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ERBIL,
Kurdistan-Iraq , - As the victims of bombings and
kidnappings add up in Bagh-dad, the most remarkable
thing about this northern city is that it is quite
normal. There are no explosions, nogunfire mixed
with the evening
call of the imams to prayer, no burned-out cars by
the roadside.
The situation in Kurdistan, a region of northern
Iraq where about 4 million Kurds live, is so
detached from the rest of the country that the Iraqi
flag is not even visible here.
Instead, the red, white, green and golden sun flag
of Kurdistan flies from every government building.
Kurdistan describes itself on the Internet as "the
other Iraq," and Kurds take pains to point out that
they are not Arabs. The price of peace in Kurdistan
has been steep -- the Kurds were slaughtered by the
thousands by dictator Saddam Hussein, fought a civil
war and shed their blood alongside U.S. troops to
overthrow the dictator. Its leaders are ready to
keep it secure at any cost, including secession.
"We will take any measure to secure our people from
violence," Massoud Barzani, president of the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), told The
Washington Times.
Controlling their destiny
Kurdistan's borders are guarded by the fierce
peshmerga, literally "those who face death," a band
of warriors that emerged in the 1920s during
Kurdistan's struggle for independence. Said to
number roughly 80,000, the peshmerga are deeply
respected by their own people and by the Americans
who fought alongside them in the failed anti-Saddam
uprising in 1991 and again in 2003.
"People think it is coming out of no effort, but it
took a lot of effort to have such a secure and
stable environment, compared to the rest of Iraq,"
said Falah M. Bakir, drinking tea in Erbil's newest
luxury hotel.
"There was no trust between people and the police,
because the police were seen as a symbol of terror
and a tool of the regime. We had to work hard to
establish a proper police force and integrate the
peshmerga into the system," said Mr. Bakir, a
minister in the KRG's office of the prime minister.
What that means is that Arabs put in place by Saddam
were removed from the security forces and replaced
by Kurds, who are ethnically different from the
Sunni and Shi'ite Arabs of the rest of Iraq.
"Those days are over that we give our destiny and
fate to Baghdad," Mr. Bakir said. For decades, the
Kurds sought independence, then fought Saddam. After
repeated Kurdish revolts, Saddam tried to crush the
region with chemical gas attacks and mass
executions, reportedly killing almost 200,000
people. Although Kurdistan experienced a degree of
political autonomy in the 1990s, they also faced a
double economic blockade -- one imposed by Saddam,
the other by the United Nations because of Iraq's
nuclear noncompliance.
But, under the 1991 U.S.-imposed no-fly zone that
prevented Iraqi government attacks on the region,
Kurdish politics developed, and by 1992 the two main
Kurdish parties had joined to form a national
assembly.
In 1994, civil war broke out between the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan, led by Iraq's current President
Jalal Talabani, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party,
led by Mr. Barzani. The two signed a peace agreement
in Washington in 1998 and joined forces in 2002.
Kurds say their strong Kurdish identity, forged
after decades of fighting for an independent country
and the 1998 political agreement, has left no space
for the kind of religious and ethnic bloodletting
that afflicts the rest of Iraq.
"Terrorism and violence do not have a base in our
country," said Mr. Bakir, referring to Kurdistan as
many here do as a separate entity from
Arab-dominated Iraq.
"The Kurds were liberated from a dictatorial rule,
whereas [in Baghdad] others have lost power," Mr.
Barzani said. Kurdistan doesn't offer terrorists "a
popular base, and we have effective security and
police forces." And, he added, "We keep tight
control and monitor our borders." Arabs complain
that it is difficult for them to get into Kurdistan.
At entry, they are quizzed at checkpoints by
peshmerga, who never fail to ask how long and where
they plan to stay.
A different world
The drive from Baghdad to Irbil has many military
checkpoints, but the crossing into the
three-province area of Kurdistan has peshmerga
forces, and the Kurdish flag -- not the Iraqi one --
flutters over the checkpoint.
Iraq has yet to change the flag used under Saddam,
and the Kurds refuse to honor it, preferring to wait
until a new flag is designed. In Baghdad and the
rest of Iraq, Saddam's flag with the words "God is
Great" is still used.
"Shame on them," said Mr. Barzani, who joined the
peshmerga when he was a teenager and whose father
led the struggle for independence.
Unlike Baghdad, which is filled with concrete
barriers, razor wire, police vehicles and armored
Humvees, Irbil has little visible military presence.
Foreigners move about freely, and like Kurdish
businessmen, have begun investing in the area.
A sprawling glass-and-marble showroom for Toyota and
Kia cars on the road to Kirkuk testifies to growing
investor confidence. Started by four brothers, the
business is run by the Cihan group, which also
imports tea and electronics and makes furniture.
