UN RAMPS UP PUBLIC OUTREACH EFFORT ON CONSTITUTION

C O N F I D E N T I A L BAGHDAD 003868 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/19/2015 TAGS: PREL PGOV PTER KDEM IZ UN SUBJECT: UN RAMPS UP PUBLIC OUTREACH EFFORT ON CONSTITUTION REF: BAGHDAD 3795 Classified By: Political Counselor Robert S. Ford for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). ¶1. (SBU) The UNAMI Constitution Support Unit (CSU) delivered formatted copies of the Arabic version of the draft permanent constitution to their contracted print companies to begin print production immediately. CSU personnel told PolOff on September 19 that they expect the first 1,000,000 copies to be printed by as early as September 22. UNAMI intends to print at least 5,000,000 copies, including 1,000,000 in Kurdish (production in Kurdish is to begin later this week). The CSU is also moving forward with plans for separately printing 250,000 copies for the Turkomen community. ¶2. (C) UNAMI has modified its plans to use the Public Distribution System (PDS) for delivering the bulk of the drafts to Iraqi households (reftel). Based on current PDS operations and scheduling, UNAMI will send the first traunche of copies to the PDS warehouses in the south, Baghdad, and Ninewa in time for the distribution agents to pick them up and deliver them during the first days of October. For the rest of Iraq, including the Sunni areas, UNAMI will coordinate distribution largely through the NGO community, provincial governments, and political parties. UNAMI reports that the response by all these groups to assist in the distribution effort has been overwhelming, causing UNAMI to consider keeping the printing presses open for additional runs. ¶3. (C) The NGO community moved forwards with final preparations for their respective outreach campaigns after Deputy Speaker Shahristani presented the text modifications to the TNA during its September 19 session. UNAMI reports that UNDP has scheduled a variety of outreach projects for the week of September 17 to 23 consisting of workshops, seminars, and multimedia projects to promote the constitution. They also reported that the Ministry of Human Rights and other Iraqi government offices are doing their own constitution education campaigns. CSU personnel indicate they plan to host a mapping exercise soon that would take into account the collective outreach efforts of the international community in order to ensure Sunni Arab and other high interest areas are adequately reached. Satterfield