N. Barzani calls for a Federal Democratic Parliamentary State in Iraq. 

July 5, 2002

Iraq's government has recently stepped up its campaign to evict
ethnic Kurds and other non-Arabs from Iraq's main oil-producing
province, Kirkuk. 

For Jiyan Ahmad and her four children, home is a tiny mud hut
with no running water or windows. She and her family have been
living here for the past month-and-a-half on meager rations of
flour, rice, and sugar provided by the local government. 

Jiyan is like hundreds of other refugees at this rundown camp on
the outskirts of the Kurdish-controlled city of Sulaymaniyah in
northern Iraq. She said she and her family were forced at
gunpoint by Iraqi security forces to leave their home in Iraq's
main oil-producing province, Kirkuk, and to move to
Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. 

Jiyan said she was expelled from Kirkuk after she and her
husband Mahmoud repeatedly refused to sign papers presented
to them by Iraqi officials that identified the couple as ethnic
Arabs. Jiyan said her husband Mahmoud is in an Iraqi jail, and
she has not heard from him since she arrived in northern Iraq. 

Western diplomats said as many as 150 families are driven out of
Kirkuk every month. Such expulsions have continued for
decades. 

Diplomats said the Iraqi policy apparently is to prevent the Kurds
from claiming Kirkuk province for themselves. That is what they
did during their failed rebellion against Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. 

Thousands of Kurds died after the U.S. led coalition failed to
intervene against advancing Iraqi troops. An international outcry
arose when televised images showed millions of Kurdish
refugees camped in the mountains bordering Iran and Turkey. 

And the United States and its allies were prompted to declare a
"no fly" zone in northern Iraq that is enforced by U.S. and British
planes. 

Barham Salih is an official of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, or
PUK, one of the two main Kurdish factions that have
administered the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq for the past 11
years. 

Like most Iraqi Kurdish leaders, Mr. Salih insists that Kirkuk
should be incorporated into the federal government the Iraqi
Kurds said they want established in exchange for their
participation in any U.S. led operation to overthrow President
Saddam Hussein. 

"The Iraqi government continues with its policy of ethnic
cleansing, evicting Kurds and Turcomens, dispossessing them of
their belongings, properties and replacing them with Arabs. This
is what the government of Iraq calls part of the Arabization
campaign, which is a truly repressive ethnic cleansing policy
aimed at changing the demographic characteristics of these areas
of Iraqi Kurdistan," Mr. Salih said. 

Mr. Salih said the influx of refugees from Kirkuk is putting huge
economic pressure on his administration. 

For example, he cites conditions at this refugee camp. A single
pipe provides all the drinking and washing water for about 500
families. Snakes and scorpions are a constant threat to children.
So are hepatitis and exposure during the icy cold Kurdish winter. 

However, some refugees say that despite the hardship, they are
happy to be living in Iraqi Kurdistan, where they said they enjoy
a degree of freedom that would be unthinkable in areas controlled
by Iraq's government. 

Hassan Karim Fattah, an ethnic Turcomen, from Kirkuk is one of
them. "After graduation, we are obliged if we are in the central
government of Iraq under the authority of the central
government, we are obliged to do the soldier serve in the military
maybe one year or two years, so we lose our lives or lose our
youth with being a soldier. I think it's a bad thing. Here, no one
comes and pulls you from your hand and ask you to defend your
country. There is no war that's a good thing for us," Mr. Hassan
said. 

The PUK's Barham Salih expresses frustration at what he calls the
failure of the international community to deter the Iraqi
government from its current policies. 

"We continue to call for international action against the
government of Iraq to end this policy of ethnic cleansing and to
allow the refugees to go back to their homes. This must not be
tolerated. Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Kirkuk are the
same, and the world community, the civilized community of
nations, must act to stop it," Mr. Salih said. 

Like many Kurdish leaders, Mr. Salih said that ultimately, the
most effective way to bring an end to ethnic cleansing and other
rights abuses in Iraq is to topple President Saddam Hussein.