"Before we opened the showroom, we were selling
maybe 60 to 100 vehicles a year. Now we are closer
to 600 to 1,000 a year," said engineer Hunar Majeed
in his office overlooking the showroom's fleet of
new Toyota Land Cruisers.
Cihan's sales rose from $125 million in 2001 to $200
million in 2003, according to a company statement.
Manufactured products here are still of low to
medium grade, and the city awaits its first
supermarket and mall. But business is brisk in city
markets and in side-street mazes of shops packed
with clothes from Syria, Turkey and China.
In the shadow of downtown Irbil's 8,000-year old
citadel, a group of ancient dwellings on a high
mound, shoppers browse through clothes displayed for
sale.
Overhead are cat's cradles of wires crisscrossing
the street, as shop owners tap into power lines and
all available generators.
An open economy
Stone mansions with large glass windows are being
built in Irbil and along the road to Salahaddin, 45
minutes away -- a sign business is good. But there
is some disagreement about who is making money and
how.
"Kurdistan is one big duty-free zone. Everything is
traded there, goods, drugs," said a former American
adviser to the Iraqi government who did not want to
be named.
Mr. Barzani concedes problems, but insists they are
no greater than in any other free-market economy.
"Like any other country, there are positive and
negative factors" to having an open economy, said
Mr. Barzani in his office in Sahirash, just outside
Irbil.
The law against drugs is very firm, he said, and
customs and security forces have "clear
instructions" not to allow smuggling.
The government is tackling corruption "according to
civilized and modern laws," the Kurdistan president
said. "It is not an easy task; it takes effort and
time."
There is also much investment in housing,
construction, farming and trade, mostly from
neighboring Turkey. Irbil's glass-fronted
International Hotel, for example, is managed by a
Turkish company. There is also a new international
airport in Irbil and plans to build a larger one
linking the region directly with the United Arab
Emirates, Germany and Britain.
"The Kurds represent what Iraq could be if security
could be obtained," said Phebe Marr of the United
States Institute of Peace.
In search of secession
For Kurdistan's young people, change is coming too
slowly. The generation that grew up in a
semi-autonomous Kurdistan does not feel any ties to
Iraq and is losing patience with leaders in Baghdad.
"We are different from Arab people," said Hallo
Hosman, 23, a student, standing with friends outside
the office of the president of Salahadin University.
"We want to be independent, because we have all the
conditions to be a country." Heshu Sirouan,
21, a student in denim jeans and jacket, pink
sweater and a Che Guevara locket on her necklace,
agreed. "In Baghdad they cannot secure themselves
because they are not strong," she said. "We are not
Iraqis; we are Kurds. We want independence. We want
to separate completely from Baghdad." Mr. Barzani
admits the calls for separation. He said the Kurdish
leadership needs to win the support of the younger
generation for Kurdistan as part of a democratic,
pluralistic and federal Iraq.
"In the end, we have to tell them that independence
is a natural right as a people, but at the same time
they have to consider reality, and the difference
between what you wish ... and what can be achieved,"
Mr. Barzani said.
The desire for independence is as strong as the
Kurdish insistence that the oil-rich city of Kirkuk
belongs to them -- a very contentious point that was
partially resolved with the central government
through the new constitution. Approved in a
national referendum Oct. 15, it says the
administrative status of Kirkuk will be decided by
referendum in 2007 after efforts to mitigate
Saddam's "Arabization" of the area.
In his office, Kamal Karkukli, the deputy parliament
speaker, carefully took down laminated copies of
maps dating from the Ottoman empire and spread them
on a table.
Tracing his finger around the 1794 border of
Kurdistan, which includes the contested city, Mr.
Karkukli said, "If Kirkuk does not come to the Kurds
after the referendum, there will be fighting."
Documents dating back hundreds of years, he said,
show that Kurds represented about 65 percent of the
Kirkuk's population. Saddam pushed Iraqi Arabs into
the city and Kurds out in an effort to put Kirkuk
firmly under Baghdad's control. "Saddam tried to
change the demographics. He sent the Kurds out,
destroyed 779 villages around Kirkuk, and 2,000
houses inside Kirkuk," said the deputy speaker,
whose family fell victim to this effort.
"They took our land, our property, our houses," he
said. "Now it is time for the Arabs to leave and the
Kurds to return."
According to Human Rights Watch, thousands of
internally displaced Kurds, Turkomans and others
have returned to Kirkuk and other regions since
April 2003 to reclaim their homes and land.
Many of those who returned are living in abandoned
buildings and tent camps, the group says. And many
of the Arabs have been forced to leave their homes
and are also living in temporary shelters.
"If these property disputes are not addressed as a
matter of urgency, rising tensions between returning
Kurds and Arab settlers could soon explode into open
violence," warned Sarah Leah Whitson, Human Rights
Watch executive director for the Middle East and
North Africa in a statement.
www.washingtontimes.com
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