On Kirkuk, Talabani and Barzani resonate Kurds’ unanimous conviction

By: Khasraw Saleh Koyi

Feb 13, 2005

On the Kurdistani identity of Kirkuk, in the last two months, KDP leader ‘Massoud Barzani’ and PUK leader ‘Jalal Talabani’ have taken a pragmatic stand and resorted to objective tactics in their efforts to remove the doubts of both the ill-informed sceptics and that of the ‘anti-Kurd’ rejectionists of historical and geographic facts who have chosen to maintain their repressive and fascistic wish of realizing their robber’s dream of taking the loot and getting away with it.

Whether it be for tactical reasons or under pressure from their new allies with whom the Kurds now share both agreeable and conflicting interests, for long, these two Kurdish leaders resisted to openly reflect the genuine feelings of the Kurdish masses and their thoughts with regard to their sense of ultimate injustice and brutality the Kurdistani city of Kirkuk and its Kurdish residents underwent throughout much of the rein of Iraq’s consecutive nationalist regimes of the Sunni Arabs (empowered by the British after the creation of Iraq in the early 1920s in their bid to use Iraq as a potential oil-cow to satisfy Britain’s Imperialist thirst and hunger for more power and prosperity, but without giving any ethical consideration to the brutal reality which will emerge from such a dictated action).

Although many British generations have born since, and the political reality has undergone significant changes to reshape much of the old British imperialist concept towards a more progressive goal of universal freedom, equality, humanrights and other democratic rights, nevertheless there still remain out there many potential traces of the old colonial mentality which could affect policies; especially, when the issue of Brittan’s collective interests in the Middle East is at the centre of the decision making process. Old-fashioned and nostalgic conservative Britons continue to relish the rewards of Britain’s post WWI policies and often they wish that the status quo would remain intact, or at least, it wouldn’t change much different than the way they are accustomed to.

Therefore, it should not be a surprise for the Kurds today to face resistance from such classical types of British politicians regarding the Kurdistani status of Kirkuk, as well as the degree of self-rule and influences the Kurds would possess in the post Saddam Iraq. The only concern though is how much impact the outdated views of such British politicians and bureaucrats could have ‘with regard to the natural rights of the Kurds’ on US policy makers and the moderate British politicians fogging their vision and divert their course from the intended objectives. As for the Kurds daily interpretations of the political events, they must refrain from delivering the kind of messages that could be interpreted by those unfriendly and untamed Britons as presenting a polarized view of the Kurds as being excessively pro-American but apathetic towards the British (as a vindictive reaction for the role of Winston Churchill’s government in setting the grounds for the misfortunes and the brutality the Kurds suffered from as the consequences of Britain’s Middle East policies).

In a persistent manner characterized with increasing intensity, the brutalization of the Kurds of Kirkuk and the Arabization of its neighbourhoods and environs gained momentum with the arrival of the Baathists to power in 1963 and up to the very last day of their demise in April 2003. It was quite ironic to see that for a while, the brutality and the injustices that underlined some of the most heinous aspects of Saddam’s Baathist regime were overlooked by the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and only to continue later in various other forms. However, as the events began to unfold in their unpredictable ways, the old presumptuous views gave grounds to more provable and objective thoughts.

As the date for the Iraqi elections was approaching, Mr. Talabani and Mr. Barzani woke up to the fact that their continued failure for a timely reflection of the popular thoughts of the Kurds ‘with regard to the Kurdistani identity of Kirkuk’ will reflect negatively on them and their political parties in the ballot boxes. Eventually, they began to do right by their constituencies; a political behaviour which is more in line with the demands of true democratic principles and conducts. Hence, Mr. Talabani did an excellent job in making an objective argument ‘in Baghdad’ supported by all the necessary evidence to convince the sceptics, while leave the adversaries with no choice but to put their heads down speechlessly. As for Mr. Barzani, he added more emphasis and enthusiasm to his defence of the Kirkuk true identity, as well as vigorously rebuffing the ‘traditional’ ridiculous and threat-ridden counter claims of the virulent and violence-prone civilian and military Turk leaders.

