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OP/ED pieces are restricted to
columnists who contribute their opinions solely to the Kurdistan Observer
KurdistanObserver.com
Old Habits Die Hard!
By: Dr. Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany
Oct 23, 2004
The President:
The Iraqi interim president Sheikh al-Yawar must thank the Kurdish people and
Kurdish leadership for the tremendous support they have given him during the
thorny process of electing an interim President. As usual the Kurdish
leadership's rivalry made them prefer an Arab president instead of uniting and
agreeing among themselves on a Kurdish candidate. The new president is an
Iraqi tribal chief who is wearing an Arab robe and head dress is apparently
adamant on his identity, ignoring the fact that he is supposed to be a
president( ad interim) of all constituents of Iraqi mosaic( Arabs, Kurds,
Turkmen, Christians) and not emphasizing the Arab domination of Iraqi destiny.
The shocking interview of Mr. Al-Yawar to the Arab satellite television station
( Al-Arabiya) lately, in which he labeled the Kurdish demonstrators of the
Kurdish Referendum Movement, who were calling for the right of
self-determination of Kurdish people in Iraq, as traitors and threatening to
crush any such movement with force has sent shock waves through Iraqi Kurdistan
(and I hope through the Kurdish leadership too!), and reminded them of the ugly
Arab chauvinism in Iraq which was too often expressed and implemented by
previous Iraqi presidents like Abdulsalam Arif , Ahmad Hassan Al-Bakr and Saddam
Hussein. Mr. Al-Yawar ( being newly wed into a prominent Kurdish woman minister) could not hide his true chauvinistic nature and his contempt for the right of
Kurdish people to express openly and in a democratic way their ambitions and
aspirations. Mr. President actually should have congratulated the Kurdish people
for resorting to democratic means of expression. This is certainly not the model
of democracy the Kurds and Iraqi peoples are looking for in the new post-Saddam
Iraq!.
The Governor:
The governor of Diyala province in the north east of Iraq, is bitter that the
Kurds in parts of Kurdistan annexed to his governorate( Khanaquin, Mandali,
Shahraban, Saadiah) are adamant on redressing the ill effects of the ugly
Arabization campaigns of Saddam Hussein, he wants the Arab settlers who fled the
region after the downfall of their Godfather Saddam Hussein to be allowed back
into Kurdish lands and is antagonizing those Kurds who reclaim their lands and
properties which were confiscated by the Baath regime and given to Arab settlers
brought from central and south Iraq. Ten young Kurdish recruits from Khanaquin
were lured to the building of Diyala governorate by the cronies of Diyala
governor and were brutally murdered under the watching eyes of Arab police
forces there. The governor is continuing the Arabization policies of Saddam
Hussein there, he is refusing to appoint Kurdish citizens for the public posts,
he is depriving the Kurdish towns from any reconstruction projects, he has even
refused to open Mortgage Banks in the Kurdish towns of his province although it
was opened in all the other Arab towns in the same province, just to deprive
the Kurds from any chances to build new homes. The central Iraqi government is
apparently endorsing such discriminatory actions of the governor. How could we
allow such an affront to continue!.
The Neighbour:
Our northern neigbours apparently haven't wake up from the joy of their barbaric
massacres against Armenians and Kurds at the onset of the last century, which
the world even today is hesitant to condemn and acknowledge as they did for
example for the Holocoust of the Jews during the Nazi reign in Germany. The
Turks did get away almost unscathed and that encourages them to continue their
ultranationalist and backward ideology of one state-one nation-one culture-one
language, depriving the Kurdish children of having Kurdish names and learning
their mother tongue in schools, still ignoring the existence of a second major
ethnic group in Turkey ( the Kurds) which constitutes more than one third of
the population with own distinctive culture and language which is entirely
different from Turkish culture and language. The Turks are not satisfied with the
immense oppression and discrimination they perpetrated on their Kurdish
citizens in Northern Kurdistan, they are trying to extend their hatred towards
Iraqi Kurds in South Kurdistan and keep meddling in in the internal affairs of
South Kurdistan, they have nominated themselves as the godfather of Iraqi
Turkmen and are shedding crocodile tears about the fate of Turkmen in the
Kurdistani city of Kirkuk, and how some of the 300,000 Kurds deported from
Kirkuk during Arabization campaigns of Saddam Hussein are returning back to
Kirkuk to claim their homes and properties und to the Turkish taste upsetting the
demographic realities of Kirkuk, deliberately ignoring the facts that the
Turkmen have never been better as their current situation in Iraqi Kurdistan
(including Kirkuk). The Turks want the Kurdish victims of Saddam Hussein to
relinquish their rights to go back to their ancestral hometown , just to satisfy
the chauvinistic kamalistic ego of the sick Turkish republic. The Turks are
giving themselves the right to interfere in the future of Kirkuk, they are still
behaving with the Ottoman colonialist mentality. The Destiny of Kirkuk and the
procedures to settle the disputes about Kirkuk is an Iraqi issue and is
elaborated in detail in the Transitional Administrative Law (TAL), the interim
constitution of Iraq. Iraqi peoples certainly does not need the greedy
neighbors, the previous collaborators of Saddam regime to interfere in the
affairs of the new Iraq. The events in Iraq shows that foreign adventures could
cost them dearly.
The Super Power:
Since the artificial establishment of the Iraqi state in 1921 and the subsequent
forcible annexation of Iraqi Kurdistan to Iraq against the will of Kurdish
people, Iraq has been dominated by the Arab Sunni minority subjecting the other
main constituents of Iraqi society mainly the Arab Shiite and the Kurds to all
kinds of discrimination and oppression culminating in use of WMD against Kurds
in Halabja 1988, genocidal Anfall campaigns against Kurds 1986-1988, the
indiscriminate murdering of Shiites in 1991. The fall of Saddam regime on the
9th April 2003 has caused the fall of the old Iraqi establishment and with it
the new forces are now trying to remodel the Iraqi state on a federal basis or
in worst case scenario the alternative is to disintegrate into 3 states, Kurdish
in the north and north east, Sunni in central and west Iraq and Shiite in South
Iraq. The only way to keep Iraq as a unitary state seems in building a
democratic federal Iraq which is equally shared between Kurds, Sunnis and
Shiites, and this constitutes a huge insurmountable task taking into
consideration the restrictive and intolerant mentality of the Middle East
peoples. The American administration so far is clinching to the prospect of
keeping Iraq united at any cost , not the least to satisfy its neighbors, such
a policy could be impossible to implement considering the current turmoil in
Iraq, the Americans must be ready to sketch plan B and that is to divide Iraq
into 3 states, a conference between those different groups should decide the
division of Iraqi wealth between those states. Times are changing , old policies
and doctrines must also change.
Dr.Nazhad Khasraw Hawramany
Switzeralnd
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