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Officials in Kurdish
city accept that they have failed to deliver
adequate services but say they just don’t have the
resources.
At least 500 demonstrators gathered in
Sulaimaniyah’s Freedom Park to demand better public
services on September 17, just over a week after
similar protests in the Kurdish town of Kalar turned
violent.
Demonstrators submitted a petition to the
authorities asking for improvements to water,
electricity, and fuel supplies and an immediate
solution to the current housing shortage and
transport problems. They also asked the government
to combat corruption and to respect freedom of
speech and assembly.
"After 15 years of self-rule, the services basic to
life are still inadequate,” said Ali Mawlood, one of
the protest organisers who is a member of the Board
Defending the Rights of Sulaimaniyah Citizens. “With
the overthrow of the Baath regime, we’d expected to
get better living conditions, but it has not
happened.”
Several officials who came to the demonstration to
respond to the complaints acknowledged their
failings and said they were doing as much as they
could with limited resources.
“We support such gatherings,” said Adil Ali,
director of the interior ministry’s media office.
"They are exercising their freedom, and it is their
right to ask for services. Such actions are
certainly a wake-up call to the government to
eradicate the problems."
On September 7, a demonstration against inadequate
water and electricity provision in Kalar, a town
southeast of Sulaimaniyah, turned violent after the
mayor refused to meet protesters. At least 30 people
were injured in clashes with police, and
demonstrators set fire to several government
offices.
Earlier this month, residents of Rania, northwest of
Sulaimaniyah, also took to the streets to demand
better public services. The Kurdish government has
promised to work harder to improve services in both
areas.
Public demonstrations are a new phenomenon in
Kurdistan.
The three northern Iraqi provinces, which have
formed a semi-autonomous region known as Kurdistan
since 1991, have been relatively safe compared with
the rest of Iraq. But residents still face the water
and power shortages and the poor public services
suffered by the rest of Iraqi.
“Our region relied on its own revenues before
Operation Iraqi Freedom,” said university student
Chra Kamaran, addressing the crowd at the latest
protest in Sulaimaniyah. “The administration now
receives a lot of money over and above those
revenues. But the money is not being spent fairly to
meet the people’s demands."
The peaceful demonstration stood in marked contrast
to the riots seen in Kalar, and officials including
the Sulaimaniyah’s deputy mayor and the heads of the
water, electricity and sewage departments showed a
more conciliatory approach by turning out to talk to
the crowd.
Aso Kamal, a member of the Board Defending the
Rights of the Sulaimaniyah Citizens, said the group
has the support of the people and would only use
civil means in its protests.
Mohammad Qaradaghi, secretary of the Kurdish
government in Sulaimaniyah, said the government was
doing its best. “It is the citizens' right to ask
for services,” he said. “We have done whatever we
can, and even more."
Qaradaghi said it was unfair to expect the
government to fix everything overnight, “We have the
classic small administration. We’ve tried a lot but
we have been unable to cope with the population
explosion. Our capacity is limited."
However, he added, “We are poor on administration
but on the other hand we are very successful at
ensuring security and peace, providing food and
guaranteeing freedom. So I am satisfied with the
government's performance."
Qaradaghi accepted that corruption did exist in
government – another concern raised by the
protesters – and noted that large numbers of civil
servants collect their salary without coming to
work.
He said the administration was now revising its
appointment policy so that jobs would be assigned on
the basis of experience and competence, not
patronage, "At the beginning, the government was
formed on the basis of political background.
Possessing competence and experience was not the
standard by which to assess people for government
posts. But now we are working on that."
Sirwan Arif, head of the electricity board for the
Kurdish region, offered some excuses for another of
the protesters’ complaint – the shortage of power.
“The previous Iraqi government did not let the
Kurdish government import the equipment needed to
maintain the power network,” said Arif, noting that
after Saddam Hussein was overthrown, “we waited more
than a year for the Americans to do something for
us, but they didn’t. And now, with the rapid
population increase, the government is unable to
deal with the situation".
Arif said he has approached foreign companies about
improving the electricity supply and buying
generators and has spoken with neighboring countries
about buying electricity.
Finally, Sulaimaniyah’s deputy mayor Abdullah Ali
defended another practice that demonstrators
objected to - the distribution of land that is not
hooked up to water and electricity services, to
accommodate a rapidly-growing population.
“We had decided to distribute plots of land to
reduce the housing problem,” he said. “It’s true
that they don’t have utilities, but it was better to
distribute them anyway."
In the crowd, protester Salar Abdul-Rahman listened
to the list of explanations but remained unmoved.
“It’s a sin to call these officials peshmerga,” he
said, referring to the prestigious Kurdish guerrilla
force in which many officials used to serve. “They
are just selfish people and their sole concern is to
get rich.
“If things go on like this, the day will come when
we oust them like we did the Baathists."
Rebaz Mahmood is an IWPR trainee in Iraq.
www.iwpr.net
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