Massoud Barzani’s latest statement "Only death - no powers or states in the world - can make me give up Kirkuk." very much resonated with the deep-rooted passion and conviction of all the Kurds about the status of Kirkuk (as the uncompromising sacred heart of Kurdistan). Kurds, male and female, young and old, in Kurdistan or anywhere else are all ready to pay the ultimate sacrifice to defend the Kurdistani identity of Kirkuk against any malicious attempts of those Baathist Arabs and Kemalist Turks who ‘many times over’ have proven to be amongst the least ethical and the most brutal people human beings can ever get. As the identity of these sadistic fascists is revealed more and more by their words, actions, and reactions, the civilized world will eventually condemn them and will accelerate the speed of their departure to the history bins of the most disgraceful and inhuman beings the human race has ever known.

As these enemies of the Kurds ‘by virtue of their inherent viciousness and ignorance’ are incapable to rationalise their behaviour and restrain their temptations, the Kurds should not waste any opportunity to resists the rhetorical buzzing and the cowardice and futile threats of their traditional enemies with moral courage and civilized conviction. Time and will-power is all what the Kurds need to eventually cleanse Kurdistan and the Kurdish nation from these parasitic beings who have for long preyed on the Kurds in the most inhuman ways, using every hypocritical and ridiculous excuses and justifications they can concoct.

It is both a strategic mistake and a moral failure for any influential Western power in Iraq to sanction the heinous crimes of the Baathist thuggish regime in Iraq to the detriment of the Kurds. Anything short of reversing the entire Arabization process in South Kurdistan is a gross violation of the natural rights of the Kurds and an encouragement of the Baathist regime in Syria and the repressive ethnocentric regime of Turkey to take a hint and do more harm to the Kurds by displacing more of them from their traditional Kurdish cities and villages believing that someday later, it will be accepted ‘by the civilized world’ as a reality justified by false presumptions logics suggesting that ‘in a democratic environment thieves and intruders will have the right to keep the loot and free to choose where to live. No one will ever succeed pushing such a perverse logic down the throats of the Kurds in favour of their brutal Turk and Arab oppressors.

I remember in the early 1970s in Baghdad, the Baathists were saying that “they will be very happy with an Iraq of three millions providing they are all Baathists”. Then Iraq’s population was about 12 millions of which 3 millions were the Sunni Arabs. In the years later and the mass murdering of hundreds of thousands of Kurdish and Shia civilians made me realize how serious the Baathists were in their saying. It was a standard tradition in the Baathist political culture to be cold-blooded and cruel natured. The more a Baathist proved to be a savage, the higher rank and responsibility he was given. There are no doubts that Saddam’s regime had hundreds of thousands of such criminals within its civilian and military ranks.

All of these hardened criminals who still live today ‘mainly’ in the Sunni region of Iraq are fully aware of the fact that their survived victims, as well as the non-Baathists amongst the Iraqis know them all. Their ideological heritage combined with their fear of revenge and punishment will guarantee their insurgency status and anti democratic role for as long as they can find safe heavens amongst their tribes, relatives and friends. A good number of these Baathist criminals now live in the Arabised areas of Kurdistan and they continue to murder innocent Kurds and blow up oil pipelines and others’ properties. For the Kurds to exercise democracy effectively, they need stability in their traditional territories. Therefore, there is a strong urge amongst the Kurds not to allow these Sunni Baathist criminals and their collaborators to remain in the Kurdish region for much longer.

I don’t suggest that all Iraq’s Sunni Arabs are Baathists or their sympathisers, but indeed very large numbers of them are, while another good number are supporters of various Islamist terrorist groups. Either out of desperation and/or lack of demographic and cultural knowledge, some US and British policy makers have entertained the thought of using the policy of appeasement, or similar to that, the policy of ‘the carrot and the stick’ with these extreme and criminal elements in the Arab Sunni population. For the sake of proof by trial and error, it is within the rights of these authorities to take such approaches but it shouldn’t be practiced at the expense of the Kurdish population.

Today, many Kurds believe that ‘for all the right reasons’ the US president ‘George W. Bush’ will not ‘knowingly, neither wilfully’ sanctions any action that may unjustly harm the Kurds. The Kurds in general are also ‘optimistically’ hopeful that the more the Americans get to know the Kurds, the more they adjust their criteria to deal with the new reality in Iraq in a manner to be in lime with the US’s noble mission of the ‘Universal liberation and freedom for all the peoples and cultures of the world’. Therefore, at least for the next four years, the Kurds expect to enjoy a good level of peace of mind knowing that the man with so much influence on their lives and destiny is a man with deep-down benevolent moral conviction. He will be there to defend right from wrong, good from evil, and the victims from the villains.

Arab Baathists and their Kemalist Turk counterparts may not like that, but too tough; who says that their era of repression and brutality has to last for ever?