Kurdish choices in Iraq: A binational  Federation or Separation?

By: Dr. Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany

Jan 22, 2004

During this transitional period  after the total collapse of the Iraqi state on the 9th of April 2003, whereby the state of Iraq is newly designed and built, There are certain political forces in Iraq who haven't learnt anything from history and are trying again to deny the Kurds their demand for a political federation of the province of Kurdistan with the rest of Arab Iraq , opposing the efforts to redress Arabization and ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk and calling maliciously for postponing this issue till the establishment of a permanent constitution and an elected national assembly, and then should this assembly with its obvious Arab and Shiite majority decide if the Kurds are deserving a federation and if Kirkuk will be included in this province.

The shape of things to come is obvious, with the Arab Shiite forces including the radical Mukhtada Al-Sadr group, the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the Al-Daawa party and the Ayatollahs of Najaf and Kerbala, who apparently proclaimed themselves as the new rulers of Iraq, are already organizing rallies and demonstrations in Baghdad and southern Iraq denouncing the demands of Kurds for federation and resisting the reversal of evils of Arabization. 

The intentions of the Iraqi Arabs and particularly the Shiites are too obvious to be ignored or taken lightly, they want to trick the Kurds again by putting the so called Iraqi citizenship interests before Kurdish federal interests and so masquerading their bigotry and chauvinism, ignoring the suffering and tragedies of Kurds during the last 40 years in the oppressive state of Iraq. The Shiites are pressing also for precipitous direct elections to choose the transitional national assembly disregarding the facts on the ground which precludes such elections for many reasons like security situation, lack of political institutions in Arab Iraq, lack of credible population census, lack of vote registers, this pressure is a coup on the agreement between Iraqi Governing Council and Coalition Provisional Authority to transfer sovereignty to Iraqi people and end occupation. The Shiites ( clerics and politicians) think that as such they can win the majority in the transitional national assembly, and with it to give the new Iraqi constitutional a theocratic content which will antagonize secularism, women rights, Kurdish rights and minority rights, they are simply trying to exchange the Sunni   dominance with a Shiite authoritarian dominance, they understand democracy as the rule of the majority but with utter disregard for the rights of minorities,  simply they want to photocopy the sectarian Iranian style of government in Iraq.

The Shiites want to assert the Arab Shiite dominance of Iraqi state and is planning to deny the Iraqi Kurds their historic rights and aspirations for a federal relationship of Iraqi Kurdistan with the rest of Iraq with the argument that the Arab majority in Iraq will not submit to such rights, they are ignoring a simple historic fact which was stated even in the constitution of 1958, that Iraq is made up of two main nationalities the Arabs and Kurds with equal duties and rights, which means that the Kurds preserve their right of self-determination to decide their destiny independent from what the Arab nation might consider good or bad for the Kurds. 

The historic and geographic facts unequivocally shows that Iraqi Kurdistan was forcibly annexed to Iraq in the aftermath of WW1 due to colonialist interests in oil fields of Kurdistan, and that the Kurds a distinct ethnic group with its own language and culture and geography, constitute in Iraqi Kurdistan the absolute majority, which entitles them to choose for themselves and according to the will of Kurdish people what sort of relation they look forwards with the Arab Iraq. The Kurdish parliament hat unanimously chosen in 1992 to join Iraq in a binational Arab-Kurdish federation, which provides for wide authority to the federal province of Iraqi Kurdistan ( including, Kirkuk, Khanaquin, Shangar, Mandali and Makhmour), leaving the issues of defence, foreign policy and oil resources to the central federal government and calling for fair division of wealth between different Iraqi peoples. The unprecedented backlash of all the Shiite representatives on the Kurdish plan for a binational federation between geographic Iraqi Kurdistan and Arab Iraq raised fears among the Kurdish population about the wisdom of pursuing the policy of federation with Iraq, and if it's not prudent to call outright for the right of self-determination and independence from Iraq, for it seems that our Shiite clerics are ready to repeat the atrocities of the last 80 years against the Kurds. The Kurdish plan is calling in essence to unite Iraq again and to end the semi-independent de facto Kurdish enclave in Iraqi Kurdistan, yet this generous and unifying gesture was surprisingly confronted with a bizarre and hostile reaction from Shiite leaders, a reaction which denies the right of the Kurdish people for a federation of Kurdistan region with Arab Iraq and putting forwards instead, a pathetic federation on governorate level which is not much better than an offer the Kurds got from the government of Dr. Al-Bazzaz in 1966, and falls even much shorter than the autonomy decree for the region of Iraqi Kurdistan issued by Saddam Hussein in 1974.  The pressure is mounting by the Kurdish population on the political leadership to be ready for alternative solutions including independence if the Arab Iraqi and Shiite political forces continue to pursue this hostile attitude towards Kurdish rights.

One of the most urgent problems which need to be tackled without any delay ( if our Arab brothers ready to show their good will ) is reversal of Arabization and ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk and other cities, there should be no excuse to drag on that, all Arab settlers ( even if they are Shiites!), must be send back to their original locations in central and southern Iraq, the Kurdish and Turkmen deportees must be allowed to go back to Kirkuk , compensated and provided with suitable accommodations instead of harassing them through remnants of Saddam Hussein and  misinformed coalition forces. The Kurdish administration must consider it a top priority to reverse Arabization and must allocate all its resources to help those needy people after years of deportation and ethnic cleansing. The Kurds must seek coordination and compromise with Turkmen and original Arab inhabitants of Kirkuk as well as Chaldo-Assyrians and reassure them about their right within a federal Kurdistan. The Arabs in Iraq have a grim choice to make, either they comply with all the previous promises of a federal solution for Iraqi Kurdistan or face a real threat of division of Iraq.