[26/April/2004]
SANA’A, April 26 (Saba)- Secretary-general of the Parliamentary Union of the Organization of Islamic Conference(OIC)called Arab and African countries to expand popular participation in
decision-making and pay more attention to human rights.

In an intervention to the First Conference of the Association of Senates and Second Chambers in Africa and the Arab World, ambassador
Ibrahim Auf called for “expanding popular participation in decision-making and implementation, paying due attention to civil
society organization and human rights as well as energizing their role in the promotion of democracy.”

Auf underscored need for “adopting liberal democracy as a means for the election of people’s representatives to legislative assemblies,” in both regions.

He said those actions would lead to stability and rallying of peoples around their leaders in order to “avert danger of confront any imposed designs that do not conform with them.”

“Our Arab-African region is in need of rapprochement and cooperation now more than even before. This is a moment of time characterized by disarray of conceptions that prompted world states to reconsider
their bilateral, regional and international alliances in search of respects only the strong who are able to preserve and stand up to challenges," said Auf.

Auf’s speech touched on the “tragic developments” taking place in Iraq after more than one year of the occupation, as well as in the practices of the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian people in the occupied territories. He said that as the allegations
concerning Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and its link with al-Qaeda terrorist organization are proven to be false,
the forces of occupation ought to withdraw from Iraq because of the lack of justification for their presence in the country, and be
replaced by international peace-taking forces under the UN Security Council and mainly composed of Islamic and Arab forces.

Auf also underlined importance of restoring political sovereignty of the Iraqi people over their entire national territory, and ensuring
their economic sovereignty over their natural resources, especially oil and enabling them to conduct free elections on the basis of “one
man one vote” irrespective of sectarian or ethnic affiliations and draw up a permanent, democratic constitution that promote the
territorial integrity of all the national soil of Iraq through the promotion of decentralization instead of federalism which may lead to future partition.

Concerning the Palestinians, he appealed the Quartet and the international community to help them face the “state terrorism
perpetrated daily by Israel against the racist wall in closed cantons.”

He said the international community is requested to exercise pressure on Israel so as to halt its policy of organized assassinations, abide by resolutions of the international legitimacy and the existing peace initiatives, especially the Arab Peace
Initiative adopted by the Beirut Arab Summit in 2003.

KM/NS