31Jan 2003 RTRS-Iraq opposition calls for human rights monitors

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    By Khaled Yacoub Oweis

    LONDON, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The main opponents of President Saddam

 Hussein appealed to the international community on Friday to station

 human rights monitors in Iraq to ensure the end of repression in the

 country if he were deposed.

    Opposition groups across the board, which have been trying to shift

the focus on Iraq beyond weapons of mass destruction, joined an independent

 Arab campaign to send Arab League and U.N. monitors to Iraq.

    The monitors would oversee a peaceful transition to democratic rule,

 even if the United States occupied the country.

    The campaign, which was launched earlier this month from Beirut,

 includes Palestinian professor Edward Said, Lebanese lawyer Chibli

 Mallat and Syrian intellectual Sadeq al-Azm.

    They also aim to exercise pressure on Arab governments to join in the

 isolation of Saddam, which could help convince him to leave office in

 exchange for amnesty -- avoiding war and the potential death of

thousands of Iraqis.

    "Human rights monitors must be stationed all over Iraq. Work is

overdue on the mechanism and the strong U.N. resolutions necessary," said Nabil

 al-Mousawi, spokesman for the Iraqi National Congress, which is based in

 London.

    Mousawi said the opposition was under no illusion that the

Possibility  of Saddam leaving power voluntarily was small, but Arab countries that have

 political and economic dealings with the Iraqi leader should boycott

him.

    "It is time to shake the impotence of Arab governments. Some are

afraid  of Iraq changing to a democracy in record time. They would love the

 United States to install a military dictator to replace Saddam," Mousawi

 told Reuters.

    U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said earlier this month that

 Washington would not want to run Iraq for long after an "appropriate"

form of government was established in the country.

    He declined to say how long U.S. troops could stay after any war

 against Iraq to rid it of its alleged weapons of mass destruction, for

 which U.N. inspectors resumed searching in November.

    Many in the opposition are sceptical that the United States favours

 democracy in Iraq, although the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act supported a

 transition to pluralism and authorised financing for some opposition

 groups.

    Hamid al-Bayati, a senior official of the Supreme Council of the

Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said his Tehran-based group was also behind the

 campaign.

    "Human rights is fundamental to the future Iraq. Any move  that could

 help depose Saddam and spares the lives of the Iraqi people is

positive,"  Bayati said.

    Sadiq al-Mousawi, spokesman for the Constitutional Monarchist

 Movement, said: "We want to avoid a repeat of the history of Iraq under

 Saddam."

 (Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, editing by Charles Dick; Reuters

 Messaging: khaled.oweis.reuters.com@reuters.net, +44 20 7542 4087))

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