have touched a raw nerve among many who suffered under Baath rule.

On Saturday, Abbas al-Bayati, a Shiite member of parliament from the ruling United Iraqi Alliance, defended the project as 'crucial to putting an end to sectarian strife.'

'The Baath Party and its ideology will not return to power or the political process,' he stressed. 'Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is committed to the...ban on the Baath Party.

'But engaging with Iraqis who once were Baathists, and who today want to return to dialogue with the rest of the country as Iraqi citizens, is the way to build the country democratically.

'The government has raised this issue from a position of strength, not weakness,' al-Bayati added.

The new Iraqi government is dominated by Shiite and Kurdish political parties that opposed the Baathist government which ruled Iraq from 1963 until the 2003 invasion.

In January 2008, the Iraqi parliament passed the 'Accountability and Justice Law,' which eased a ban on former Baathists' holding public sector jobs, including at schools and universities, while condemning the crimes of the Baathist government.

The number of people who lost their jobs in the subsequent purge is subject to dispute, but since a de-Baathification committee began work in 2004, more than 100,000 former low-ranking party members have been allowed to return to work.