{"id":1039,"date":"2003-06-17T20:26:05","date_gmt":"2003-06-17T20:26:05","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-10-01T20:26:50","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T20:26:50","slug":"lawmakers-urge-bush-to-not-overlook-assyrians-16062003","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/lawmakers-urge-bush-to-not-overlook-assyrians-16062003\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers urge Bush to not overlook Assyrians (16\/06\/2003)"},"content":{"rendered":"


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<\/o:p><\/P>In a letter organized by Merced Democrat Dennis Cardoza<\/SPAN>, 11 House members are championing Assyrians as crucial to <\/SPAN><\/FONT>Iraq<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>‘s future. The lawmakers cite an estimated 2 million Assyrians living in Iraq<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, and the repression they suffered, as reason for the attention. <\/o:p><\/P>
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“We believe it is critically important for the future government of <\/SPAN><\/FONT>Iraq<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> to recognize the Assyrian people, who made great sacrifices to oppose the regime of Saddam Hussein,” the letter to President Bush stated. <\/o:p><\/P>
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Cardoza’s<\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN> district contains one of the largest Assyrian populations in the United States<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, with an estimated 10,000 living in Turlock<\/st1:place><\/st1:City> alone. <\/o:p><\/P>
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Mariposa Republican George Radanovich, whose congressional district shares <\/SPAN><\/FONT>Stanislaus<\/st1:PlaceName> County<\/st1:PlaceType><\/st1:place> with Cardoza<\/SPAN>, also signed the letter and joined in introducing a related House resolution. <\/o:p><\/P>
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The nonbinding House resolution voices “concern for the status” of <\/SPAN><\/FONT>Iraq<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>‘s Assyrian population and urges that Assyrian rights be upheld under any new government. <\/o:p><\/P>
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“We’re concerned with the Islamic fundamentalist parties in <\/SPAN><\/FONT>Iraq<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>,” said Sargon Dadesho<\/SPAN>, a Ceres resident and founder of the Assyrian National Congress. “There have been some speeches by the mullahs asking the Christians of Iraq to submit to Islamic law.” <\/o:p><\/P>
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Dadesho<\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/SPAN> said the new Iraqi constitution should recognize the nation’s Assyrian population. The Iraqi constitution under deposed dictator Saddam Hussein referred to Assyrians as “Christian Arabs.” <\/o:p><\/P>
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The Iraqi constitution remains a work in progress. The former U.S. diplomat overseeing the rebuilding, L. Paul Bremer III, discarded plans for convening a national conference to establish Iraq’s new political leadership. <\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/P>
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Instead, Bremer said he would select 25 to 30 Iraqis to serve on an interim advisory board. <\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/P>
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Thursday, Bremer told reporters he expected to name the advisers “within the next four or five weeks.” Bremer added that a larger convention of “several hundred” should convene in late July to draft a constitution. <\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/P>
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The new House resolution states Assyrians should be “consulted and included in discussions” about the government. An eight-member international task force to which Dadesho<\/SPAN> belongs, and which he said represents the five leading Assyrian political parties, has asked the State Department to be incorporated into planning efforts. <\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/P>
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The resolution is the first of its kind to be introduced on Assyrians’ behalf since 1997, when a House measure expressing concern for the plight of Assyrians attracted two supporters and did not advance out of committee. <\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/P>
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The Assyrian measure also reflects how Congress caters to concentrated ethnic populations with commemorative and advisory resolutions. Other ethnic groups prevalent in the <\/SPAN><\/FONT>San Joaquin<\/st1:PlaceName> Valley<\/st1:PlaceType><\/st1:place>, including Indian Sikhs, Portuguese, Laotians and Armenians, have all had resolutions introduced on their behalf in recent years. <\/o:p><\/P>
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Bee <\/SPAN><\/FONT><\/B>Washington<\/SPAN><\/B><\/st1:place><\/st1:State> Bureau reporter Michael Doyle can be reached at (202) 383-0006 or mdoyle@mcclatchydc.com<\/A>.<\/o:p><\/SPAN><\/B><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a letter organized by Merced Democrat Dennis Cardoza, 11 House members are championing Assyrians as crucial to Iraq‘s future. The lawmakers cite an estimated 2 million Assyrians living in Iraq, and the repression they suffered, as reason for the attention. “We believe it is critically important for the future government of Iraq to recognize …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-iraq"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ado-world.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}