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Mounting social crisis in Kurdistan Iraq
15.10.2006
By Joseph Baker, Oct. 14 |
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While the presence of
800 international companies, including Chrysler,
Ford and Exxon Mobil, at a recent international
trade show in Erbil, the capital of the
semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern
Iraq, reflects growing confidence on the part of the
international business community in the Kurdish
nationalist regime, increasingly broad sections of
the region’s population of 5.5 million are prepared
to defy the authority of the government.
Recent media reports from the region indicate a
significant increase in anti-government protests.
This is the result of many persistent problems such
as a lack of basic services, rising inflation,
corruption and the violation of democratic rights.
Because the two main Kurdish nationalist parties,
the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), have failed to
deliver on their promise that a major increase in
seats in the Iraqi parliament would pave the way for
the region’s independence and bring prosperity to
all, popular disaffection is growing. In the past
several months, at least five strikes, seven
demonstrations, and one general strike have been
reported.
The popular independent local newspaper Hawlati
recently reported a strike by school teachers in the
towns of Kalar and Chamchamal as well as staff at
the University of Sulaimaniyah. The strikers
demanded higher wages and improved working
conditions.
In late July, the British Guardian reported that 3
workers were killed and another 13 wounded when
guards fired on a strike by workers at the Tasloja
cement factory. According to other reports, at least
700 workers at the factory, the biggest in the
region, went on strike demanding higher wages and
the reinstatement of 300 workers laid off by the new
management.
The shooting prompted widespread outrage which led
the mayor of Sulaimaniyah to hold a press conference
announcing the arrest of 40 guards at the factory.
The factory had been sold earlier in the year by the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to an Egyptian
company.
The biggest challenge to the KRG was when thousands
of people participated in week-long demonstrations
from the 5th to the 13th of August in most towns and
cities across the region’s three provinces. Footage
of these demonstrations was shown on local TV
stations and satellite channels, and pictures were
posted on Kurdish Internet sites. The demonstrations
came amid the worst crisis to hit the region and
Iraq as a whole, while temperatures soared to 45
degrees Celsius.
Fox News reported in August that the country was
facing a fuel shortage and that the price of a
gallon of gasoline had reached $4.92, eight times
higher than the official price. The demonstrations
erupted first in Kalar and Darbandikhan, where
people protested the lack of basic services such as
electricity and water as well as the soaring price
of fuel. Soon residents of other cities joined the
protests and demands were extended to include a curb
on corruption and an expansion of democratic rights
such as free speech and the right to strike.
On August 8, a committee was established to organize
these protests at the national level and a general
strike was called for the entire region. On August
13th, despite the government’s threat to punish
those defying its warning not to strike, hundreds of
thousands of people stayed home and shops and
offices were closed. Thousands demonstrated in the
city center of Sulaimanyia, the second largest city
in the region.
Although leaders from both the Patriotic Union of
Kurdistan (PUK) and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK),
who have in effect been ruling the region since
1992, have conceded the right of the people to
demonstrate, the security police (Asayesh), together
with a riot police unit established this spring in
response to the increase in anti-government
protests, have used excessive force to suppress
these protests and have even fired upon
demonstrators in many towns.
According to a final estimate by Hawlati, in
Sulaimaniyah alone one person was killed and more
than 280 arrested. Among the detainees were many
journalists, such as Doctor Hakim sabir Aziz and Ali
Hama-Salih, a correspondent of Hawlati. The
London-based Kurdish Media reported on August 15
that security forces were still doing house-to-house
searches for the leaders of the demonstrations.
Among those arrested was Baxtyar Hama-Saaed, a
lawyer and member of the Sulaimaniyah strike
committee. On August 20th, about 110 lawyers went on
strike and demanded his immediate release. Hushyar
Abdullah, vice-president of the Sulaimaniyah Branch
of the lawyer’s Association, told Hawlati “we will
continue this strike until our colleague is
unconditionally released.”
