PARLIAMENTARIANS CONCERNED AFTER TOUR OF SADR CITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BAGHDAD 001314

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/28/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM IZ
SUBJECT: PARLIAMENTARIANS CONCERNED AFTER TOUR OF SADR CITY

REF: BAGHDAD 1292

Classified By: Deputy PolCouns Ellen Germain for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d
)


1. (C) Summary: Parliamentarians Ala Talabani and Zalwa
al-Hashimi met with POLOFF on April 28 to discuss their
recent trip to Sadr City and the "humanitarian crisis"
brewing there. Ala also noted the recent progress on the
Civil Society Law, as well as some movement on the Political
Parties Law. She concluded the meeting by expressing her
concerns about the role of women in the elections process and
the need for a strong Minister of State for Women's Issues.

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Tour of Sadr City
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2. (C) Ala Talabani (PUK) and Zalwa Abbas Hassan al-Hashimi
(Fadhila) met with POLOFF to discuss their recent tour of
Sadr City hospitals and other service facilities.
Characterizing the situation as a "humanitarian crisis", the
two said that they would distribute to the Embassy and to PM
Maliki a full report, including pictures, of what they
observed during the tour with other parliamentarians,
including Nawal Majid Hamid al-Samaraee (IIP). They noted
that the only women's hospital in Sadr City had been taken
over by Coalition Forces (CF),preventing women in labor from
having access to local medical facilities; compounding the
problems was the fact that entry and egress from the area is
strictly controlled by CF and women are having trouble
getting to other women's hospitals around the city.


3. (C) Ala also repeated the story she mentioned to her
uncle, President Jalal Talabani, cited in reftel. Her
language muted in comparison to that account, she noted that
she saw two children in a hospital who had been injured by
military action, though she could not say which side she
believed had caused the injuries; Zalwa was quick to point
blame at CF. One of the children was riding his bicycle when
he was shot in the arm; the bullet still in him, his family
was unable to get him treatment away from Sadr City due to
the restriction on movement. The other child had lost her
leg completely from a shrapnel injury. Ala characterized
both injuries as collateral damage caused by terrorists and
militias bringing innocents into harm's way.

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Civil Society Law
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4. (C) Ala noted that the Civil Society Law, intended to
replace CPA Order 45, was currently being considered by the
Shura Council and the Council of Ministers and she predicted
its arrival at the CoR next week for a first reading. She
mentioned that there were only two differences in opinion
between her and Acting Minister of State for Civil Society
Wijdan Mikhael on the law: to whom the NGO Registration
Office should report and what powers, if any, the Ministry of
State for Civil Society should have codified. On the former,
Wijdan preferred that the Ministry of Planning resume
authority over the office; Ala believed that it should remain
where it is currently, under the Council of Ministers. On
the latter, Wijdan commented to her that the current draft
prematurely removes any mention of the State Ministry, in
anticipation of its absence from Maliki's cabinet reshuffle.
Ala was confident, nonetheless, that the law was too
important in establishing the rights of NGOs to waste time
worrying about government administration issues and thought
that compromise was very likely. (Note: In a meeting the
same day with Wijdan, she said that all references to both
the role of the Ministry of State for Civil Society and who
had authority over the NGO Registration Office had been
removed from the draft law that was sent to the Shura
Council; thus, the "politics of the law", in her words, will
be decided later. End Note.)


5. (C) Ala also noted that once finished with the Civil
Society Law, her committee would consider both an update to
the Law on Unions and the Law of Political Parties. The
latter was drafted by the office of PM Maliki, who
distributed it to the CoR Legal, Defense, and Civil Society
committees for comment. It has not been approved by the CoM,
and there is little agreement on whether it should be part of
the Elections Law, which Ala said seemed would likely happen,
or a separate law, as implied by the Iraqi Constitution.

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Ministry of Women and Elections
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6. (C) Discussing the upcoming return of Tawafuq to the PM's
cabinet, Ala noted that fellow parliamentarian Nawal Majid

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al-Samaraee (IIP) was being considered as the Minister of
State for Women's Affairs (MoSWA),a Tawafuq Ministry under
the initial cabinet that PM Maliki formed. She confided that
many of the women parliamentarians felt this was a
disappointment, since Nawal would likely be no stronger than
the previous minister Fatin Abd al-Rahman Mahmud, who she
called "close-minded" and operationally ineffective. Ala
noted that she had never heard Nawal speak up once within the
CoR sessions.


7. (C) Emphasizing the need for a strong Minister of State
for Women's Affairs, she said that it might be possible to
broker a deal granting the MoSWA to the Kurds in exchange for
the Ministry of Environment going to Tawafuq. This would
allow Acting Minister Narmeen Othman to fully accept the
mantle, which would be a boon for women throughout Iraq,
according to Ala.


8. (C) Whoever is the new Minister, Ala said, would have to
issue a strong statement on the Elections Law provision
concerning a quota for elected women. The lack of such a
quota, Ala noted, was a concern for many of the women
parliamentarians. Last week, a few women of the CoR,
including Safia Souhail (Independent),Samirah Musawi
(Independent),and Dr. Jenan Qasim al-Obeidi (ISCI),met with
a UN expert on elections, to learn how an open list election
system could still accommodate a quota. The women in
attendance at this session were in agreement that the men of
the CoR would likely eliminate any such quota if they could.
CROCKER