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ZAKHO,
Northern Iraq, Feb 17 (IPS) - One of the best ways
to understand the political dynamics at play in
Northern Iraq is to hop into a taxi and travel north
towards the Turkish border.
Once you reach the multi-ethnic oil-rich city Kirkuk,
every checkpoint is manned by peshmerga guerilla
fighters loyal to one of the two Kurdish political
parties. And they are on the lookout for one thing:
Arabs.
I knew this, of course, even before departing Iraq
Tuesday. Traveling from Ranya near the Iranian
border towards the provincial capital Arbil a few
days earlier I had been forced to disembark my bus a
half dozen times for grilling by local peshmerga.
They were concerned my American travel documents
were false -- because I have vaguely Semitic
features, speak some Arabic and do not speak
Kurdish.
But this was nothing compared to the grilling that a
middle-aged businessman from Baghdad was given. As
we approached each checkpoint in our communal taxi,
the peshmerga would politely ask if there were any
Arabs in the car.
”No we're all Kurds,” the driver would answer to
quicken our trip.
But the more persistent among the peshmerga were
never satisfied. They would stick their head inside
the driver's side window and peer around the car.
When they saw the man from Baghdad in the back --
with a full beard and skin slightly darker than that
of his neighbours in the north -- they would ask the
driver to pull over to a side, and demand that
everyone get out. At that point, a full search of
the man's bags and a long grilling were in order.
”You're from Baghdad?” the peshmerga would ask.
”Yes,” he would say, ”but I'm Kurdish,” as if his
language skills were not enough. He would be forced
to produce piles of paper showing he had traveled
many times to Kirkuk, Arbil, and Suleymania, and
only then would we be allowed to continue on our
way.
This, I thought, is the future of Northern Iraq. A
new bunker semi-state, terrified that the violence
and terrorism that has engulfed much of Iraq will
spread North.
Already, Kurdistan has its own flag, its own police
force and its own budget -- all this was guaranteed
in the Jan. 30 election. Kurds scored 26 percent of
the vote and secured the second largest block in
Parliament. Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani is
front-runner for the presidency of Iraq.
The only question now is where the borderline will
be drawn, and whether Kurdistan will include Kirkuk,
which Saddam ethnically cleansed of Kurds in the
1970s and 1980s.
Kurds seem certain to take control of the city
following the Jan. 30 election. Arab parties
boycotted the election after refugees from the city
were allowed to vote in the municipal election. As a
result, the Kurdish slate won a 58 percent share of
votes in Kirkuk. The city's Turkomen community
(northern Iraqis of Turkish descent) came in second
with 16 percent.
”The election was very good for Kurds,” a passenger
says as we near the Turkish border. His name is
Sardar, and he holds an EU passport. ”We won in
Kirkuk, and Talabani will be the president. This is
all we could ever hope for.” Like an increasing
number of Kurds who fled during Saddam's regime, he
now lives much of the year in the city of his birth.
In December, he opened a shop in Suleymania selling
floor tiling.
Like most Kurds, Sardar does not think much about
allegations of irregularities in the election, which
include allegations of stolen ballot boxes in
Haweija, missing ballot boxes in Mosul, and the
failure to deliver any ballots at all to Christain
and Arab areas west of Mosul, where an estimated
150,000 voters were not able to vote.
Like the peshmerga manning the checkpoints on the
road towards Turkey, he sees most Arabs as
terrorists.
Indeed, by boycotting the election, most Arab groups
in Northern Iraq have limited their options for
non-violent speech. In the predominantly Arab
Ninevah province, which includes the third largest
city Mosul, only 17 percent of the voters
participated in the National Assembly race, and just
14 percent voted in the provincial council contests.
Most of those who voted were Kurds, pushing the
border of peshmerga control farther west into
traditionally Arab lands.
”Mosul is divided into two parts,” Arbil's deputy
governor Tahir Authman told me before I left. ”There
is the east side of the city which has a large
Kurdish population, and the west side which is the
Arab side. The (foreign military) coalition asked us
to control the western half of the city.”
Will this not increase tension between the two
groups, and violence against Kurds, I ask? ”It
might,” he conceded. ”But we have to defend
Kurdistan.”
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