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Almost all of the 20,047 registered voters in
Qara-Hnjeer and the surrounding area voted on Oct.
15 in the referendum on a draft constitution,
according to estimates from the local committee of
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the dominant
political party in the region. Of those who cast
ballots, 99.5 percent voted in favor of the
constitution, said Sabah Sharif, a representative of
the Qara-Hnjeer PUK committee.
"We never had an opportunity to have a constitution,
so the people came to vote for it," Sharif said.
"It's a result of our struggle. It's a result of our
suffering in this land."
The constitution formally recognizes the existence
of the Kurdish region of Iraq and allows for a
Kurdish constitution that can override the central
government in disputed claims of power. Iraqi
officials announced Tuesday that voters had approved
the national charter.
People here view the document as a significant
milestone for the Kurdish population as a whole,
which was persecuted by Hussein and has long sought
recognition of its unique ethnic identity.
But that is little solace for the Kurdish villagers
of Qara-Hnjeer. Under the constitution, Qara-Hnjeer
will remain outside of the Kurdish-controlled
region, still answering to a government in Baghdad
that many people deeply distrust.
"If the city is in the hands of the Arabs, we'll all
be killed," said Abdurahaman Abdulfadah, 85, who
lives on a sewage-fouled dirt road in the village
center.
Naimal Ibrahim, 41, interrupted his father,
explaining that sometimes the elder man speaks his
mind too much. "We don't believe in Arabs," Ibrahim
said. "We don't trust Arabs. We will only have our
rights if we are governed by Kurdish leaders."
Compared to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk seven miles
to the north, which also lies outside the zone,
Qara-Hnjeer is strategically unimportant these days
to either Iraq or the Kurdish region. It is just a
small spot on the map, impoverished, with no running
water or electricity. Few people expect the
government in Baghdad to help.
"We don't have services," Abdulfadah said, as his
sons and grandchildren gathered around the small,
dirty mattress where he rested while selling sodas
and snacks from a small shack next to his house. "We
don't have anyone. Nobody looks after us. We don't
know if there is a government or not."
The trouble started in 1982, when local people first
saw Iraqi soldiers marching over the hills on their
way to claim Qara-Hnjeer. Everyone in the town fled
or disappeared.
Ramadhan Mohammad was 15 when he left with his
family and neighbors in a caravan of mules. They
stopped to rest in another village. One of the
families turned back. Mohammad and his family stayed
put.
"The mules and donkeys came back with their goods,
but no people," Mohammad said of his neighbors who
returned to Qara-Hnjeer. "Nobody knows where they
went. They disappeared."
Over the next six years, the Iraqi government
destroyed 70 villages in the area around Qara-Hnjeer.
Thousands of people were killed and thousands more
simply disappeared, said Sharif, the PUK
representative. "Saddam regarded us as infidels," he
said. "We were Muslims, but he destroyed us. There
was nothing left."
The Kurds of Qara-Hnjeer who survived the assault
stayed away for the next two decades, becoming
wandering refugees of Hussein's campaign of ethnic
cleansing. Many fled to Iran, returning only in 2003
after U.S. forces invaded and the Iraqi army
retreated to Kirkuk.
Shokor Ali Kasim, 89, and his wife and children came
back to find that Iraqi troops had booby-trapped
their house with 18 artillery shells. The U.S.
military cleared the residence, which the Iraqis had
also stripped down to its shell.
"Only the walls remained," said Amina Abdulqadir,
32, Kasim's daughter-in-law. "There was nothing
left. No windows, no doors. Even the ceiling was
destroyed. They took the wires, the iron."
Kasim said his family voted for the constitution, in
hopes of a better life, but that they were unsure
who will make it happen. "Our hope is in the
constitution, but we have more hopes in the United
States," he said. "If there is no America, this
constitution will fail."
Like a lot of Kurds, Kasim and his family see U.S.
forces not as occupiers but as liberators who
protected Kurdish territory from Hussein starting in
1991, allowing it to develop as a semi-autonomous,
democratic region.
"When we were voting," Kasim said, "we believed that
we belonged to Kurdistan. Even if we are affiliated
to the center, to Baghdad, we will demand to be
attached to Kurdistan."
His 20-year-old son, Rebwar Shokor, agreed. "Why not
forcefully? Let's go," he said.
"No," his mother said. "We have suffered enough. We
don't want that to happen."
Under the constitution, residents of the disputed
Kirkuk territory, which includes Qara-Hnjeer, will
get to decide by referendum whether to remain under
the control of the Iraqi central government or
become part of the Kurdish-controlled region. The
constitution stipulates that a vote on the issue
must take place by Dec. 31, 2007.
On the day after the referendum, Sharif and other
party leaders gathered at the PUK headquarters to
congratulate one another on the successful turnout.
Iraqi security forces had once occupied the
building, and the very room where they now sat had
been used to torture and hang villagers, the men
said.
Asked how they knew this, Luqman Aziz Karim, the
head of the Qara-Hnjeer City Council, looked up. He
had been staring at his clasped hands. "I was beaten
here," he said softly.
"We are satisfied for now," he said. "We have given
up some of our rights to vote for this constitution.
We want the process to succeed, and the Iraqi
government should be very grateful. We support the
constitution now because in the future we hope to
get our rights. This is a Kurdish region."
Special correspondent Sarok Abdulla Ahmed
contributed to this report.
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