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KurdistanObserver.com
Leader Warns Kurds Must Be Allowed To
Re-establish Majority In Kirkuk
Chicago
Tribune
By
Kirsten Scharnberg
Dec 10,
2004
IRBIL, Iraq - (KRT) - The head of
the Kurdish Democratic Party, long one of the staunchest advocates for going
forward with Iraq’s January elections, said Thursday that he would be forced to
reconsider his position if Kurds were not allowed to re-establish their ethnic
majority in the strategic city of Kirkuk.
The Kurds, an estimated 4 million people, would be the second of the countries’
three major ethnic groups to raise objections to the elections. Minority Sunni
Muslims already have threatened a boycott, arguing that continued violence in
key Sunni cities like Fallujah, Ramadi and Samarra will prevent their voters
from going to the polls.
Massoud Barzani, the populist leader of the semi-independent territory known as
Kurdistan, delivered the warning to American military commanders during a lunch
at his sprawling compound in the rugged foothills overlooking Irbil. "We will
defend the rights of our people," Barzani said.
Slowly and deliberately, Barzani laid out his position: Residents of Kirkuk
would vote only in a national election. Scheduled elections to determine leaders
of the city and surrounding province would have to be put on hold until Saddam
Hussein’s "Arabization" of the region was reversed, restoring Kirkuk to a
Kurdish majority and ousting the tens of thousands of Arabs who were brought to
resettle the region in the 1970s and `80s.
"If this is not done," he said, "that might oblige the Kurds to take a different
position regarding the election."
Barzani did not explain what re-evaluating the Kurdish position on elections
might entail. But the options are myriad, and most are troubling for the new
Iraqi government and the United States, both of which want elections held as
scheduled on Jan. 30. Kurds in Kirkuk could boycott the elections; Kurds in
Kirkuk could vote for only national leaders and not provincial ones; Kurds
nationwide could refuse to participate in the election because of the issue.
Speaking through an interpreter, Barzani told the American commanders, "We are
ready to take great risks. We will risk everything we have in Kurdistan. But we
will not accept the Arabization of Kirkuk."
Thursday’s meeting had begun with the customary niceties - hugs and handshakes,
small talk and declarations of friendship - after two American helicopters
crested the Kurdish mountaintops and touched down on Barzani’s private twin
helipads. But within 20 minutes, Barzani’s statements indicated possible road
bumps ahead.
Kirkuk, about 150 miles north of Baghdad and about 60 miles south of Irbil, is
at the heart of Kurdish national identity. The city and province were once
predominantly Kurdish until Saddam’s regime recognized the potential of the
region’s oil fields and farmlands. Over two decades, the regime razed thousands
of Kurdish villages in the province, the rubble of which can still be seen from
the air today.
On Thursday afternoon, Col. Lloyd Miles, the top American commander in charge of
Kirkuk province, reminded Barzani that all decisions about the elections must
come from the interim government in Baghdad. U.S. officials and military
commanders could not influence the situation, Miles insisted.
But Barzani dismissed such protests. He reminded the colonel that the Kurds’
loyalty to America dated to 1991, when Kurds rose up against Saddam after the
Persian Gulf war. Since then, Kurdistan has been largely autonomous, with
American and British air patrols protecting the territory.
In the last war, Kurds provided key intelligence to American military commanders
on the ground.
"It has been the Kurds who fought side by side with you. It has been the Kurds
who died with you. It has been the Kurds whose blood flowed with yours," Barzani
said, suggesting that he believed the United States could use some of its
influence to help a longtime ally.
But Miles, speaking outside Thursday’s meeting, said his orders are to ensure
that U.S. troops do not appear to be influencing the election in any way. He has
spent an increasing amount of time in recent weeks focusing on training Iraqi
National Guard battalions and the Kirkuk police so that local forces will be the
ones to secure polling places.
"There is nothing that would be worse than to have American soldiers standing
outside polling sites," he said.
Miles, who commands the 2nd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division, has been in
Kirkuk for nearly a year. In that time, he has come to see the disparate
perspectives of all the citizens of Kirkuk, a city that now is nearly equal
parts Kurdish, Arab and Turkomen, with a healthy population of Assyrian
Christians as well.
"None of it is as simple as the Kurds would like it to be," Miles said. "To kick
out the Arabs and send them back to where they came from some 30 years ago is
going to create yet another chain of displaced persons. To redraw borders in
this province means to redraw the borders of the surrounding provinces.
"It is very complex, but I truly believe that if we can somehow get this right
in Kirkuk we can get it right in all of Iraq," he concluded. "The city is a
microcosm of the nation as a whole."
Clouding the Kirkuk situation is the interim constitution that was implemented
in March to guide the interim government until elections could be held. Article
58 states that the transitional government "shall act expeditiously to take
measures to remedy the injustice caused by the previous regime’s practices in
altering the demographic character of certain regions, including Kirkuk."
Article 58 goes on to assert that residents displaced by practices like
Arabization will either be given back their homes and property or compensated
for them; that individuals who were moved to new regions under Saddam should be
resettled back in their original homes, and that the new government should seek
to restore altered provincial borders.
"The unfortunate thing is that the TAL (interim constitution) did not give us a
timeline," Miles told Barzani on Thursday.
Tense moments aside, Barzani, a jovial man dressed in traditional Kurdish
clothes, patted Miles on the arm and motioned for him to eat lunch at the end of
their conversation. It was an elaborate feast of lamb, chicken and fish, Kurdish
salads and soups, rice and breads.
As they began to make their way to the dining room, Miles told his host, "The
Kurds have been very good friends to us."
Not missing a beat, Barzani looked at his guest with a smile.
"In that case, sir, don’t let your friends down," he said.
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