Fearing that the lawyers’ strike would further
ignite the anti-government sentiment already at
levels unprecedented for the past 15 years of the
Kurdish nationalist regime, the Asayesh released
Baxtyar and all other detainees that night. Asayesh
later issued a public statement condemning the
lawyers’ strike in the Kurdistani Nwe, the PUK’s
main newspaper.
Speaking to the World Socialist Web Site about the
charges laid against him and about the arrests,
Baxtyar said he had been arrested in the late
afternoon of August 13 by Asayesh on charges of
organizing the demonstration. He added that “along
with 65 other demonstrators, later reduced to 32, I
was put in prison for about 7 days.”
When asked why the masses are opposing the Kurdish
government, he replied that “people in Kurdistan
have witnessed an incredible rift between poor and
rich in the past two years . . . and small numbers
of the rich, who are either members or affiliated
with the two Kurdish parties—the PUK and the PDK—with
support from the US administration in Iraq have
gained substantial control over the wealth generated
in the region.” He added that “people have no
expectation anymore that their living conditions
will improve and have no choice but to demonstrate.”
Despite the recent discovery by a Norwegian company
of oil in the region and an increase in the regional
government’s share from the central government’s
annual budget—from $1 billion a year before the
invasion to about $5.6 billion in 2006 (according to
figures from the Iraqi Central Bank)—along with the
imposition of a 15 percent tax on personal and
company incomes, the KRG has done nothing to improve
basic services or less social inequities.
Spero News reported in mid-July that “drivers have
to wait days to get their petrol shares.” As for
electricity supply, the newspaper reported that the
“local authorities announced that they would cut
power from 16 to 9 hours per day.”
Soran Mohammad, a 27-year-old from Chwarqurnna told
the newspaper that “in the heat of summer they cut
power, but they [officials] have it for 24 hours.”
In July, the United Nations news agency reported a
lack of power for schools and hospitals in Erbil.
An article published in mid-September in the
Peyamner Daily News, a news agency affiliated with
the PDK, said of the protests, “[A]lthough the spark
may have come from the fuel crisis, in principle
frustrations have been brewing slowly in the region.
House prices increased significantly without a real
increase in wages in key sectors, with many accusing
the government of corruption.”
In March, a report from the World Bank estimated
that a total of $37.4 million is needed to ease the
current power supply deficit in the two main power
stations of the region—Dokan and Derbandikhan—which
produce a combined total of 649 megawatts. According
to KRG officials, 1000 megawatts is needed to meet
local demands.
The PUK and PDK have been controlling the region
since 1992 when the Iraqi government withdrew its
forces so as to avoid confrontation with the US and
allied powers, which had declared the region a
no-fly zone. Yet the nationalist parties have failed
to allocate enough revenue to meet the local demand
for electricity.
Both parties were also responsible for the 1991
looting, following the first Gulf War, of the $2
billion Bexma dam project near the town of Rania,
close to the Iranian border. UN reports had
estimated that the project was in its final stages
and would have been capable of producing enough
electricity for the entire region.
The frustration of the public with the lack of power
is not surprising, especially given the fact that
Iraq in the early 1980s had enough electricity for
all its regions and was even able to export $20
million of electricity annually to neighbouring
Turkey.
During the recent protests, the masses demanded a
quick reaction from the government to fight rising
inflation and corruption. According to the Iraqi
Central Bank, inflation had risen to 70 percent by
the end of July, compared to 52.5 percent in June.
This increase amounts to almost 125 percent relative
to the inflation rate in 2005, according to the
estimate of the World Bank. This significant
increase prompted the International Monetary Fund to
declare, in its latest report about the state of the
Iraqi economy, that “the overall economy is sinking
in what is called stagflation.”
The unprecedented increase in the cost of living and
the level of corruption in the region have even
forced TV and radio programs to devote some
attention to these issues in the past two months.
