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KIRKUK, Iraq - Behind a row of cinder block
houses with corrugated tin roofs, Sazgar Mahmoud's
six children play in a puddle of sewage and trash.
Eight years ago, Baathist officials came to her door
in a working-class Kirkuk neighborhood, arrested her
husband and expelled Mahmoud and her children. The
Baathists even made her pay for the hour-long truck
ride to the Kurdish-controlled city of Sulaimaniyah.
It was a sunny day, she recalls, but bitterly
chilly, and her children caught colds.
The family never really settled into life in the
Kurdish region. Schoolmates mocked Mahmoud's
children with a rhyme: "Refugees, refugees, all they
eat is government cheese."
Having moved back to Kirkuk, the Mahmouds again live
as refugees - this time in their own city. Because
there is no infrastructure, the family siphons water
from a nearby hospital and runs a wire to an
electrical pole. "Even the house belongs to others,"
Mahmoud said. "They are letting us stay here as
charity."
Rich land, poor land
The Mahmouds are still more fortunate than other
returning Kurds who live in tents and wait for
politicians to decide whether they will receive land
and money as compensation for being expelled from
this oil-rich city of 1 million that Saddam Hussein
"Arabized" through forced migration.
"Kirkuk, underground, is full of oil," said Hasib
Rozbayani, director of resettlement for Kurds
returning to the city. "But above ground, it is the
poorest city in Iraq, compared to the resources that
we have."
The conflict over Kirkuk - home to a tenth of the
country's oil reserves - is one of the most
explosive in Iraq. It pits Kurds who were expelled
from the city against Arabs who were brought in by
Hussein's regime to change the ethnic balance. More
broadly, the Kurds' demand to absorb Kirkuk into
their autonomous Kurdish region is viewed by Arabs
as a threat to Iraq's unity. Iraq's neighbors also
see it as the first step toward Kurdish
independence, something Turkey, Syria and Iran would
never allow.
Today, as Iraqi leaders grapple with a relentless
insurgency that has taken control of swaths of the
country, the future of Kirkuk has been deferred. But
the struggle is still playing out below the surface,
and it could boil over after Sunday's national
elections.
Until last week, the two major Kurdish political
parties - the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, known as
PUK, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, known as
KDP - had publicly urged their supporters to boycott
the vote for a provincial council in Kirkuk.
Privately, Kurdish leaders also were threatening to
boycott the election for a national parliament,
which many Sunni Arabs are planning to shun.
Kurdish leaders argued that until 300,000 Kurdish
refugees are returned to Kirkuk - and Arabs are
moved out - any local election will not be
legitimate. The central government in Baghdad had
refused to postpone the Kirkuk council election,
arguing that the city's status will be dealt with
next year once a new Iraqi constitution is in place.
But fearful of a widespread Kurdish boycott and
under pressure from U.S. officials, the central
government relented last week and agreed that
100,000 Kurds who had recently switched their voter
registrations to Kirkuk would be allowed to vote
there.
As a result, parties representing the city's Arab
and Turkoman communities, whose strength would be
diluted by a larger Kurdish voting bloc, are now
threatening to boycott the provincial council
election.
In recent months, thousands of displaced Kurds
switched their United Nations food ration
registrations back to Kirkuk. Some Kurds hope to
move back to Kirkuk eventually; others say changing
their registration is a political act.
"This is our city," said Samar Sittar, 24, a college
student whose family was expelled from Kirkuk when
he was 10. He now lives in Baghdad, but plans to
vote in Kirkuk. "We have to vote in our city, not in
any other. It is a political issue, not a matter of
numbers. This is our homeland," he said.
Waiting out the politics
Only about 7,000 Kurds have physically moved back to
Kirkuk, and most live in tents with no heat or hot
water. Some Kurds say they were promised money and
land if they moved back to Kirkuk. In June, Asso
Hama went to his local food agent, where he picks up
his UN rations, and switched his registration from
Sulaimaniyah to Kirkuk. "The food agent told us we
could get $3,000, with a piece of land," said Hama,
32, a car mechanic who was forced out of the city
with his family in 1991.
Kirkuk is unsafe and economically starved compared
to the Kurdish region, so Hama decided to stay put
in Sulaimaniyah. His choice underscores the impasse
facing many displaced Kurds. Most don't want to move
back until Kirkuk's political fate is resolved. But
Kurdish leaders don't want the city's fate decided
until Kurds return and the ethnic balance is
restored in their favor.
Kurdish officials deny they offered anyone money to
return to Kirkuk or switch his or her voter
registration. "I assure you that even if you give a
family in Sulaimaniyah $50,000, they will not come
back to live in Kirkuk," said Ramazan Rashed, deputy
director of the PUK's Kirkuk office. "Why would they
leave a better economic situation, better services
and more security?"
For Kurdish politicians, Kirkuk carries the kind of
symbolic weight and pitfalls that Jerusalem has for
Palestinian leaders.
"Throughout recent history, the Kurdish leaders have
never been able to get Kirkuk," said Hiwa Osman, a
Kurdish political analyst. "All the wars with
Saddam, all the negotiations, have been over Kirkuk.
So it will be extremely difficult for them to turn
around and say 'we couldn't get Kirkuk.'"
This city's importance was first hinted at in the
Old Testament. King Nebuchadnezzar cast the Jews of
Babylon into a "burning fiery furnace," a site that
some scholars believe was the endless flame from
Kirkuk's natural gas. It was a clue to the oil
deposits discovered 2,500 years later.
There are 10 billion barrels of proven reserves
beneath Kirkuk. The area can produce 800,000 barrels
per day, and it is also the origin of the Iraqi
pipeline that pumps oil to the Mediterranean coast.
Today, Kirkuk is a tangle of ethnic grievances among
its Arab, Kurdish and Turkoman residents. Arab
leaders say Kurdish gunmen have expelled hundreds of
Arab families from their homes since the fall of
Hussein's regime in April 2003.
Kurds view Kirkuk as the ancient seat of Kurdistan
and believe it should be the capital of their region
in a newly formed Iraqi federation. But neighboring
Turkey fears that if Iraqi Kurds expand their
autonomous zone to Kirkuk, they would be closer to
declaring independence, and that could trigger
similar aspirations among the 12 million Kurds in
Turkey.
Turkish officials warn that they would respond with
force if Kurds gained control of Kirkuk. A Turkish
military incursion into northern Iraq would create
regional instability and could prompt other
neighbors - especially Syria and Iran, which have
large Kurdish minorities - to send their own troops
into Iraq.
Despite the desire of most Iraqi Kurds to seek
independence, Kurdish leaders have vowed they will
remain an autonomous region of Iraq. Most Kurds,
however, would not accept autonomy without control
over Kirkuk.
"The Kurdish leaders would love to have an easy way
out of the Kirkuk dilemma," Osman said. "But just
like the Arabs and the Israelis, they are now
prisoners of their own rhetoric."
Copyright © 2005, Newsday, Inc.
http://www.nynewsday.com
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