|
SULAYMANIAH,
Kurdistan-Iraq – It's almost as if someone forgot to
tell the Kurdish inhabitants of northern Iraq that
there's a war going on.
A boomtown atmosphere seems to prevail across the
region. Streets are clogged with major construction
projects, including shopping malls, hotels, office
complexes and highway interchanges. Commercial
activity is brisk, and jobs are so plentiful that
Arabs and Iranians, who normally shun the region
known as Kurdistan, are migrating here in search of
work.
In a land with an extreme shortage of success
stories, Kurdistan stands out as Iraq's model of
prosperity and security. Car bombs are a rarity.
Fear seems nonexistent. What many Iraqis want to
know is: If it could happen here, why not the rest
of the country?
"Where I come from, there's no security anywhere.
When you go to work in the morning, you never know
if you'll come home alive in the evening," said
Mahmoud Saeed, a migrant Iraqi Arab construction
worker from Mosul. "If Mosul had security like
this," he added with a chuckle as he considered the
possibilities, "our economy would be huge."
Self-policing
Despite the presence of 160,000 U.S. and other
foreign troops across Iraq, instability and daily
insurgent attacks have severely hampered
reconstruction plans. But the Kurds, who are largely
self-policing because of a 250,000-member armed
force known as the Pesh Murga, have witnessed only a
small fraction of the violence besetting the rest of
the country.
The reasons for their economic success are more
complex than the sole issue of security, according
to various observers. Much of it has to do with
Kurdish cultural unity, their common goal of
achieving independence and a singular drive to show
the world that Kurds can prosper with or without the
rest of Iraq.
Additionally, Kurds share common bonds with both the
Arab Shiite and Sunni Muslim communities who are
behind most of Iraq's violence.
Like the Shiites, who dominate most of southern
Iraq, the Kurds suffered heavy oppression under the
regime of former dictator Saddam Hussein, an Arab
Sunni. Shiite and Kurdish leaders joined forces
during negotiations this year to write a new
constitution, winning the right for their regions to
become self-governing federal states.
But because the Kurds are mainly Sunni Muslim, they
share a religious bond with the Arab Sunnis who
dominate central Iraq and provide most of the
insurgents fighting U.S.-led international forces.
The Arab Sunnis continue to court Kurdish political
support to help block Shiite domination of the
national legislature.
The result, analysts explain, is that Kurdistan has
been spared from the kinds of attacks witnessed
daily around the rest of the country.
Rush of job-seekers
Evidence of the resulting prosperity is the
estimated 11,000 Iraqi Arabs who have flocked to
Kurdistan looking for work, said Kamaran Ahmad, head
of the economics department at the University of
Sulaymania.
"Security has a direct and undeniable relationship
with economic performance. If I can't offer you
security, your company cannot work here," Mr. Ahmad
said.
After the end of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in
2003, he added, "American companies tried to carry
out contracts in Baghdad, but they had to stop
because their workers were always being attacked.
This is the effect of security. Here, you can see
companies from America, Spain, Turkey, Iran, Korea.
Nobody is afraid."
Although Kurdish leaders continuously praise the
American military presence in Iraq, they are quick
to assert that Kurdish security forces, not
Americans, have been an essential factor in keeping
the region stable.
Sherjaafar Sheikh Mustafa, head of the Pesh Murga
command council in Sulaymania province, said his
forces gained a sense of unity and cohesion while
fighting Mr. Hussein's regime as an insurgent force
in the three decades before the dictatorship fell in
2003.
Kurds express few reservations about joining
northern police and military units, whereas similar
units in Arab parts of Iraq are struggling to meet
recruitment and training goals because of constant
insurgent attacks on recruitment centers.
"I thought of working as a policeman once, when I
really needed a job," said Imad Jabal, an Arab Sunni
from Mosul. "But the insurgents will stab you in the
back. They'll find out where you live and kill your
family. Here, the Kurds treat everyone like
brothers, including the Arabs."
Despite the relative stability, Kurds say the
region's prosperity has fueled rampant corruption.
"It is certainly a problem," said Izzidine Barwari,
a senior member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party
whose leader, Massoud Barzani, is the regional
president of Kurdistan. His party and the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan, led by Iraqi President Jalal
Talabani, maintain a virtual stranglehold on power
across Kurdistan.
Mr. Barzani's party rules with near-monopoly control
on power in the eastern half of Kurdistan. Mr.
Talabani's party dominates similarly in the western
half.
Corruption
Mr. Barwari acknowledged that a lack of checks and
balances on the two parties has caused corruption to
flourish. "The No. 1 request of the people is that
we get rid of corruption," he said.
It is most evident in the way government contracts
are dispensed, said Dher Ahmad Hamad, head of the
history department at the University of Sulaymania.
With so much money, and without an independent
monitoring watchdog, a system of kickbacks, cronyism
and bribery has become entrenched.
"If you talk to people on the streets, it's what
everyone is complaining about. Government officials
give big contracts to their own companies or to
their friends. They allow their friends to have a
monopoly on imports so no one else can compete," Mr.
Hamad said. "We don't know who is involved, but all
you have to do is look for the guy whose job pays
him $10 a day while he lives in a $1 million house."
Ala Talabani, a women's advocate and Mr. Talabani's
niece, said the corruption will not stop unless the
Kurds push democratic principles to a higher level.
"First of all, they have to acknowledge that
corruption exists. The politicians have to sit down,
have an honest discussion, and say, yes, there is
corruption here," she said. "The problem is that the
people responsible for corruption are the ones in
charge of getting rid of it."
www.dallasnews.com
Top |
® 