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