The popular comedy program “Barnamay Barnama” (the
Program) of the KURDSAT, the PUK’s TV satellite
channel, ridiculed the KRG’s explanation for soaring
inflation and demanded that the government take full
responsibility.
Massoud Barzani, the president of the KRG, recently
acknowledged the pervasive corruption within his
government, but the KRG has refused to take any
responsibility for the deterioration of basic
services and the growth in social inequality.
Barzani told the Kurdish radio of the Voice of
America in early August that “if corruption
persists, I don’t want to be the president of a
corrupt government.”
Facing enormous pressure from the public, and having
failed to improve basic services even after two
weeks of protests, the KRG has tried to deflect
public attention by launching a political war with
the federal government in Baghdad. On September 1, a
decree issued by the president of the KRG ordered
that all Iraqi flags be removed from government
offices in the region, stating that the flag
represents the era of the Saddam Hussein regime,
under which the Kurds suffered much.
This “flag war” prompted a strong reaction from both
Shiite and Sunni politicians, who accused the KRG of
seeking independence. The federal prime minister’s
office issued a statement rejecting the Kurd’s
proposal and demanding that “Iraqi flags should be
the only flags raised over any square inch of Iraq.”
In another development, the Associated Press
reported that Saleh Mutlaq, a leading Sunni
lawmaker, responded harshly to the KRG position and
warned the Kurds that “what is taken by force today
will be returned by force another day.” Media
reports also indicate increasing calls from clerics
in Baghdad and other cities to oppose harshly to any
move by the Kurds to separate. Hawlati also reported
in a recent edition that thousands of Kurds who
study in universities outside the region have been
seeking alternative universities after receiving
death threats.
The KRG does not intend to separate. In a political
campaign to salvage the image of the KRG among Arab
politicians, the leaders of the PDK and PUK, Massoud
Barzani and Jalal Talabani, have repeatedly
expressed their surprise at the campaign against
them and offered their reassurances that they are
strong defenders of federalism. The main aim of the
KRG was to use an emotional topic such as an
independent Kurdistan (supported by 95 percent of
Kurds according to a 2004 poll) in order to deflect
public attention away from the current social and
economic crisis.
The KRG has repeatedly blamed the central government
for the shortage of fuel and electricity supplies.
Local media reported Kurdish officials complaining
that the current crisis was due to Baghdad’s
decision on June 25 to cut supplies to the region by
half.
Jamal Abdullah, the deputy prime minister of the KRG,
recently told the Kurdistan TV, the PDK’s main TV
channel, that “95 percent of the problems that led
to public frustration are from outside and we have
no control over them.”
Abdullah’s solution to the lack of basic services
was to press for the full-scale privatization of the
region’s economy. He claimed that if privatization
is expanded, the 1.1 million employees currently on
the government’s payroll will leave government posts
and reduce the pressure on the budget. This is in
line with the policy of the Bush administration,
which has pushed relentlessly to impose its
profit-driven policies and destroy the public
sector.
In the past three years, the KRG has been actively
privatizing much of what remains of public
institutions such as water, electricity and fuel
distribution agencies. In late July, the Kurdish
parliament passed a law that allows foreign
investors to own 100 percent of local companies,
with a tax break for up to 10 years. It is no small
wonder that foreign companies were enthusiastic
about participating in this year’s Erbil trade show,
especially after the news that 100 million barrels
of reserve of oil had been discovered in a town
close to Turkish border.
While the Shiite elites are pushing for legislation
in the Iraqi parliament to introduce a regional
government in the south of the country similar to
the one in the north, the experience of the last
three years has shown that such a regional
government, even if it survived sectarian violence
and insurgency, would bring nothing but hardship for
the overwhelming majority of the population. But for
the rich, such a regional authority would be “an
oasis of peace and prosperity”—the words used by US
Congressman Gil Gutknecht of Minnesota during his
visit to the Kurdish region last July.
wsws org
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