Seven bombs detonating in the space of 35
minutes sent up clouds of black smoke over the centre of Kirkuk earlier this
week. The explosions in Arab and Turkoman districts killed 12 people and
injured 39 but exactly who was behind them is unclear.
Kirkuk is a place where trust is in short
supply. "I firmly predict there will be a rumour the Kurds were behind these
bombings," sighs Rafat Hamarash, the head of the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan, the Kurdish political party that largely controls the city. He
said somebody wanted to stir up ethnic divisions between Kurd, Arab and
Turkoman before they vote on the future of Kirkuk in nine months' time. Mr
Hamarash is probably right about the motives for the latest attacks. The
city is approaching a critical moment in its long history. In December,
there is a referendum, its timing agreed under the Iraqi constitution, when
1.8 million people of Kirkuk province will vote on whether or not to join
the highly autonomous Kurdish region that is already almost a separate
state. Kurds will vote in favour and probably win; Arabs and Turkomans will
vote against and lose.
The Kirkuk issue is as notoriously divisive
in Iraq as sovereignty over certain parts of Ireland used to be in British
politics. Winston Churchill famously complained that, after all the
political and military cataclysms of the First World War, the question of
who should have "the dreary spires of Fermanagh and Tyrone", remained as
ferociously contested as before the war.
The control of Kirkuk divided Kurds from
Arabs in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and continues to do so. The city is
commonly called "a powder keg" though it has yet to explode. But that does
not mean it will not happen and the referendum might just be the detonator
for that explosion.
The Kurds believe they were a majority in
the city until ethnically cleansed by Saddam and replaced by Arab settlers.
As the regime crumbled in April 2003, the Kurds captured Kirkuk and its
oilfields. They have no plans to give them up.
In negotiations in Baghdad with Arab
political parties, they fought for and won the right to take back Kirkuk
constitutionally.
First comes "normalisation", to be
concluded by the end of this month, whereby Arab settlers leave and Kurds
return. After that there will be a census and, finally, before the end of
2007, a referendum on becoming part of the Kurdistan regional government.
It now looks as if the referendum will have
to be postponed. No Kurdish leader I spoke to thinks it can take place on
time. "Normalisation" has not really taken place, governments in Baghdad
have persistently dragged their feet. The Shia religious parties may be
allied to the Kurds in order to form a government but they fear political
damage among their own followers if they are seen to be handing over Kirkuk
to the Kurds.
For a city so coveted by Arabs and Kurds,
Kirkuk is a dismal place, drearier than anything to be seen in Fermanagh or
Tyrone. Its main street, with little booths selling shoddy goods, looks like
an Afghan shanty town.
It has never benefited from its oil riches;
Saddam deliberately neglected it. Rezgar Ali, the head of the local council,
says Baghdad starves the city of money. At one point, he threatened to
retaliate by stopping the supply of cement from local factories to Baghdad.
The Kurds may delay the referendum but not
indefinitely. Kirkuk is too central to their national demands. Militarily
they could overcome Arab resistance though they might have to cede certain
areas. Whatever happens, the approach to the referendum is generating more
violence.
A delicate ethnic balance
* Kurds in Kirkuk pre-date all other ethnic
groups. Turkomans began arriving in the Ottoman era.
* Under British occupation in 1921,
population about 61% Kurd, 28% Turkoman and 8% Arab.
* Official census in 1957 found 48.3% of
residents to be Kurd, 28.2% Arab and 21.4% Turkoman.
* From 1963, Baathists sought to enforce
Arab nationalism. By 1988 an estimated 200,000 Kurds had fled. Shia Turkoman
villages were also destroyed.
* After the 1991 Gulf War ethnic cleansing
intensified. In 1996 a law compelled all Kurds and other non-Arabs to
register as "Arab", with expulsion for those who refused.
* Between 1991 and 2003, 120,000 to 200,000
non-Arabs were expelled from in and around Kirkuk.
* Arab and Turkoman politicians claim that
around 350,000 Kurds have returned since 2003.
