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Without Normalization in Kirkuk, Kurds Should Boycott All January 2005 Elections

By: Dr. Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany

Dec 14, 2004

All the indications are pointing towards the prospect of holding the three crucial Iraqi elections on January 30 2005, in spite of threats of boycotting from Sunni Arabs or the unconvincing and weak Kurdish threats to boycott Kirkuk elections, while participating in Iraqi and Kurdistani elections.

The objections of Kurds to hold elections in Kirkuk without any implementation of article 58 of TAL /( Transitional Administrative Law), is blatantly ignored by the Arab dominated Interim Iraqi Administration ( including Mr. Allawi the interim prime minister and Mr Al-Yawer the interim president) with a complacent American administration.

The positions of KDP and PUK have so far been very weak and inadequate, their representatives in central Iraqi government ( Mr. Shawais as vice-president and Mr Salih as deputy prime minister) are more eager than the Arabs themselves to hold those elections even if that meant propping up the suppressive and Arab dominated Iraqi state again, with Kurds being forced to accept the consequences of decades of ethnic cleansing and Arabization in Kirkuk, Khanaquin, Shangal, Shekhan, Makhmour..etc as established facts.

The article 58 of TAL outlines a road map to redress the ill effects of decades of ethnic cleansing, genocide and Arabization against Kurdish people, which reached its climax after the bloody military coup of February 1968, which brought the fascist Baath party into power in Iraq. The KDP and PUK hailed the inclusion of article 58 in TAL as a great victory for Kurds. To date none of the measures outlined in article 58 of TAL are implemented. The Arab dominated Baghdad government has done nothing to help the 400`000 Kurds who were deported from Kirkuk to go back to their ancestral city of Kirkuk, those Kurdish refugees who ventured on heir own to return to Kirkuk are living under miserable conditions, with no sanitation, no running water, no subsistence, no schools, no homes, no health centers. The Iraqi government are simply insensitive to the plight of those victims of the regime of Saddam Hussein, if not actually working against the returning of those Kurds into Kirkuk. The 250`000 Arab settlers who were brought by the regime of Saddam Hussein from central and southern Iraq into homes and lands of Kurds in Kirkuk are still enjoying a privileged situation, and nothing has been done to convince them or move them to their original habitat in central and southern Iraq, on the contrary the interim Iraqi administration are trying to force the elections now in Kirkuk, where the Arabs are constituting currently the majority ( according to some recent estimates) after 40 years of Arabization and deportation of Kurds, after the governorate of Kirkuk was dismembered by the Baath regime and the Kurdish towns which were part of Kirkuk governorate, like Chamchamal, Tuzkhurmatu, Kifri and Kalar were annexed to other governorates just to dissolve the Kurdish majority of Kirkuk and establish the Arab domination of this Kurdistani   oil-rich city.

For KDP and PUK to accept the elections in Kirkuk and other Kurdistani cities which were victims of ethnic cleansing and Arabization, without prior normalization, is a tantamount to treason and to permanent loss of Kirkuk. The loss of Kirkuk will hammer the last nail in the casket of Kurdish national aspirations in Iraq.

Without Kurdish participation in the general Iraqi elections, those elections can't have any legitimacy, the Kurds therefore must not underestimate their role and the importance of their Boycott on any such elections. So far all Kurdish calls for postponement of elections in Kirkuk were rejected by the high commission of elections in Iraq and were ignored by Arab political forces in Iraq. The Kurdish leadership must make it loud and clear that without any mechanism to ensure normalization in Kirkuk and other Kurdistani cities, Kurds will boycott the whole process of elections in Iraq and will not participate in any future political process without reversing Arabizazion and rejoining of Kirkuk to Kurdistan.

It is only too simple to perceive, that when the Arabs in Iraq are not ready to make concessions on Kirkuk when they are in a weak position, as they are actually now, then they will not be ready to do so when we have helped them to recreate the repressive state of Iraq through elections on their terms. Kurds in Iraq can't take this any more, why should we crave to be slaves in Iraq again , when we have every possibility now to be masters of ourselves, as we have been in the last 12 years.

The Kurdish political forces, the Kurdish silent majority, the Kurdish intellectuals in Kurdistan and Diaspora are called on to put pressure on KDP and PUK  leaderships to boycott all the elections on January 2005 , unless a just solution for Kirkuk is found.

Enough is enough of Arab hegemony and chauvinism in Iraq, let the people of Kurdistan determine their own fate in a democratic and just manner. Let our children have a safe and bright future void aof genocides and oppression.

Dr.Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany
Switzerland