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JALAL
TALABANI, the former Kurdish guerrilla
commander, prisoner and outlaw who seems likely to
become Iraq’s President, has more reason than most
to want Saddam Hussein dead.
The enmity between the two men is such that on one
occasion, during the brutal struggle between
Saddam’s forces and the Kurds in northern Iraq,
Saddam offered an amnesty to every Kurdish fighter
except Mr Talabani.
As President, Mr Talabani would have a chance to
turn the tables on the fallen dictator. If Saddam is
convicted of war crimes, including the slaughter of
more than 182,000 Kurds, Mr Talabani would sign his
execution warrant.
But he has a problem. “I’ve thought about it and
this is one of my big problems,” he told The Times
in an interview at his base in Qala Chwallan,
northern Iraq. “Why? Because as a lawyer I signed an
international appeal against executions and now this
gentleman will be sentenced to death, and Iraqi
people want to sentence him, to kill him. What can I
do?”
Asked if he can resolve the dilemma, he laughed. “I
hope so.”
With the Kurds securing a strong second place in
elections last month, and the victorious Shia having
chosen Ibrahim al-Jaafari for the Prime Minister’s
job on Tuesday, Mr Talabani, 71, is the favourite
for the presidency.
Yet there would be many ironies in him becoming
titular head of a country whose rule he has spent
most of his life fighting to escape.
“In my life I didn’t think at all to be minister, or
prime minister or president,” he said. “I was
thinking that the Kurdish struggle is a prolonged
one and it will continue for many, many decades.”
Since the 1991 Gulf War, the Kurds have enjoyed
considerable autonomy and relative prosperity in the
former no-fly zone of northern Iraq. As leader of
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two
main Kurdish parties, Mr Talabani refuses to
acknowledge that most of Iraq’s five million Kurds
now yearn for outright independence and appears to
favour more realistic goals that would not lead to
the break-up of Iraq.
“Ask Kurds: ‘Do you want independence?’ Of course
everyone will say ‘yes’,” he said. “But is it
possible to have independence now? There are two
things: wishful thinking and reality. Most Kurds
voted for a legislature to be part of a united
democratic federative Iraq . . . a federation within
the framework of Iraq.
“The Kurdish struggle will continue until it
achieves self-determination. Right now, though, in
Iraq the Kurdish struggle will continue for . . .
the prosperity of our people, for economic
development.”
Mr Talabani, nonetheless, has drawn up some tough
conditions for accepting the presidency. They
include federal status for the Kurdish lands, and
the departure of Arabs sent by Saddam to populate
the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in place of Kurds.
“We are not ready to accept posts without reaching
agreement with our partners in the parliament on the
main issues like federation, like democracy for
Iraq, like the relation between religion and state,”
he said.
“Kirkuk must be normalised and returned to the
stature before Saddam Hussein’s ‘ethnic-cleansing’
policy.”
With the Kurds commanding 75 seats in the 275-member
National Assembly and the Shia well short of the
two-thirds majority required to enact legislation,
Mr Talabani can afford to take a strong line.
He is withholding judgment on the nomination for the
prime ministership of Mr Jaafari, who has strong
Islamic credentials, and said that Kurds will not
co-operate with a Shia-led government unless it
supports democracy and federalisation.
He is emphatic that the Kurds will insist on secular
government. “We will never accept any religious
government in Iraq. Never,” he declared, thumping
the table. “This is a red line for us. We will never
live inside an Islamic Iraq. We respect Islam. Islam
is our religion . . . The Islamic identity of Iraqi
people must be respected, but not an Islamic
government.”
Mr Talabani’s temper is notorious. “He shouts and
swears at everyone if there has been a mistake,” one
of his peshmerga bodyguards said. “One time I was
driving him too fast and left the escort vehicle
behind. I still haven’t forgotten the shouting now.
When he’s in a vile mood, everyone wants to run from
his sight.”
However, Mr Talabani is also renowned for the
inspiration and courage he gave the beleaguered
peshmerga guerrillas during their battles against
Saddam. A connoisseur of good food and a
cigar-smoker who has only recently given up alcohol,
he is also well known for his humour and
sensitivity.
“When you are punished, he will soon also reward
you,” the bodyguard said. “And many times when I
have seen him speak of friends who were killed in
the struggle he has come close to tears and
sometimes even cried.”
Mr Talabani’s fight for dominance in Iraqi Kurdistan
has not always been pretty. During the internecine
warfare between Kurds in the 1990s, he called on
Iranian military support to oust rival Kurdish
guerrillas, and critics note that his ostensible
liberalism is underpinned by ruthless realpolitik.
“He is somewhere between an authoritarian and
liberal,” Asos Hardi, chief editor of Hawlati, the
leading independent newspaper in Iraqi Kurdistan,
said. “You can see signs in him of both
totalitarianism and tolerance. There is no doubt,
though, that he is a smart politician, and a man of
will.”
Britain bears some responsibility for the Kurdish
problem. It ignored the 1920 Treaty of Sčvres, which
promised Kurds their independence, and surplanted it
with the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey,
leading to the division and subjugation of the
Kurdish people. Restive Kurds in Iraq subsequently
were bombed and gassed into acquiescence by the RAF
and British Army.
Mr Talabani now looks to the British to make amends
by safeguarding the rights of Iraq’s Kurdish
minority. “When I met Tony Blair once, I told him
that as a student I had taken part in many
demonstrations saying ‘British go home’,” he said.
“But when they came back we welcomed them. We hope,
though, that they will compensate us for what they
have done in the past to Kurdish people.
“British Forces and British planes once crushed our
revolution. For that, now the British have a moral
responsibility towards us.”
WAR AND PEACE
1933 Jalal Talabani born in Kelkan, Kurdish
area of Iraq
1946 Forms clandestine Kurdish student group
1947 Joins Kurdistan Democratic Party
1950 Jailed for political activities
1956 Finishes law studies in Baghdad; briefly
in army; back to clandestine politics
1960-64 War between Government and Kurdish
peshmerga. Talabani rises through ranks; commands
resistance units in Iraq for most of next 30 years
1975 Kurdish resistance collapses and splits.
Talabani founds Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
1980s Central Government and peshmerga at war
1988 Iraqi forces gas Kurdish town of Halabja;
at least 5,000 killed
1988-89 Iraqi campaign against Kurds leaves
182,000 Kurds dead
1991 Kurdish revolt crushed. Haven set up for
Kurds in Iraq’s North
1993-96 Fighting between PUK and rival KDP,
ended by Ankara agreement
1998 PUK and KDP agree to share power within
regional government
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
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