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As
Iraqi officials prepare to draft the country's new
constitution, fierce debate is expected over the
status of Kirkuk, the center of northern Iraq's oil
industry. Formerly known for its ethnic harmony,
Saddam Hussein's policy of forced population shifts,
called Arabization, has torn the fabric of the
province. Now the Kurds want it back.
Ismael Yassin and his wife, Amira Mohammed, are
building a simple, one-story house made of cinder
blocks. About a year ago, the Kurdish couple and
their eight children returned to their village of
Turkolan, outside the city of Kirkuk.
Like thousands of other Kurds, they were driven from
their homes in 1987 in a sweep by the former Saddam
Hussein regime. It was part of Saddam's policy of "Arabization,"
designed, in part, to move Kurds out of strategic
areas like Kirkuk, and to shift the ethnic balance
by bringing Arabs into the city, the northern
headquarters of Iraq's oil industry.
Mr. Yassin says his family returned, because
Turkolan is their home. They wanted to come back as
soon as Saddam Hussein was gone.
The group, Human Rights Watch, estimates that more
than a quarter-million Kurds and non-Arabs were
forcefully expelled from their homes in Kirkuk.
Since 2003, tens-of-thousands of Arab settlers have
left the region, but tens-of-thousands of others
have chosen to stay in towns and villages they now
think of as home.
Meanwhile, local officials estimate more than
100-thousand Kurds have returned. Many of them are
living in miserable conditions, in camps for the
internally displaced, and in villages with little
running water or power.
But that has not affected Amira Mohammed's
satisfaction at having returned home.
Ms. Mohammed says she feels free in Turkolan, and
does not think anyone would use force to move them
out again.
But the combustible mix of ethnic resentment, poor
living conditions and fear for the future in Kirkuk
has led to violence.
Rights groups report that there have been attacks on
leaders from all three predominant ethnic groups.
They also report tit-for-tat killings across ethnic
lines in communities across the province. Kirkuk has
also suffered from insurgent attacks on oil and gas
pipelines, plus car-bombings and other terrorist
activity.
Officials say the violence has not flared out of
control. But the situation is complicated by
politics.
Kurds represent the second-largest voting block in
the national assembly. Analysts expect fierce debate
by lawmakers over whether to redraw the internal
borders in Iraq to return Kirkuk to Kurdish control.
A referendum may ultimately be held to determine
Kirkuk's status.
Adnan Mufti, a senior member of the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan, says the debate is not about the oil.
"Historically, Kirkuk is part of Kurdistan, and the
majority are Kurd - and they suffered too much," Mr.
Mufti says. "Thousands-and-thousands of them have
suffered and been killed during the dictatorship.
So, it is very normal that we are looking for the
right of Kirkuk people, and the right to return back
to Kurdistan area. But the oil, it is no problem.
Kurdistan is rich. All Iraq is rich. Oil is
everywhere."
Even within the Kurdish region, internal politics
have made settling the Kirkuk issue more difficult.
During the 1990s, the Kurdish Democratic Party and
the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan were locked in a
political rivalry that gave way to civil war. A
peace deal was struck in 1998. But it was only
within the past few days that the two sides hammered
out the details to integrate the rival
administrations that governed the region.
Mahmoud Othman is formerly with the Kurdish
Democratic Party, and says, against the backdrop of
national and local politics, ethnic tensions could
be exacerbated. He calls Kirkuk a potential
troublespot.
"One reason is, different nationalities, the
Turkomans, the Arabs, the Kurds, the Assyrians, the
Kurdians - this, by itself - it is not so easy to
connect everybody together … So I think problems are
ahead. We have to try to face them and solve these
problems through dialogue … through trying to return
the people who were ousted from the areas, finding a
solution for the Arabs who were installed in their
places," Mr.Othman says.
Ismael Yassin and his wife are lucky. They are
affiliated with a political party, which gave them
about one-thousand dollars and cement to help them
build their new home.
About a kilometer away, Samer Aziz is not as
fortunate.
A Kurd married to an Arab man, she and her family
are squatting in a former military barracks that
used to house guards for Kirkuk's oil refinery.
Ms. Aziz would rather not live here, in the former
kitchen of the barracks, with her husband and five
children. But when Saddam Hussein forced people out
of the area, she and her family moved to the
predominantly Arab city of Hawija.
After the regime collapsed, Ms. Aziz was told her
children, of mixed Arab and Kurdish blood, were no
longer welcome in school. Now, back in a
predominantly Kurdish area, things have gotten no
better.
She says, "We came back again five months ago, and
asked for some land. But the Kirkuk city authorities
would not give us any, because we had lived in
Hawija on Arab land. They asked why we had not moved
to a Kurdish city like Irbil." But she says, the
family did not know what to do at the time. Some
families went to Hawija, some to Irbil and some to
Baghdad.
Kurdish officials say, once the two administrations
are fully integrated, they hope to provide up to
four-thousand dollars to families, regardless of
their ethnicity, who can prove former residency in
towns and villages across the Kurdish region.
Asos Hardi is the editor of the Kurdish weekly
newspaper, Hawlati, based in the city of
Suleimaniyah. He says, despite all the difficulties,
Kurdish leaders are on top of the situation in
Kirkuk.
"It is true, it's a very sensitive area, and from
time to time, there is tension between different
parties there," Mr. Hardi says. "But I believe - and
maybe I hope - that we would not see a real
explosion. Of course, it's possible to have, but I
think that the leaders of everyone, every party, or
the players in the area, are aware that the
explosion will not be in the benefit of anyone,
especially the Kurds."
But it may be some time before ordinary Kurds are
ready to let by-gones be by-gones.
At work on his house in the village of Turkolan,
Ismael Yassin admits he has little concern for Arabs
and their demands to stay in Kirkuk.
"I do not feel any sympathy for them," he says,
"because they took all our property and farmland,
without any sympathy for us," Mr. Yassin says.
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