IRAQ: RIGHTS GROUPS - MIXED REACTION TO NEW GOVERNMENT

June 1, 2004 - (IRIN) After weeks of wrangling, a new government has been sworn in to serve as an interim authority to take over sovereignty from US-led administrators on 30 June. Workers at an Iraqi human rights group and a women's group expressed cautious support for the new government, which will serve until general elections scheduled for January, but called on it to be independent of US-led coalition forces.

Flanked by the newly named prime minister and president, Lakhdar Brahimi, special adviser to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, announced a list of 26 cabinet ministers to journalists on Tuesday. Brahimi's announcement wraps up a month of intense UN meetings with political parties, professional associations, trade unions, tribal and religious leaders, academics, women's and youth organizations, and others.

Iyad Allawi, an exiled Shiite Muslim and a military leader under former President Saddam Hussein, will be the new prime minister. The new
president, Sheikh Ghazi al-Yawar, is a Sunni Muslim who has been serving as head of the Governing Council following a suicide bomb attack that killed the previous head, Ezzadine Saleem.

"After 35 years of the ruthless tyrant regime, under the guidance of the United States we are starting our march toward sovereignty and democracy," Allawi said. "We thank the United Nations, and Mr Brahimi especially, for his work."

At the same time, explosions around the city mid-day killed at least three and wounded 20 others, contributing to the continued volatile security
situation.

The interim government is made up of a prime minister, a president, two deputy presidents and 26 cabinet ministers. A national conference to be held in July will elect an interim national council from an invited group of 1,000 Iraqis.

Women were to have made up at least 25 percent of the interim government, Leyla Mohammed of the Iraq Women's Association told IRIN, more than the six members actually named. "This will not be good for women. Our demand is for a secular government, and we need a law to protect women's rights," she said. "This government will not pay attention to women in Iraq."

And Iraq's poor security situation will continue as long as the government is seen as being linked to coalition forces, she added. "This government is not elected by the people of Iraq, so we don't think good things can come from them."

But an official at the Iraq Human Rights Association said he believed the new government could take on US-led administrators. "We hope the new president can help stop the violations that happened in Abu Graib," Mohammed Hamid al-Mousawi, deputy assistant of the Iraq Human Rights Association, said in reference to the abuse committed by US forces against prisoners at a notorious Iraqi prison. "We need to support local organisations to play their roles on the humanitarian side."

Ibrahim Jaafari, deputy president, is a member of the Dawa Party. The other deputy president, Rowsch Shaways, has been serving as head of the government of Kurdish northern Iraq. Adnan Pachachi, widely believed to be the US choice for president, said he had declined to accept the job for personal reasons.

The new team was chosen to be representative of all of Iraq, a senior administration official in Iraq said following the announcement. But he
had nothing but praise for the previous Governing Council, two of whom were killed while serving their terms.

"I'm not going to say anything against the Governing Council," the official said on Tuesday. "They did the best they could under adverse circumstances."

The 25-member Governing Council created last autumn dissolved itself on the same day as the new government was named, said coalition spokesman Dan Senor. US administrators are scheduled to hand over sovereignty, and many are expected to leave Iraq, on 30 June.

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