Kirkuk, the capital of South Kurdistan

A crucial first step

By:Adil Al-Baghdadi

Brussels 19 February 2005

adil_al_baghdadi@hotmail.com

The elections in Kirkuk represent not only a great victory for freedom loving democrats who fought for many decades to highlight the threat posed by demographic changes to the city after it was emptied from its Kurdish population, it is a victory for everyone who has an interest in human rights.

The very fact that barring more than 100,000 Kurds - a figure which is well below actual number of original Kurds driven out of Kirkuk - from voting in the much reduced size of Kirkuk governorate would have posed a great threat to the integrity and credibility of the new Iraq.

As the Kurdish leadership involved in redressing the ills of the past know, it would not be an easy task. There are a many powerful players who do not see it in their interests to recognize, let alone accept the rightful return of original inhabitants of Kirkuk.

The obstructive stance of Turkey and its ally, the Turkoman Front, did not make one iota of difference to the task of reversing decades of oppressive measures, which were aimed at ethnically cleansing this historically Kurdistani province and characteristically Kurdish city of Kirkuk.

Turkey and its ally that welcomed and applauded Arabization and the

de-Kurdification of Kirkuk city and its province, have tried to undermine the inclusion of all of Kirkuk Kurds in the province’s council election at every opportunity.

To this end they funded a campaign of disinformation and paid for false reports intended to discredit the right of Kirkuk’s indigenous population to reclaim their land and their history, and attempting to create mistrust when confidence is required, fear when peace is required and malicious lies when truth is required.

So today is a great victory. But it is only the first battle in the campaign against falsehood and deception because there is much to do to undo decades of inhuman and deliberate neglect and marginalization of Kirkuki Kurds, which Turkey and its ally want to preserve.

The international community has made it clear during years leading to the conflict in former Yugoslavia, that it finds ethnic cleansing as an abhorrent and criminal act that should be reversed, and that such practices destabilise the country which pursues such polices. This word of warning should have also been extended to the biggest enthusiast of such practices, Turkey.

The next candidate for EU membership makes no apology for its relentless campaign to assimilate and Turkify every non-Turkic element within Turkey, be it 20m-25m Kurds, Armenians, Arabs as well as Greco-Byzantine history and many more historical and cultural aspects of this once non-Turkic region of Anatolia.

Forcible assimilation and ethnic cleansing pose a threat to the very essence of humanity and coexistence between nations, as we know it and have witnessed in former Yugoslavia, as well as in countries which Kurdistan is divided among them, namely Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Syria.

A regional rise in these unlawful practices as a result of Kurdish achievements will threaten millions of Kurds with increased oppression and violations of basic human rights, including summarily arrests, imprisonment, torture and death. Millions more will find their properties and life at risk from state-sponsored terror aimed at stifling dissent and moves emulating the gains made by their brethrens in South Kurdistan.

To tackle this threat with confidence Kurds from all various parts of Kurdistan and diaspora need to come together to build a strong consultative body and to act collectively.

The UN has an essential role to play in leading a regional action to stop physical and cultural crimes against Kurds in other parts of Kurdistan, and if it is to carry out the role effectively it must do it in a more vocal way not just as a bystander as in the past.

Turkey’s vociferous objection of election results in Kirkuk is on the one hand part of the plot to maintain the legacies of the past and on the other to feed the anti-Kurdish Turkish media and sadly the ill-informed and indoctrinated sections of Turkish public opinion against the Kurds’ lawful, legitimate and genuine results in Kirkuk, the rightful capital of South Kurdistan. This policy also forms a cornerstone of Turkey’s relentless effort against the right of self-determination for the Kurds of North Kurdistan.

As the advantages of election results in Kirkuk become apparent, not just for Kurds, but also for Turkomans, Arabs and Chaldo-Assyrian-Syriac Christians, the Kurds will want the province to be reincorporated back to its rightful place, the federalist region of Kurdistan. Making Kirkuk the capital of South Kurdistan is not just good for the democracy; it will also insure ever lasting peace, stability and prosperity for all ethnic and religious groups in South Kurdistan.

Indeed, elections results in Kirkuk have sent a powerful message to governments of Turkey, Iran and Syria and the world that tackling and reversing decades of ethnic cleansing against Kurds and some Turkomans is a priority and that ignoring the problem will inevitably bear grave consequences.

However, the other more worrying message for these countries, which fought the Kurds and never sought their friendship, is that all of Kirkuk constituents will have a role to play and all will enjoy political, cultural and all the rights that are associated with a healthy democratic society.

In the short term, Turkey and its ally in Kirkuk will embark on the usual campaign of sewing seeds of hate, fear and provocation, but their current dependence on Ba’thist and anti-Kurds elements can not be sustained. There are many shifting paradigms and many unknown variables, but what’s certain is that the tide of freedom is sweeping across the region and it is already blasting the shores of bastions of tyranny and oppression.

Iraq as a whole and in particular South Kurdistan, with its capital Kirkuk, have already been blessed by this change, raising international community’s understanding about Kurdish issue and the absence of freedom in other neighbouring countries including the other three parts of Kurdistan, North Kurdistan in Turkey, East Kurdistan in Iran and West Kurdistan in Syria.

Reaching political agreement to protect the rights of Kurds from continued oppressive measures and cultural assimilation and to achieve political rights is no easy task in these countries, and democratic means and peaceful campaigns by Kurds, particularly in North Kurdistan, need international support in the shape of a UN resolution.

Kurdish leadership in South Kurdistan, on the other hand, has already indicated its intention to put the full implementation of Article 58 of the Interim Iraqi State Administration Law¹ firmly on the agenda of the new government of Iraq. More importantly both Kurdish leaders must make use of their role within Iraq and South Kurdistan to insure that the Kirkuk model of governance is far more inclusive than all of Iraq’s hostile neighbours and envy of all multi-ethnic societies in Middle East.

More efforts are needed to maintain the political momentum generated by the alliance between the two main Kurdish parties and to find the best way forward that works for incorporating others regions, such as Khanaqin and parts of Diyala province, Sinjar and some parts of Mosul back within the boundaries of South Kurdistan with its eternal capital Kirkuk.

1. Article 58 stipulates that situation in Kirkuk should be normalized and those brought in as part of Arabization campaign should be repatriated and Kurds to reclaim their properties and receive compensation.