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OP/ED pieces are restricted to
columnists who contribute their opinions solely to the Kurdistan Observer
KurdistanObserver.com
Little things amuse little minds
By:
Dr. Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany
May 12, 2004
The people of Kurdistan are getting
restless and hopeless about the ever elusive reunification of the two rival
administrations in Iraqi Kurdistan. Both administrations are actually clinching
into power illegally, since the single orphan election of 1992 is longest
expired, but the greedy party officials in both administrations are refusing to
let go of the power and privileges they are enjoying since the people of
Kurdistan erroneously give their votes to those parties in 1992 election.
The patronage driven politics in both sides
have sidelined the great majority of Kurdish intellectuals, both of the two
administrations have actually turned into pathetic local dynasties where only
family and clan politics pursued with deliberate exclusion of the thousands of
Kurdish intellectuals in Kurdistan and Diaspora who are eager to serve their
nation.
In
both administrations the majority of government officials are party loyalists
without any academic degrees or knowledge of modern administration and
management sciences, the two parties clashed in 1994 over disputed customs
incomes from illegal trades and smuggling from which only party leaders and
their entourage profited, but the majority of Kurdish teachers, doctors, and
other employees were without salaries for months on, and the only thing which
kept them working without pays is their feeling of responsibility and their love
for their nation and country, something which both party officials exploited to
great degrees to their own benefit, and while the party opportunists on both
sides were making fortunes and luxus villas, the majority of Kurdish families
were near starving if it wasn't for the rations they got from the oil for food
program.
The thousands of pleas and petitions from
Kurdish intellectuals and political forces for the leadership of both parties to
reunify their rival administrations were met with contempt and apathy. Nowadays
each of the two administrations are receiving budgets from coalition authorities
in hundreds of millions of Dollars, something which make the elusive
reunification ever more difficult, because a reunification means that both
administrations must give up their ministries for a unified government,
something which means less control over these sums of money and hitherto less
possibility of embezzlement for party officials.
Both parties have failed to draw
consequences from the scandal of party officials spying for Saddam as it was
revealed through the documents delivered to the parties from coalition which
contained lists of Kurdish collaborators with Haddam's security apparatus, one
of those collaborators is still heading the parliamentary faction of the
political party concerned, others are still ministers and key officials in the
other political party, both of KDP and PUK have fooled the Kurdish people by
preventing those collaborators from being brought to justice, instead they are
still offering them protection and key positions. Those same figures which were
secretly providing the regime of Saddam about activities in Kurdistan, are still
enjoying status by the leadership of both parties. Both parties are trying to
prevent elections for the new Iraqi parliament which is scheduled for the end of
2004 or beginning of 2005, and instead to let their representatives represent
the Kurdish population, something which must be prevented, there should be
direct elections for Kurdish representatives without the domination of those
parties to allow younger and more educated figures emerging beyond the family
and clan politics of the two dominating parties.
The two parties are dominating the media in
Kurdistan, with both satellite channels being mere propaganda for the
leadership, both channels are technically very inferior, with dull and
superficial programs which does not rise to the level of the current sensitive
situation in Kurdistan, the news broadcasting in both channels are merely
praising the wisdom and the achievements of the corresponding leaders without
any real cover of the numerous efforts by different sections of Kurdish society,
in a broadcast which I have heard and seen by one of those channels the news
begin with something like that: The prime minister of the regional government of
Kurdistan has visited the district of....... and "decided" to build schools and
health centers for that region, notice decides after he has visited, which means
that if he hasn't visited that lucky region then they wouldn't have got schools
or heath centers, now wait a minute, where is the planning, where are the
elected city councils which are supposed to study and decide which projects they
need, how can then lucky districts compete to be honored with such visits of
prime minister so that they can get schools or health centers?, every activity
in kindergarten or primary school or a college is under a huge banner which
states that this event is under the patronage of his (majesty) prime minister.
Is this democracy, is this decentralization?, what is the difference from
censored propaganda machine of Saddam Hussein?.
One of the Kurdish members of IGC mentioned
in an interview with a local Kurdish news paper last week, that they are so
ashamed of the situation of divided administrations, that they wish nothing more
than that subject will be ignored by Arab members of IGC, so that they will not
be deeply embarrassed. Is there a sane person who believes the propaganda of
those parties that they are struggling for a federal rule for geographic
Kurdistan, including Kirkuk, when they themselves are clinching to federation on
governorate levels, do they have any credibility any more, how could they
succeed in regaining Kirkuk, the jewel of Kurdistan, into Kurdistan federal
region when they have failed to reunite their administrations barring all the
enormous efforts by Kurdish people since the agreement of Washington of 1998.
The only achievement for them that they introduced Turkish spies into Kurdistan
in the body of Turkish PMF in Kurdistan. The leadership of both parties have
failed the Kurdish people deeply and they will be probably instrumental in the
loss of Kirkuk.
Those parties must regain consciousness
from their deep coma otherwise it will be too late and with catastrophic
consequences for Kurdistan. Let them introduce real democracy into Kurdistan
beginning with the leadership of both parties.
Dr.Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany
Switzerland
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