Posted: April 23, 2010
By: Anne Womer

I recently traveled to Baghdad with Jason Gluck, senior rule of law adviser, who facilitated a dialogue with minority leaders from government and civil society on the future of Iraq’s minority groups. The dialogue was the first phase of a project working with Iraqi minority leaders to prioritize the goals of their communities and develop a plan to achieve those goals.

For many of Iraq’s small ethnic and religious minorities--which include Mandaeans, Chaldeans, Shebaks, Turkomen, Yezidis, and others--violence and massive displacement following the fall of the Saddam regime in 2003 threaten the very existence of their communities. Targeted attacks against their homes and businesses, as well as threats and intimidation, have forced many to flee.  The numbers of many of these communities in Iraq have been reduced to a fraction of what they were pre-2003. For those who remain, the threat of violence is an ongoing concern, as is discrimination in education and employment.

Working in Baghdad

This was my first time traveling to Iraq, and I had the opportunity to meet USIP’s Baghdad staff who implement our projects on the ground. It was great to finally put faces to the names of my Iraqi colleagues, some of whom I’d been working with for months via phone and email. I gained some understanding of the insecurity that they live with everyday when, on our first day there, car bombs hit three hotels just outside the International Zone (IZ). Many staff members expressed worry about family members, and in the hours that followed, some received news of damage to their cars and homes from the blasts. To make matters worse, the tightened security following the bombings restricted travel within Baghdad to the point that most of the staff was unable to make it to work for several days.

By the day of our event, Baghdad had returned to relative normalcy, but we confronted a new challenge--a workers’ strike at the Rashid Hotel, where we planned to hold the dialogue, had brought all activity there to a standstill. The Rashid is the only hotel that is part of the heavily protected area near the IZ. Senior staff at USIP deemed it too risky for Jason and me to leave the IZ, so we were unable to move the event to another hotel. At the same time, tight security measures made it nearly impossible for us to hold the event at our offices in the IZ, since most of our participants did not have the special badges required for entry. In the end, workers and management at the Rashid reached an agreement and work resumed, allowing us to move forward with the dialogue.

The Dialogue

Fortunately, the violence earlier that week had not deterred the 25 invited minority leaders, some of whom traveled from Erbil and Nineveh to participate in the dialogue. Participants came from a broad range of ethnic and religious backgrounds, representing the Mandaean, Chaldo-Assyrian, Shebak, and Yezidi communities. Three participants were members of the Iraqi Council of Representatives, and one was a former minister.

We also had a great turnout of civil society leaders. Many of the participants headed human rights education and advocacy organizations. All acknowledged the need to put their combined experience to use. "Everybody here has long experience with these issues," said one participant. "We need to invest this experience to benefit Iraqis and minorities in particular.”

Jason and our partner Spence Spencer from the International Institute for Law and Human Rights facilitated the two-day dialogue, which incorporated large group discussions and small group brainstorming sessions.

By the end of the second day, after much deliberation and hard work, participants had settled on the major goals for their communities. These fell into three general categories:

• Non-discrimination/Equal Rights: Many participants favored legislation and other mechanisms that would prevent discrimination against minorities in areas such as employment and education. There was also strong support for reforming the national educational curriculum to reflect the ethnic and religious diversity of Iraq.
• Greater Participation in Government: Access to government and increased participation were viewed as crucial means for protecting minority group interests and advocating for rights. Recommendations included increasing representation of minority groups in the Council of Representatives, encouraging collaboration among elected minority representatives, and establishing new institutions to serve as channels for advocacy and communication.
• Greater Self-Governance: Participants gave high priority to measures that would enable minority groups to govern the affairs of their communities to a greater extent and to ensure their administrative, political, cultural and educational rights.

The feedback we received from the participants was positive. One said, "In the past two days, we managed to sit together as representatives of Iraqi minorities and to discuss and exchange opinions on issues relevant to everybody. If there was a misunderstanding among us, I think we solved it."

At the same time, some expressed skepticism about the efforts of international organizations. Many had participated in similar events in the past that had failed to produce concrete results. We explained to participants that we were committed to follow-up meetings and substantive contributions, including issue papers and technical expertise, to help them achieve their goals.

The greatest concern among participants was that they not lose momentum. "In the coming years, if we cannot solve these problems, you will not find any minorities left in Iraq," said one participant. Everyone expressed their commitment to continue the process at the next dialogue in May, where they will decide how best to achieve their goals and develop a plan for future collaboration among their organizations.